Acquisition

Past Performance Data and the Need to Change the Source Selection Paradigm

The GAO report entitled Better Performance Information Needed to Support Agency Contract Award Decisions (GAO-09-374), lays out a disturbing trend in government oversight and contract management that needs to be corrected on many levels if the government is to increase performance of federal contracts. As noted in the report, the typical information management problem ofRead… Read more »

Performance Management Reporting

In my previous post I outlined a 4 step process for a successful performance management program. to recap: 1. Report performance metric data on pre-defined schedule. 2. Analyze data for troubling trends or missed targets. Operationally research root cause of problems. 3. Provide corrective action for metrics where target was missed or data is trendingRead… Read more »

Federal Eye: Interior Dept. Bungles Passport Records

The Interior Department’s inspector general has found widespread mishandling and tracking of highly valuable passports issued to department officials traveling overseas, alleging that in numerous instances employees violated federal privacy laws. Several expired passports could not be accounted for and inspectors also could not locate the passports once issued to Interior Secretary Gale Norton andRead… Read more »

Interior cannot find 20 percent of its laptops

It’s pretty amazing, but the Interior Department has not been keeping tabs on its laptops. According to an Inspector General’s report, the agency cannot find 20 percent of its laptops. And that’s a pretty bad report card for any agency and raises real questions about what information was stored on those laptops and why wasn’tRead… Read more »

Open Source Success Through Understanding the Acquisition Process

The criticality of contractors understanding the government acquisition process is vital to their success and the widespread adoption of open source software. Government transparency, openness and sharing will be significanty facilitated through this comprehension. This concept is superbly underscored through this article by Chet Hayes. While the intricacies of the acquisition process are often complex,Read… Read more »

Focusing on Acquisition Reform: Workforce First

The much anticipated Smart Contracting Caucus met this week for the first time since being created over a year ago by former House Oversight and Government Reform ranking member Tom Davis, (R-VA). The intent of the Caucus was to consider thoughtful federal procurement reform by having a type of 360-review of issues facing the contractingRead… Read more »

Australian internet usage 20% greater than TV – Nielsen

Republished from eGovAU. I’ve just come across a media release from Nielsen (PDF) from March this year indicating that internet use by Australian internet users reached 16.1 hours per week in 2008, soaring ahead of TV at 12.9 viewing hours per week (radio sits at 8.8 hours). This suggests that the average Australian internet userRead… Read more »

Mortgage Securitization – explained and how it factored in the financial crisis

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-060.pdf Thanks to Ezra Klein’s blog on washingtonpost.com for the link – the paper is a great read (once you get past the economics) to understand exactly the mortgage back securites (MBS) market fell apart – essentially it was due to (1) bad assumptions of defalut rates, (2) poor ratings of each MBS pool byRead… Read more »

Acquisition Reform Foundations: People First and Fast

As acquisition reform initiatives move forward in Congress, specifically with the House following the Senate in passing their defense acquisition reform bill, personnel issues continue to be at the forefront of discussions and focus on reform initiatives. Of course it goes without saying that the announcement to bring 20,000 acquisition positions in house at theRead… Read more »