End of the year coming, where should the rest of the money go?

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You could buy a bunch of printers and 3-ring binders, or maybe that branch office Winnebago with your spend-it-or-lose-it money this year. You’ve got less than a month. Or you could get some real innovation done. That’s according to the self-styled government and industry connector company Dcode. With details, Dcode’s chief strategy officer, Meg Vorland, joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin: Mrs. Vorland. Good to have you on.

Meg Vorland: Thanks so much for having me Tom.

Tom Temin: Dcode has published a short guide to what you feel is a much better use of year and money for federal agencies looking to modernize and innovate. Tell us so what your advising.

Meg Vorland: Yeah, absolutely. So we have published this guide, it’s out on our website. But really what it comes down to in essence is that government leaders need to look at the scope of their problem sets and be able to scope those effectively in order to find the right tech and be able to bring those innovative tech products to solve their biggest challenges. So that’s what we’re really pushing at Dcode and making sure that as federal leaders look towards that end of your spend, how are they making sure that they’re not just, like you said, buying binders, but really thinking through what those challenges are today and what those challenges are likely to be in 2021.

Tom Temin: Because there’s often a frenzy at the end of the year to get that money out and contracting officers get too busy. I mean, is there really realistically time to do that kind of thought process and market research for letting a contract before September 30?

Meg Vorland: That’s a great question, and we get it often. There are creative contracting officers no doubt that across the government contracting officers are probably up to their ears and doing end of year tasks, task orders, etc. But a lot of this innovation work has to happen, whether it’s quickly, or I would argue it should be a lot of proof of concepts and things that you can do on the small side, things that you can do under the micro purchase threshold so that you can in some places bypass the big long RFPs, RFIs, big long lead time things so that you can actually get the tech in and test it. Test it in your environment. And maybe you can make several small purchases and several small tests towards the end of the year so that you are ready to make a bigger purchase going into 2021.

Tom Temin: Yes, I was gonna say it sounds like what you can do is establish maybe a platform for innovation or testing different types of approaches. And then you’re ready for when the fiscal year dawns a new and you don’t have to wait till next September.

Meg Vorland: Absolutely. And it’s a mindset — so it starts from the top and we’ve seen definitely different departments, agencies and programs take on this mindset shift in different ways. But one way is they met these end of year dollars can go towards more things in the prototype range, and that’s not always r&d money it can also be used as o&m money. So setting yourself up for success longer term by actually having the market research be hands on keyboard. I think it’s gonna be really important.

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Tom Temin: Well, maybe you could give us an example of the type of things that you’ve seen an agency do or seen one of your client companies involved with that can be done quickly and get a little piece of innovation done.

Meg Vorland: Yeah, absolutely. So we’ve had companies that have come through the program that no one understands the government use case and the government needs in particular areas, whether that’s at DoD and the IC and DHS or other civilian agencies. And they’re really talking to the government customer about small subsets, maybe it’s small subsets of data or small subsets of data cleansing, and they’re saying, look, I can do this, I can help you solve this problem on a small scale and let’s test it, let’s run it, let’s make sure it fits and let’s make sure it’s really solving the problems that you’re having so that you can accomplish your missions across the board. And so companies like Tamer and Data Robot and Streamsets all have places where they can scale so that they can actually match end of year funding and we can try these things out today again so that we can have a bigger impact tomorrow.

Tom Temin: In this guide, you mentioned Small Business Innovation Research, SBIR contracts, and open commercial solutions openings, CSOs, that can help you the agency work with tech industry fast. Tell us more about that.

Meg Vorland: Yeah, we’re seeing a whole host of innovative contracting. So innovative contracting, can be within the constraints of the FAR, it can be outside of the FAR as OTAs are, and we’re seeing those as ways to be solutions driven and to be outcomes driven as opposed to the normal types of contracting that you think of and in the government buying maybe large ships, large purchases, things that have to be very detailed to spec. We’re seeing a lot more on creative contracting, such as Sybers. And those are happening actually across the government. So in some places, they’re directly tied to requirements, in other places it’s more of an open call for how can you help. What should we be looking at as the department — and we’re getting lessons learned from from everything across the board, and we’re seeing that the trend is likely to continue into 2021 with the budget being reconciled soon.

Tom Temin: Can challenge grants or contracts be effectuated in the short time remaining?

Meg Vorland: That’s a really good question. So I haven’t seen a ton of those go through, those do require a lot of contracting officer support and the challenge competitions, I think, I would say that the biggest roadblock with those is usually funding. Sometimes you’ll be able to see an obligation made for example with 2020 money that can go into 2021 if there are some portions of that challenge that the work would have to be done in 2020. But I haven’t seen as much on the challenge competition side.

Tom Temin: Okay, well, we’ll let that one stay in the drawer for now. And you can start one at the beginning of next year. But in general, is it your observation that the government is improving in its ability to find those innovative companies that have not done business with the government before and making them the companies aware of the government and then bringing them in to do good things?

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Meg Vorland: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s with programs like DIU. It’s with programs like AFWERX, it’s with programs like SVIP out of DHS, all of these programs. NGA has a really great one as well. All of these programs have really focused on bringing those dual use technologies and those technologies that are non traditional in to solve the right challenges. And it’s incumbent on the government to make sure that they have the right challenges set forth for these companies. They are not typically the companies that already have butts in seats and are already sitting next to their federal counterparts, and so therefore know all of the problems and challenges. So it does have to be a better communication process and a more open communication process about the challenges that they’re facing. But we are seeing, especially in the last few years, just a wave of government leaders being able to cross that chasm and pull companies in to solve big problems.

Tom Temin: Meg Vorland is Chief Strategy Officer at decode thanks so much for joining me.

Meg Vorland: Thank you so much for having me today.

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