There’s an old saying among acquisition professionals that unless the FAR says you can’t do it, then you can. What happens many times, however, is the opposite and that stops contracting officers from being innovative.

As part of its effort to bring innovation into the federal procurement process, especially around technology, the White House added another tool to the toolbox to help change the federal culture.

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy and the Office of Science and Technology Policy released a story book of acquisition innovations.

The Innovative Contracting Case Studies is “an iterative, evolving document that describes a number of ways federal agencies are getting more innovation per taxpayer dollar — all under existing laws and regulations,” wrote Lesley Field, deputy administrator of OFPP, and Tom Kalil, deputy director for Technology and Innovation in OSTP Thursday in a blog post.

Along with the case studies, OFPP set up a government-only email group, called the Buyer’s Club, to “provide a useful forum for troubleshooting and sharing best practices across the federal government, serving everyone from contracting officers with deep expertise in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to program managers looking for new ways to achieve their agencies’ missions.”

In the 91-page document, OFPP and OSTP describe eight different approaches to innovative acquisition processes. Some, such as prizes and competitions, are relatively new to government, while others, such as milestone-based competitions, have been around for a long time, but mostly underutilized by agencies.

While a document such as this makes sense, it’s far from what’s needed.

What OFPP needs to do is provide top cover for agencies when inspectors general, the Government Accountability Office and, especially, Congress come knocking at their door. Over the last five or so years, acquisition professionals have come under more and more scrutiny from auditors, which is causing them to be more conservative.

The White House needs to help traditionally risk-averse contracting officers feel comfortable in doing something different. OFPP’s backing would begin to create the change that many of these new tools, such as the TechFAR or the case studies, are trying to kick-start.

Look out for some familiar faces in new positions in the General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service.

Donna Jenkins is moving over to become the assistant commissioner for the Office of Acquisition Management from her role as director of the Federal Acquisition Institute. She’ll replace Houston Taylor, who’s putting on a new hat as the assistant commissioner for the Office of Customer Accounts and Research.

Tom Sharpe, FAS commissioner, announced the seat shuffling takes effect Aug. 24 in a memo to staff, which Federal News Radio obtained.

Sharpe said Taylor “will focus on enhancing the agency’s work to communicate and share our value proposition with customers, the collection and use of customer data and our customer relationship and account management functions.”

Jenkins has led FAI for about four years and previously served as the director of DHS’ acquisition workforce.

Sharpe said Jenkins will “focus on improving and expanding GSA’s relationships in our supplier community, modernizing and streamlining the Multiple Award Schedules program and providing training to our GSA workforce, agency customers and industry partners. She will also work on improving the quality of FAS contracts and strengthening our procurement controls across the agency.”

Additionally, Bill Sisk, FAS deputy commissioner, will take on a second hat and serve as the acting assistant commissioner for Office of Travel, Motor Vehicle, and Card Services. Bill Toth had been acting since Bill Webster retired in June.

There were a few other noteworthy changes among agency executives.

Tom Bayer, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s chief information officer, announced he’s leaving government in October.

Bayer said after four years it was time for a new challenge and time to bring in someone new to take the SEC IT to the next level.

“I thought it was good time to leave, as much of what I laid out from an enterprise architecture program and the SEC’s working smarter program has been executed,” Bayer said in an interview with Federal News Radio. “I feel really good about our progress. We saved $18.8 million last year in IT costs, and we’ve given our workforce more capabilities. I think that it’s good to renew the CIO position after a period of years.”

Bayer said he would expect deputy CIO Pam Dyson to step into the acting role when he departs in October.

He said he hasn’t started looking for a new job yet because of SEC conflict of interest rules.

Over at the Department of Health and Human Services, Kevin Charest left his position as the chief information security officer in May. Charest spent about seven years in government, including the last 20 months as the HHS CISO.

Charest now is the senior director of IT threat management in the Information Risk Management group for the UnitedHealth Group, according to his LinkedIn page.

During his time at HHS, Charest focused on improving HHS cybersecurity, in part, by using big data. He said in September that the creation of a security operations center (SOC) as a central coordination place to bring together threat data from across the agency is making a big difference.

On your mark, get set — it’s go time for the most sought after part of the Homeland Security Department’s EAGLE II technology services contract.

