Being a contracting officer (CO) is a unique position. I’ve been asked over the years to describe what it’s like. While my opinion may not align with every CO, this is my attempt to help people understand why I enjoyed it so much – and why I’ve dedicated my post-government professional efforts to helping people better understand the role of the CO.
Why did I like being a CO? I came up with a huge list of reasons, but that list greatly outpaced the ‘blog-sized’ content I’m targeting so I decided to focus on one reason at a time. Here’s the next one:
Reason 4: You get to make decisions.
This doesn’t sound like a really compelling reason at first does it? Let me elaborate. Making decisions is a great way to learn, a great way to grow, and a great way to get better at, you guessed it, making decisions. Whether a decision ends up being good or bad, deciding to decide has its own value.
The acquisition process is chockablock with decisions: from the acquisition strategy to the competitive or sole source strategy, to which clauses to include in the RFP, to how best to evaluate proposals, and of course, putting it all together to select a source(s). In most acquisitions, the CO is making a lot of small decisions and several really big ones throughout the four Acquisition Time Zones ™. For more on the Acquisition Time Zones ™, see Contracting Officer Podcast, episode 003).
This may be very unpopular to say, but contracting officers can make bad decisions. They can also make good decisions. They can also make great decisions. I’ve been in all three categories as a CO and learned from each. The point is not to fear making decisions, but to fear the inability to make decisions. While all decisions have consequences, indecision is actually worse for three reasons:
- Indecision stalls the acquisition process. In the end, the goal of the CO is to buy products and services for our customers. Making decisions ensures we get there, faster.
- Just like procrastination, indecision allows requirements, assumptions, conspiracy theories, and problems to fester and grow. The smallest a problem will be is today. Deciding to address it today is the key.
- We learn by making decisions. By contrast, indecision teaches us to fear the outcome and limits our learning and growth. Once we get used to deciding, we learn that most of the time, the results of a bad decision are not nearly as bad as we had imagined they would be. That knowledge and confidence makes us better at making decisions.
As an example, I made a few whoppers of bad decisions as a CO. Some resulted in protests. A few even resulted in us having to do things twice. True, that really sucked. But you know what? I learned more from what I screwed up than what I did right. Was this efficient? No. But most real progress isn’t. If you’re a CO, ask yourself this: did I learn more from the decisions that ended up being good (or great), or did I learn more from the ones that weren’t so good?
If you’re not a CO, here’s the part you won’t like. We need to give COs the latitude to make decisions, even bad ones. There are enough checks and balances in the system that the results of a bad decision are rarely catastrophic. We need to ensure we don’t let our fear of bad decisions drive us to enable a generation of COs who default to indecision because they have been so chastised for making a few bad decisions. A generation of COs who default to indecision: now that would be catastrophic to federal acquisition.
Offerors and COs’ customers: Give COs the room to learn and grow. Think long term. Some decisions may not be great. However, the long term benefits of decisive COs will always outweigh the short-term value of “standardized” acquisition processes that remove the critical thinking, decisiveness and judgment that are critical to being an effective contracting officer.
COs: Don’t be afraid to decide. Consider your options. Consider your risk profile (how important is the decision, really?) then decide. You, your customer, and the acquisition system will be better for it in the long run.