Interview transcript:
Terry Gerton: We’ve got some news to talk about. The revolutionary FAR overhaul. The first part of it is out, Part 10. What caught your eye?
Emily Murphy: So there were a few things in Part 10 that caught my eye. First, it is a lot shorter and it gives a lot of flexibility to the workforce. It also makes a not very subtle prioritization of the use of multiple award contracts, government-wide multiple award contract and of commercials. So I mean it’s doing a lot of the things that the Trump administration’s been signaling. It was going to do through the executive orders that we saw a couple of months ago. It did take out the references to disaster contracting and to bundling and a small business contracting. But it says we’re going to address those elsewhere. And so it’s hard to read it. One of the challenges I have, and they have to give General Services Administration (GSA) credit, they did a very, very good job of creating the line out, the tools, all sorts of information around it. But you’re reading it in a vacuum right now. So reading Part 10 without being able to read Part 26 on disaster contracting, it’s hard to do.
Terry Gerton: That’s a really important point. And I wanna come back to the tools and the line out because those were pretty impressive. But some of these changes, I mean, let’s first say is shorter necessarily better? Is more discretion the best thing? Are people gonna be comfortable working in that space without, as you say, the rest of the context?
Emily Murphy: I think that shorter can be better if it gives contracting officers the freedom to meet the needs of the programs they’re serving. I mean, the whole goal of contracting has always been to get something the government needs to actually fulfill its mission. So if this gives you the ability to go in and do a better job, because you’re not so constrained, you don’t have to follow the same process for acquisition after acquisition or just because you hit a certain dollar threshold, if it gives you that flexibility, that can be a really good thing. It could mean fairly much more meaningful market research. If instead it becomes just an, “all right, we’re going to follow a process and we’ve got a form and we fill out this one form and everyone answers the same questions” and we don’t go any deeper, we could end up stuck with just a limited set of opportunities and set of options out there. So it’s going to be all about empowering that contracting workforce to really make the best decisions. And that means that there are going to be some mistakes because we’re all human. And so then it’s going to require supporting those contracting officers when things don’t go the way that everyone wants them to go as they try out these new opportunities and as they test them, as they work through these new flexibilities.
Terry Gerton: So now they’ve got more flexibility, but doesn’t this change the prioritization of market research and make it mandatory in cases maybe where it wasn’t mandatory before?
Emily Murphy: So it changed the prioritization to say that first you’re going to look at a government-wide multiple award contract. So essentially you’re gonna look at schedules, Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACS), things along those lines before you look at an agency-specific vehicle, before you look at going open market. And that can be a good thing, especially if you look at the consolidation that the administration is trying to drive through GSA and the idea of category management, as long as there is the on-ramp for new technologies to be getting on those government wide acquisition contracts, as long as they’re enough open wind, you know, open seasons, unramping options. My concern is that we really want commercial technology and it’s been made abundantly clear through another executive order that that is the way that the administration wants to lean in this commercial technology, not all commercial technologies go, and as their first step, you know, the innovative technologies go first to a government-wide acquisition contract and say, that’s where I’m going to start. They frequently build up their work in the commercial sector, and only once they’ve done that and they see the value in the government market, do they start exploring maybe a one-off contract with an agency. And then maybe they’ll go to an agency-wide contract. Maybe then they’ll do a government contract. Some do. Some go straight to a government-wide contract, but it’s going to require some nuance and education around the country and workforce. Of when to look outside of the GWAC, when to look outside the schedules program, to when to look for those other commercial solutions.
Terry Gerton: Right, now that’s very consistent with all of the EOs that are centralizing procurement in GSA and to these government-wide contracts. But have you heard anything from inside GSA about how they want to bring these new commercial vendors onto the existing government- wide contracts?