DHS quietly has been telling the 60-plus vendors that functional category one is open for business. Industry and government sources say DHS wanted to do a soft launch since EAGLE II faced a host of delays and protests over the last three years.

Functional category-1 is the biggest of the four EAGLE focus areas. It includes system design, development, implementation and integration, software design and development, operations and maintenance, such as help desk, collaboration services and network and security operations.

DHS has struggled to get the $22 billion EAGLE II contract in place. They still face protests from small businesses under functional category 2 — IT program support services.

Vendors have long seen EAGLE as one of the largest avenues into DHS. As of fiscal 2011 — the last year DHS provides data — Homeland Security components spent more than $11.4 billion on 606 task orders over the five-year period.

The winning contractors should expect little change in how DHS buys IT over the next five years, which is why EAGLE II took nearly three years to award.

DHS already lists 23 potential procurements scheduled to go through EAGLE II on its procurement forecast website. These range from the Citizen and Immigration Service’s joint engineering teams-sustainment (JETS) program that could be worth $100 million to $10 billion, to FEMA’s $10 million to $20 million program under the Disaster Management e-government initiative.

Of course, most vendors are watching what DHS does with its Next Generation Enterprise Computing Services (ECS) program. Basically, it’s the follow-on contract to running one of two DHS data centers.

Sources say DHS is sifting through RFI responses to develop its solicitation strategy.

Two other big opportunities that are coming from DHS are FEMA’s Enterprise Applications Development Integration and Sustainment (EADIS) that could be worth about $1 billion, and follow-on to its Centralized Operations, Maintenance and Management Information Technology (COMMIT) acquisition.

Sources say both could go through EAGLE II, so the fact that FC-1 is open for business, let the fun begin.

A growing number of agencies no longer believe prices under the General Services Administration schedules program are “fair and reasonable.”

Along with the Defense Department, NASA quietly issued a memo in March that requires its contracting officers to do additional research to ensure GSA schedule prices are the best value for the government. Industry sources say other agency memos could follow from the likes of the departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Energy.

And nearly five months after the Defense Department’s Dick Ginman, director for procurement and acquisition policy (DPAP), created quite a stir by changing almost two decades of precedent around GSA schedule prices, Tom Sharpe, the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, finally responded publicly to these major changes.

“I support what Dick Ginman has done in terms of telling his contracting workforce to go ahead and apply techniques to get the best price, value and other things important to the taxpayers when they raise orders or otherwise contract — that means getting competition and that means negotiating prices,” Sharpe said in an interview with Federal News Radio. “I think where Dick was at, and I agree with him, is we didn’t know how often contracting officers were receiving discounts. If you have any type of large volume at the order level, you should in fact be competing orders and negotiating discounts. The schedules were set up to enable that.”

Sharpe said by standardizing part numbers and descriptions on the schedules, GSA will use the data to make decisions about how much price variability in the schedules make sense, and agencies can use the data to make better buying decisions. He said GSA also plans to propose a rule to require schedule contractors to provide prices paid data and all demographics around it.

Sharpe said FAS will put that data in a tool so buyers can use it to help them shape how they should price that order.

“I support the agencies getting the best prices they can,” he said. “I’m in the process at FAS of setting the conditions, particularly on the multiple award schedule, such that possibly those deviations would no longer be needed, and I’ll defer to those customers.”

Despite Sharpe’s support of DoD, and presumably NASA too, industry experts aren’t happy with this growing trend. Several sources say DoD, and now NASA, aren’t solving a problem with the schedules, but rather not addressing a problem with the training of contracting officers.

Bill McNally, NASA’s assistant administrator for procurement, said like DoD, he believes contract prices under the individual schedule contract aren’t necessarily “fair and reasonable” to the agency at the task or delivery order level.

“This is an example of different agencies who talk to each other and both believe that what they will do is the best thing for their agency,” McNally said in an interview with Federal News Radio. “It’s a shared practice, what DoD and NASA are doing. It’s based on my conversations with my staff and I have had with Dick and his staff, which I think we should be doing more and more in the federal government.”

He added he believes NASA contracting officers were ensuring they were getting the best prices when using GSA schedules, but the memo just codified the requirement.

“You should be going out and looking at multiple sources. You should be making sure there is adequate price competition when you sign a task order and that you got a fair and reasonable price,” McNally said. “You have to make sure they do all analysis that’s within FAR part 15 when price cost analysis, that is done to determine that task order or delivery order.”

