The government awards most contracts using competitive processes. Some of those processes are simple. Some of them are complicated. Sometimes they are so complicated that the process from requirement to award (through the Acquisition Time...
Plenty of ink has been spent on how government and industry need to communicate more, and better (including by us). However, knowing we are supposed to communicate “better” and knowing how to communicate “better” are...
In government contracting, there are so many ways to buy products and services. Multiple award, commercial, simplified acquisition, micro purchase, letter contract, GSA contract, logical follow-on, sealed bid, down select, lowest price with acceptable rating,...
Forms. Really? That does not sound very exciting. Fair enough – while “exciting” is not the word most people think of when discussing forms, this topic is relevant and important. Why? Because government contracts are...
In the 3 Deciders episode (episode 118), Kevin and Paul explained how the Economic Decider has the funds that are used to buy products and services under government contracts, the Customer has the need for...
Contract Severability is one of those concepts that has one meaning in the commercial world, and a slightly different meaning in the GovCon world. In non-government contracts, a simple definition is of severability is that...
Episode 443 was Part 1 of Pre-Acquisition communication. In that one we introduced the concept of Pre-Acquisition communication, Kevin and Paul provided some context why it matters. To recap, Pre-acquisition is what happens BEFORE there...
The government buys lots of services…but not all service contracts work the same way. There are personal services, non-personal services, Service Contract services, advisory services, and so on. We have a whole podcast playlist just...
Communication between government and industry matters throughout the acquisition process. In last week’s episode, we dug into a common misconception that gets in the way of effective communication – namely a lack of clear agreement...
Communication between government and industry matters throughout the acquisition process. In this episode Kevin and Paul dig into another common misconception that gets in the way of effective communication – namely a lack of clear...
If we’re going to buy something, we need to know how much it will cost. D’uh, right? The contract defines the terms and conditions of the purchase, while the price determines the value and/or cost...
Kevin and Paul have covered a LOT of topics on this podcast. In each of the episodes, they map out where a particular topic fits within the Acquisition and/or Execution Time Zones®. (NOTE: For more...
The United States government buys a wide variety of things in a variety of ways. In this episode, we cover one of those unique ways: through Foreign Military Sales (FMS). Under FMS, the US government...
We talked in episode 440 about how the government awards contracts for lots of services – unless those services are “inherently governmental activities”. We outlined the definition of that in episode 195. What makes these...
The US government decided a long time ago to contract out as many services as possible, except for the ones that are “inherently governmental services” (see episode 195 for those). However, the hiring of all...
Is federal contracting really that different from state and local contracting? In this episode, Kevin welcomes Troy Francis to the podcast to help answer that question. Troy knows the nuances of both Federal and State/Local...
Chess is one of my favorite games. It’s simple, yet maddeningly complex. Chess is a game in which it’s easy to get the basics: there are only 6 types of pieces. However, the game gets...
There are several places in the FAR that direct contracting officers to award products and services against existing contracts BEFORE establishing new ones. There is even a specific provision that acquisition planning include consideration for...
Wanting to award a contract and having a path to make award are two different things. The government needs to acquire goods and services. Even when the government customer clearly knows what they need, just...
A Sole Source contract award is when the government awards a contract without competition. The standard procedure in GovCon is to use competition to compete requirements, therefore awarding a sole source contract is a “non-standard”...