A common thread among the recent spate of state health insurance exchange rollout failures (e.g., Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon) was the states’ inability to effectively procure, manage and coordinate IT services from multiple contractors. In each case, the aftermath was a rash of finger-pointing between and among agency managers and contractors, and in someRead… Read more »
Implementing something like this is hardly a technical challenge any more. It just needs the agency to make it a priority and get it done.
Let’s get one thing straight right out of the gate: selling to the government has never been easy. But these contracts can be lucrative. So often the pain is worth the gain. For example, electric carmaker Tesla just inked a $20 billion dollar contract with the federal government for research and development. Getting a spotRead… Read more »
Dear readers over the holiday season I did my fair share of shopping. Presents for my family were a must, but I also might have added one or two small gifts for myself. Maybe. But here’s the thing, as I hit up the mall and battled my fellow last minute shoppers, I was struck withRead… Read more »
‘Tis the season for end of year reflections. And in 2014, the government technology and acquisition communities had a lot to reflect on. The rollout of healthcare.gov, the launch of 18F, the President’s announcement of a new professional cadre of digital procurers, were just a few innovations and challenges that cropped up this year. TwoRead… Read more »
A few weeks ago on the DorobekINSIDER, host Chris Dorobek made a radical call for a government restart – he suggested doing away with the Federal Acquisition Regulation. The FAR was intended to answer any and every procurement question under the sun, but the resulting document has more than 99 parts and thousands of subchapters.Read… Read more »
Before the invention of the Internet, libraries depended entirely on card catalogs. Although painstakingly tedious for any librarian, organizing card catalogs is an almost fail-proof method of documenting the overwhelming inventory of any library. And general cataloging standards tend to be standardized across most libraries. Card cataloging or any standardization method can make almost allRead… Read more »
Hey there. I’m Christopher Dorobek — the DorobekINSIDER — and welcome GovLoop’s DorobekINSIDER… where we focus on six words: Helping government do its job better. On GovLoop’s DorobekINSIDER: Living in a Mobile World – lessons learned from ACT-IAC’s mobile apps fair: Some of the big takeaways from the app fair, emphasizing how government organizations areRead… Read more »
This series began discussing fostering relationships through contracting. This idea underpins all discussions about contracting because if you keep the relationship in mind while conducting contract negotiations, where both sides are heard and concerns are addressed, then there is a greater likelihood that the outcome will be beneficial to both parties. In the previous post,Read… Read more »
Writing contract specifications can seem daunting, boring or like a mere formality. Where should I start? What should I write? It is difficult to start with a blank piece of paper and to generate the specifications for a contract. If the service is existing, start by thinking through the day to day details of theRead… Read more »