NASA spends about $100 million a year through the GSA schedules.

Some sources say now that DoD and NASA have issued deviations — two of the three Federal Acquisition Regulations Council signatories — it’s only a matter of time until the FAR Council gets involved. GSA is the third signatory.

McNally said as a signatory of the FAR Council, he and others look out for what’s in the best interest of the government, not of NASA.

McNally said the idea of GSA schedule prices being fair and reasonable has come up at the Chief Acquisition Officer’s Council meetings.

At the same time, if two of the largest agencies believe the schedules are no longer “fair and reasonable,” and if other big spending agencies join them, don’t be surprised if a major FAR change isn’t far behind.

“Inside the Reporter’s Notebook” is a biweekly dispatch of news and information you may have missed or that slipped through the cracks at conferences, hearings and the like.

This is not a column nor commentary — it’s news tidbits, strongly sourced buzz, and other items of interest that have happened or are happening in the federal IT and acquisition communities.

As always, I encourage you to submit ideas, suggestions and, of course, news to me at jpmiller@federalnewsradio.com.

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VA IT office’s exit door swings open for two, maybe more

A huge wave of exits may be coming to the Veterans Affairs Department chief information officer’s office in the coming months.

The beginning of this swell already has begun with Charles De Sanno, VA’s executive director for Enterprise Technology and Infrastructure Engineering, and Stan Lowe, VA’s chief information security officer, heading out the door in the coming months.

Multiple sources confirm De Sanno is retiring and taking a position in the private sector. Sources say De Sanno wouldn’t say where he was going just yet, but he’s likely leaving at the end of August.

Sources say Lowe also is heading to the private sector, leaving VA as early as September.

Additionally, there are possibly two or three other senior executives looking to leave VA in the coming months.

A VA spokeswoman couldn’t confirm the De Sanno and Lowe’s impending departures.

“VA lawyers have told VA they cannot confirm departures of any employees’ intentions to leave and can only acknowledge departures after the employees are gone,” said a VA spokeswoman. “All those you mentioned are still working in OIT.”

The potential mass exodus from VA’s Office of Information Technology isn’t surprising given two recent developments.

The first is the continued pressure on VA by the House Veterans Affairs Committee over its IT and cybersecurity woes. The committee planned a cyber hearing in July, but postponed it. Sources say it will be rescheduled for September most likely.

The second reason is the new leadership at VA. Secretary Robert McDonald officially came on board July 30 and Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson has been in place only since February.

The loss of De Sanno and Lowe comes as Lorraine Landfried, VA’s deputy CIO for product development, resigned in July.

Lowe came to VA in October 2010 and assumed the CISO role in January 2013.

De Sanno has been with VA for 25 years. As the executive director for Enterprise Technology and Infrastructure Engineering, De Sanno directs the enterprise technology engineering efforts for systems solutions across the department.

GSA loss is DoT’s gain

A big move in the federal cloud computing world is about to happen. Multiple industry sources confirm that Maria Roat is likely headed to the Transportation Department to be its chief technology officer.

Sources say all that’s left is the official paperwork to be completed, but as one industry source said, “It’s been an open secret for a few weeks now.”

Roat has been the director of the Federal Risk Management and Authorization program at the General Services Administration since January 2013. She has been a driving force behind the cloud cybersecurity program and moving it from the initial operating capability to full operational capability.

Matt Goodrich likely will be Roat’s interim replacement, and another industry source said he is the leading candidate to be the full-time FedRAMP director.

Once the move is finalized, Roat would manage the business technology and governance and technology strategy and modernization activities of the department, according to the job posting on USAJobs.gov.

Roat also would lead the Technology Control Board (TCB), which is made up of IT representatives from all of the DoT’s bureaus. The control board ensures the agency implements technology that meets DoT standards, architecture and shared services mandates.

Before coming to GSA, Roat was the deputy CIO at FEMA and served as chief of staff in the DHS Office of the Chief Information Officer.

Another DHS cyber executive heading to private sector

The Homeland Security Department also is facing a similar set of senior executive departures as VA.

Jenny Menna, DHS’ director of stakeholder engagement and cyber infrastructure resilience (SECIR), joins Larry Zelvin as the latest to head to the private sector.

Andy Ozment, the assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, wrote in a note to staff that Menna’s last day will be Aug. 15.

