May 2025 Update

May 30, 2025 | Skyway Wire Updates

In last month’s wire, I mentioned that the volatility in GovCon was starting to settle down a bit…“just a bit”. It looks like I spoke too soon. Not only is the volatility in the economy ramped back up again, but now how the FAR Overhaul has officially begun. The OFPP and the FAR counsel are overhauling the FAR one “part” at a time. So far, Parts 1, 10 and 34 have been rewritten. In short, there are two big changes in the updated FAR Parts, they are: 1: shorter and 2: less specific.

Both of these changes are leaving more white space for more discretion by acquisition teams (for contracting officers in particular). The Thinking Part of the Job (i.e. “the T-POT”) will continue to be critical, and will likely become more critical as the Overhaul Team updates the other 48 parts of the FAR. NOTE: the original FAR (i.e. FAR 1.0) is still the official FAR. The updated parts of the FAR only apply to agencies on a case by case basis, as those agencies write a deviation to move from FAR 1.0 to FAR 2.0 for each Part. Click on the “Agency Deviations” link under each part on the FAR Parts and Deviations page to see if the agency you work for or the agency you support has written a deviation for that. Refresh often. This list increase by about two agencies per week. To help, we’ve already created training resources that align with the FAR 2.0. Here are the new resources that came out this month, many of which focus on (or at least address) the FAR Overhaul.

What’s new?

Skyway Webinar: Impact of Potential FAR ChangesWe also added a new “webinar” section to Skyway Central.© Go to the big red “Account” button in the upper right corner and that takes you to the client homepage. On the left you’ll see the list of resources, including the now new “Webinar” link.

This week in Government Contracting (the TWIGC) is now on the website. Go to the account page (click the big red button) and it’s on the list of resources.

New Contracting Officer Podcast episodes this month: listen on our website or see details here on how to listen on your native podcast app). New Episodes include: 506: How much of the Sale is Process vs Relationship?507: Sunsetting Regulations508: The 3 GovCon Forces509: What is a Commercial Solutions Opening?, 510: What is a Protest Intervention; and 511: The Revolutionary FAR Overhaul.

New Contracting Officer Podcast 2.0 Playlists: We added the Proposal Playlist this month to help our subscribers prep for the proposal season of the summer.

Thank you for being a Skyway client. We got you through FAR 1.0. We’ll get you through FAR 2.0.

Kevin

 

by: Kevin Jans

Do GovCon Well

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