Emily Murphy: Well, what we’ve been seeing is that the policy trying to go first to the software providers and getting them on contract and negotiating lower rates with them. And I have to think that that’s tied to a longer term plan to get those companies directly on contract with the government. So we’ve seen Adobe, we’ve see Splunk. Salesforce, we’re seeing this happen increasingly, seeing this happen. And these are companies that weren’t always directly contracted with the government before. The fact that they’re announcing new deals on pricing with the governments suggests that they are going to be going into contracts with the government. And one would assume through a GSA contract vehicle at that point, which looks like they’re trying to bring in some of the large commercial vendors that way. The tools, though, that were put into the practitioner album about how to reach non-traditional contracts. How to reach smaller contractors, more commercial. That’s gonna be where the real magic happens. If contracting operators feel empowered enough to go and use those and look beyond what’s just there, because this could be a great way of attracting those companies in. I’d say another program, and I’m a big champion of the Small Business Innovation Research Program, the SBIR program. It’s been one of the most successful programs for R&D that the government’s ever run. The Roomba came out of the SBIR program. And I personally am very grateful for Roomba, but how are we going to bring in those technologies, and how are you going to make sure that those are looked at? And all the successful work that’s come out of that R&D that the government’s already done and where it’s ready for commercialization? Because if you recall phase three of the SBIR program is you commercialize that And so how do we make sure to that commercialization opportunity is not lost also?
Terry Gerton: So let’s go back to the practitioner album and the different tools. I’m not a procurement professional, but I was really intrigued. This looks like a standard online training process and certification. Seems like a useful way to get everybody up to speed quickly. What was your impression?
Emily Murphy: I was really impressed with how thorough it was. It gave actual online tools you could use, whether through the Acquisition Gateway, the Co-Pilot Program. It said, you now, if that doesn’t work for you, you’ve got GSA’s Market Research As a Service. Here are other ways you could look at it. Here’s how Department of Homeland Security successfully managed it with their appeal. It gave examples of exciting things VA’s been doing to bring in and reach businesses. Talked about one-on-ones for first industry days. It was a really thorough set of tools that were given to the contracting workforce, along with the line in and the line out, along with an explanation of why it was being done. The notes from (GSA associate administrator of the Office of Government-wide Policy) Larry Allen and (GSA senior procurement executive) Jeff Koses did a really good job of explaining what the intentions were, as well as why this was being done. GSA and Office of Management and Budget should pat themselves on the back. They did a very nice job of putting this together.
Terry Gerton: Is this what you’ll expect to see for each of the subsequent parts of the FAR as they roll them out?
Emily Murphy: I sure hope so. That’s an exciting way of doing it. The one challenge is, do we end up then with a practitioner’s guide longer than the FAR? 20 years ago when I was the chief acquisition officer at GSA, we talked a lot about just-in-time training because it’s great to train people on everything, but unless they have the ability to go and find the resource they need at the time they need it, you’re relying on their memory of a class they took five, seven, ten years ago. This could be the answer to that, in that it could give them that just- in-time training when they need to go refresh, it’s a quick YouTube video, it a quick set of tools, it’s a quick way of refreshing on something that they haven’t seen in a while. So it to that extent it could be a very positive way of getting more responsive contracts to respond to the solutions that the government needs. It could also then just become a lot of regulation that isn’t in regulation. So it could become a lot of guidance and a lot additional things that are just sitting there as a desk guide. There was, at one point in time, the idea that a lot of things were taken out of the FAR and put into acquisition manuals instead, into guidance and manuals. And I don’t think that’s what we’re seeing here, but that’s always the risk, is that it could turn into that. That doesn’t seem to be where GSA is going. It’s a challenge there.
Terry Gerton: So what should people keep their eye on as these iterative modifications roll out?
Emily Murphy: How they fit together, how they link to each other. So, for example, when we talk about disaster contracting, if we’re taking that out of Part 10, we’re gonna put it in part 26, when I’m in the Part 10 practitioner’s guide, is it gonna remind me, hey, if there’s a disaster, go look at part 26? Or is that to me, I’m going to have to remember? Is it going to actually provide those links? How is it going actually, you know, take the data that we’re gathering through this, because this is also going to be a powerful way of generating data. Think of these Requests for Information (RFI), if it’s all simplified form and as standardized as possible, can that data be captured and used for future market research? And just have to be updated as needed rather than asking industry to spend a lot of money doing yet another RFI? So how does it all fit together? And that’s going to move the magic happen.
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