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About the Better Buy Project/Frequently Asked Questions
- Why the Federal Acquisition Process?
- What Topics Are At Issue?
- What Kind Of Feedback Are You Looking For?
Why the Federal Acquisition Process?
On his first day in office, President Obama challenged leaders in government to "use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector." The acquisition process represents one of the most important areas of collaboration between government and the private sector.
Unfortunately, it is also among the most complex and least transparent. The Better Buy Project is an experiment dedicated to the belief that there's a lot of room for improvement in the way government buys products and services. We're testing this hypothesis by asking for your ideas on how to make acquisition process more open, transparent and collaborative.
The best part of this project is that the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) GSA would really like to adopt some of your best ideas. Promising ideas will be selected by GSA to be piloted on an upcoming acquisition, where lessons learned will be captured for future implementation. But that really depends on us, and the ideas we're able to produce.
What Topics Are At Issue?
This project is concerned primarily with the pre-contract-award stages of the acquisition process—the activities that take place before the government "signs on the dotted line" to buy a product or service. Those areas are:
- Market Research and Requirements Definition Phase—Includes publicizing agency needs and requirements, and refining them based on further input and research about current capabilities.
- Pre-Solicitation Phase—Includes web-based research, discussions with other federal agencies, meetings and open discussion forums with the private sector to discuss potential solutions, and requests for information soliciting input and ideas. The requirements are also further refined at this stage in the process.
- Solicitation Phase—Includes the government notifying the private sector of the requirement through various channels such as E-Buy and FedBizOpps, holding open forums to discuss the requirement and answer questions (e.g., Industry Days), a review of the solicitation by interested companies, the written exchange between government and the private sector of questions, answers and clarifications on government requirements, and proposal submissions.
The ultimate goal is to improve how government learns about and chooses what it buys—in other words, to make government a more informed, more effective consumer.
What Kind of Feedback Are You Looking For?
We are looking for ideas to make federal acquisition more open, transparent, and collaborative. What does that mean?
- Open—Raise awareness of upcoming needs government is trying to fulfill, in order to assemble a pool of qualified providers who can compete on specific requirements.
- Transparent—Give the public and interested parties timely data on upcoming and ongoing buying activities, with the goal of promoting fair and high-quality competitions.
- Collaborative—Find ways for the government to engage in more ‘open’ conversations with the private sector on topics such as best practices, emerging technologies and innovations, and market conditions.
We believe that making the process more open, transparent and collaborative will make government more likely to end up with the right item at the right price.
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The General Services Administration buys a lot of stuff (products and services) for the country, and they're figuring out how to help us all get what we pay for.
Overall, the GSA's trying to figure out how to break from traditional bureaucracy, learning from private industry and the public, asking people what they think via a site BetterBuy.
One really good idea from BetterBuy is being tried now.
The GSA wants to break away from the traditional system where the companies that provide the stuff help specify what the stuff should be. Normally, they put out Requests for Information and Requests for Proposals, and companies help the GSA figure out what to specify.
That means the companies that want the business gets to define what the business is, and can tailor that to their strengths and weaknesses. Any change to this could threaten the less effective, less competitive businesses.
The deal is to open up this process to everyone, including the public and the companies who want business from the Feds, so that we can work together for the country. One way to do that is on the Net using a Wiki, and that's what they've created, the BetterBuy Pilot(s) Wiki.
GSA is seeking input on a requirement to provide a data repository for data.gov. The data.gov pilot was ready to launch on March 25, 2010. The second is called "Clearpath". For this one, GSA is looking for input on the technical infrastructure for our Clearpath hosting, and developing the approach for a future acquisition. GSA will launch Clearpath in a few weeks.You are invited to contribute in multiple ways:
(1) Help us write the draft solicitation
(2) Ask questions below each section
(3) Engage in meaningful technical debate below each section
(4) Point out mistakes
(5) Ask general questions
(6) Contribute! This is the most transparent acquisition that GSA FEDSIM has ever attempted.
For better explanations check out Federal Computer Week GSA tries wiki approach to develop RFPs or GSA solicits wisdom of the crowd for acquisition improvements
There are lots of great ideas on BetterBuy. Applying them to a new acquisition will be a challenging task for federal acquisition professionals, given the risk adverse starting point. GSA's efforts to pilot these ideas will be the topic of my blog.
Step 1 - Form the Team
GSA is forming the acquisition team for this BetterBuy pilot project, identifying the right skill mix of personnel interested in new technology and innovation. First on the agenda is finding a Contracting Officer who is already familar with web 2.0 tools (e.g., someone who uses Facebook, knows what a "tweet" is. . . . ). Once we do that, we move on to the more difficult task:
Step 2 - Talk to Legal
My first reaction to any significant change in acquisition process is that it introduces risk. It may (and should!) yield long term benefits, but we'll never get off the ground without thoughtful support from our legal counsel. Fingers are crossed for that first meeting. I'll bring a copy of the article from Federal Computer Week for them!
Step 3 - Find the Project
In many ways, this will be the easy part. GSA is moving quickly into web 2.0 tools. There will be no shortage of opportunities to find the project. We already have one or two candidates under consideration.
We are looking for feedback and thoughts. Please comment away with tips on how to navigate the process.
Okay, so maybe that's a bit of an overstatement. But the BetterBuy Project has been making some media appearances that we thought you might like to know about:
First, there's this Federal News Radio interview with our ringleader, GSA's Mary Davie. Speaking from the 2009 Executive Leadership Conference in Williamsburg, VA, Mary talks to FNR's Daily Debrief about the most exciting part of BetterBuy: The fact that GSA will actually be piloting some of the best ideas on real live acquisitions.
Mary also noted that part of the impetus behind BetterBuy was a great blog post by Andy Krzmarzick, formerly of USDA and now officially GovLoop's second employee, entitled "10 Ways Social Media Will Streamline Federal Acquisition". It's must-reading for anyone interested in what we're doing, or in Acquisition 2.0 generally.
Secondly: Our moms always said we had a face for radio, but I guess Federal Computer Week wasn't listening, because they went ahead and put BetterBuy on the cover! Check it out:
The full cover story, by FCW's ace Acquisition Editor Matthew Weigelt, reads, in part:
Although years of outsourcing and impending retirements threaten to drain the acquisition workforce of its most experienced contracting officers, the procurements that jam the inboxes of the remaining employees aren't getting any less complicated. They need new methods and faster ways to award contracts quickly and successfully, administration officials say.Amen!As a result, the acquisition community is turning to Acquisition 2.0.
Described simply, Acquisition 2.0 is about thinking differently and putting new procedures into play. Government officials and insiders are gathering to pose questions -- both philosophical and practical -- to one another at conferences and virtual meetings. They are also turning to social-networking sites in search of others' expertise.
The ultimate goals are efficiency, cost savings and better performance, say those who are leading the movement.
© Copyright 1105 Government Information Group, used by permission
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