Well, I didn’t have a Christmas tree this year. Not even a fake one. But I did have a vacuum cleaner. A big red vacuum cleaner. With presents. It was just perfect. Of course, what does this have to do with procurement? Well, have you ever thought what it takes to manufacture an actual vacuumRead… Read more »
I’ve recently come to realize how difficult it is for federal interns to coordinate rotations across different agencies. It’s not that bosses oppose it; quite the opposite, they encourage it. Rather, it’s just tough to line up different agencies’ policies for developing memorandums of understanding (MOU) via email and phone. This difficulty is one ofRead… Read more »
A common complaint about government contracting is it takes forever to complete a deal. Well, much of the delay comes from what’s called cost analysis. Cost analysis requires govies to go into each cost element in a proposal like direct labor, overhead rates, G&A, ODCs, COM and profit/fee. Govies are required to get the bestRead… Read more »
What I’m positing will be controversial to many. If a government employee is clearly and directly responsible for realized savings on a contract, should 1% of contract savings, capped at $10,000 per year across all contracts, go to the employee as an award for good work? I know that the federal government will give whistleblowersRead… Read more »
I recently had a wake up call in how I manage my contracts. I won’t get into the catalyst, but the result has been amazing. See, I get distracted very easily. So I printed out a calendar, tape it to my desk, and put down a tally mark in the day whenever I find myselfRead… Read more »
Email for templates, tips and best practices: [email protected] Website: RockYourTechReport.tumblr.com I’ll try to give you a quick breakdown why I think this initiative is so important although the GovWin post does a much better job explaining it. See, contracting officers need to have a technical analysis on proposals. This lets the government know it’s gettingRead… Read more »
When contracting officers get a new proposal, they often ask engineers to write a technical analysis. This tells the contracting officer if the proposal is technically solid. Unfortunately, many engineers aren’t trained to do this. Rock Your Tech Report aims to help fix this by giving engineers a cheat sheet of sorts with tips, bestRead… Read more »
It’s a mundane example, but this fold-out tray and even the cardboard for the Starbucks cup is procured. It’s everywhere. Permalink | Leave a comment » Original post
In general, there are three types of contracting officers — the procuring contracting officer, the termination contracting officer and the administrative contracting officer. It may be time to add a fourth type — the learning contracting officer (LCO). You see, contracts specialists train to become full-fledged contracting officers. Much of what we contracts specialists doRead… Read more »
A few weeks ago, I wrote about virtual assistants for govies. To see if the concept was worth pursuing, I decided to use a test — see if a virtual assistant could do simple market research in a fictional situation. I send this on 10/5/11 to my virtual assistant. Find me two vendors on GSARead… Read more »