Command and Agency leaders must understand the changing reality where they find themselves operating.
Technology-driven process improvement means the cost of exploration and experimentation has been so dramatically reduced that discovering solutions that are both more effective and less costly is now completely possible.
This new dynamic can be seen in the advances driven by Lean principles and Agile development in industries as varied as automotive, commercial and rail transportation vehicles, as well as integrated circuits, pharmaceuticals, and software. Those same Lean principles will dynamically change the features, functionality, and cost of everything from fighter jets, tanks and aircraft carriers to micro-UAVs, battlefield medicine, and personnel management systems.
There is no reason that Government procurements should cost more and take longer simply because there are more of them. Just like production and technology innovations, the results should get better and cost less. The Traditional strategies of the past tie the CO and Program Managers to models that are now slower and more costly.
Innovations and Agile thinking can create the same effect for COs and Program Managers. Digital-only proposals are a radically simple and clearly effective example of this technology driven shift.
Department, Command and Agency Leaders, as well as Contracting Officers and Program Managers must now facilitate discovery processes rather than prescriptive ones. They must embrace exploration and experimentation and balance it with control through iterative and adaptive techniques.
This means organizations need to embrace, leverage and capitalize on the contracting approaches, management procedures, and progress metrics they already have in the FAR for guiding and measuring the discovery process to leverage the new lower-cost, higher-value performance their customers and constituents expect and demand.
Contracting officers simply need to be empowered to use the authority and responsibility of FAR 1.602 to execute using the combination of Agile tools that already exist. Agile is about cutting away things that are not needed and defined in Lean as avoidable or unavoidable waste. Agile is not about adding new processes and more steps to “streamline” the process. Experience shows these additional “improvements” nearly always cost more and do less.
The acquisition plan should integrate the need of the Government user and the capability of the contractor. Between these two needs, lies a uniquely designed acquisition plan that the current regulations allow. Agile is about a quest to simplify the complex. What if a CO asked what he/she could take OUT of a source selection plan instead of adding more?
However, many agencies continue to increase the size, complexity and broad-reach of Government contracts through multiple-award Indefinite-Delivery Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contracts. There are various arguments for using these IDIQ contracts. One is the economies of scale. Another is the argument that the larger the contract, the easier it is to award a “one-and-done” strategy every five years instead of awarding small contracts every few years.
However, these cumbersome, bloated contracts are not delivering the efficiencies promised. Some of them cost more per unit. Most of them cost more per transaction, and nearly all of them place yet another person or process between the user and the supplier – all in the name of “efficiency”. That efficiency may work for widgets and highly commoditized products like paper clips, computer screens, and tires. However, for many COs and PMs, the importance of unique requirements gets drowned in a quest to homogenize all requirements.
Therefore, Department, Command and Agency leaders must embrace the responsibility of driving, guiding, and managing the organizational change that must occur to align their teams with the changing reality where they find themselves operating.