“There is nothing permanent except change” – Heraclitus
To say change is afoot right now in government contracting is kind of an understatement.
The government contracting work, and workforce, are going through an adjustment. Some of the processes and rules of GovCon may (or may not) change. It can feel like everything is changing. However, it’s important to understand that the fundamentals of GovCon will remain. The principles of GovCon are not changing:
1. The US government relies on contractors to meet its missions.
2. The US government competes and award contracts to contractors to meet that mission.
3. The US government engages those contractors through Contracting Officers (and other acquisition team members)
Way back in Episode 147 we outlined the GovCon Axioms as the things that won’t change (1. Competition, 2. Complication and 3. Communication). In this episode, we revisit the GovCon Axioms that we laid out back in Episode 147 (8 years ago!). We dig into those axioms and test them against nearly a decade of evolution in government contracting.
Spoiler alert: these axioms do hold up, except for one glaring item that we did not quite get right.