Students of leadership may recall a clever quotation from George S. Patton: No one is thinking if everyone is thinking alike. Although disagreements in the workplace can sometimes create emotionally charged situations, thoughtful disagreement can be quite constructive when managed appropriately. Many leaders have found success by not trying to prevent disagreement but rather byRead… Read more »
Linda Washington, LFCC Chairperson, was interviewed on The Federal Drive with anchors Tom Temin and Jane Norris. The Federal Drive is the morning drive show on Federal News Radio heard throughout the entire Washington Metro region at 1500 AM and in Frederick at 820 AM. Federal News Radio covers both the Federal Government and thoseRead… Read more »
More than 131,000 progress reports on stimulus funding will be posted Friday on Recovery.gov, the government’s stimulus-tracking Web site. Much of the data will include corrections to the first version of reports filed by fund recipients earlier this month. Several early reports overstated the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program, accordingRead… Read more »
The very worst time to write an executive summary is when the person finally gets a free hour or two right before or right after the last review. When this happens, there are simply not enough review cycles to perfect this key part of the proposal. I still hear a debate on when an executiveRead… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner There has been some discussion recently on a case study of shortening the procurement cycle from the lessons learned of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. The MRAP is an armored all-terrain vehicle whose purchase and desire for rapid deployment was motivated by the continuing deaths of troops in IraqRead… Read more »
FederalNewsRadio’s 5 Fallacies of Government? series is officially underway. Each day this week, we’ll examine a commonly held belief about the federal government to determine if it holds any weight. Today’s topic: Is the government a terrible buyer? The $500 hammer. The $1,000 toilet seat. These are among the most criticized examples of government spending.Read… Read more »
Today is a big day in my life and I’m really excited to share it with you – the GovLoop Community. Mr. GovLoop himself (aka Steve Ressler) has asked me to join his team as the GovLoop Community Manager! So what does that mean? It means I’ve resigned from the Graduate School and will dedicateRead… Read more »
In May of 2005, the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) released a memorandum to all Federal Chief Acquisition, Information and Financial Officers announcing the onset of a Strategic Sourcing initiative. The memo required all agencies identify no fewer than three commodities “that could be purchased more effectively and efficientlyRead… Read more »
If you’re like most Proposal Manager professionals, you’re overworked, overstressed and spending unnecessary time rewriting proposal sections that should have been completed correctly by someone else. After years of doing just that I discovered the secret to easier proposal writing was training my technical staff to “write it right” the first time. I am now sharing myRead… Read more »
Agencies are again operating under a CR. Here are some suggestions to help budget officers avoid disrupting agency operations during the CR period. There have been three recent papers on CRs: * Continuing Resolutions: Uncertainty Limited Management Options and Increased Workload in Selected Agencies, GAO, #09-879, Sep 2009 * Interim Continuing Resolutions: Potential Impacts onRead… Read more »