The federal acquisition regulation (FAR) is chockablock with “thresholds” – a threshold is the term for a specific numbers (usually dollar a specific dollar amount) that requires specific action.

Threshold types include:

• Review thresholds
• Approval thresholds
• Policy thresholds
• Competition thresholds
• Contract award thresholds

Why does that matter? Because these thresholds represent some of the gates an acquisition team has to navigate in order to award a contract. In other words, navigating the thresholds is one of the key factors in finding the path of least resistance to contract award.

Conversely, if we do not know the thresholds for a specific acquisition strategy, meaning we do not know where the markers are, we risk UNKNOWINGLY going down the path of MOST resistance to contract award…and nobody wants that.

In this episode, we outline the types of thresholds, why they matter, as well as the upside and the downside of thresholds. We also outline a few strategies to identify and effectively navigate the thresholds in a given acquisition.