“Jenny has done an outstanding job building a broad security partnership between DHS and the private sector. Her many accomplishments during her tenure at SECIR include standing up the Enhanced Cybersecurity Services (ECS) program, expanding the Cyber Information Sharing and Collaboration Program (CISCP), implementing the Critical Infrastructure Cyber Community C³ Voluntary Program in support of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and significantly increasing engagement with state, local, tribal and territorial governments,” Ozment wrote in the email obtained by Federal News Radio. “Perhaps her greatest accomplishment, though, is SECIR itself. She has built an extremely strong organization that the broader CS&C, NPPD, and Department rely upon. Jenny, and the team at SECIR, should be proud of what they have done together.”

Ozment said Bobbie Stempfley, deputy assistant secretary for Cybersecurity Strategy and Emergency Communications, will take over for Menna in the interim.

A lot of Menna’s time and effort over the last year has been overseeing the development of DHS’ piece of President Barack Obama’s cyber executive order from February 2013.

House lawmakers recently passed a bill that would codify DHS’ communications and collaboration with critical infrastructure providers, provide liability protection for the sharing of cyber threats and attacks, and further establish SECIR’s role in working with industry.

Along with DHS’ Menna, there have been a few other noteworthy changes.

Jeff Press, the Performance Improvement Council’s senior advisor, is moving on to bigger and better things. He’s taken a job as the Department of Commerce as the deputy director of Performance Strategy.

Press has been with the PIC since September 2010 and has helped promote the PIC and its role in helping agencies improve how they use data to make decisions.

Another big move on the industry side is Diana Gowen retired as CenturyLink Government’s senior vice president and general manager on June 30.

Gowen joined Deep Water Point as a principal consultant working on IT and telecommunications issues.

“Diana has been a strong and effective leader during her nine years with CenturyLink,” said Linda Johnson, a spokeswoman for CenturyLink Government. “She and her team have been instrumental in establishing CenturyLink’s reputation as an industry-leading broadband, cybersecurity and IT services provider to the federal government. The company recognizes her excellent work on behalf of CenturyLink and our federal government customers, thanks her for her dedication, leadership and many contributions to the growth and success of our business over the years, and wishes her well on her retirement.”

Gowen has been an outspoken critic of the General Services Administration’s Networx telecommunications contract, and the challenges agencies have had in using it. She’s also been CenturyLink Government’s public face for the last nine years.

Summer procurement fun from HHS, VA

VA and the Department of Health and Human Services each issued procurements that should raise the excitement level in industry.

VA issued a request for information for the next generation of its technology multiple award contract known as T4.

Meanwhile, HHS released its first request for proposal under its Buyers Club initiative. The HHS Buyers Club is one of a growing number of approaches — think GSA 18F or the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed Digital Services office — to bring innovation into the government more quickly and more successfully.

Both procurements are going to attract industry’s attention and other agency’s interest.

VA awarded T4 in June 2011 to nine large businesses and six small firms to provide IT products and services under a five-year, $12 billion deal. T4 expires in June 2016 so the RFI is VA’s first step toward getting the follow-on contract in place in the next year.

Under the draft performance statement of work, VA stated T4 next generation would be for five years with a five-year option. It covers more than three dozen functional and sub-functional areas ranging from program management, strategy, enterprise architecture and planning support to systems/software engineering to IT service management implementation to enterprise application/services.

Responses to the RFI are due Aug. 28

This proposed follow-on to T4 will be a good test of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy’s requirement for agencies to submit a business case for new multiple award contracts. Little is known about how OFPP’s process is working or what effect it is having on agency decisions to launch multiple award contracts. OFPP’s Interagency Contract Directory lists almost 4,000 multiple award contracts for IT and telecommunication services.

VA has spent more than $1.5 billion under T4 in 2013, according to data from the Federal Procurement Data System compiled by KRT Associates.

Over at HHS, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation released an RFP for a vendor to:

• Implement a platform and technical infrastructure supporting ASPE websites, databases and software development environments;
• Implement a Web content management system and software package similar to SharePoint Foundation or Drupal with a strong preference for open-source;
• Redesign ASPE’s public website and intranet website;
• Migrate these websites and associated databases to an open source Web content management system; and
• Modernize two database applications.

HHS is dividing the procurement into four phases all focused on agile development processes.

This procurement is different than others, according to a tweet by HHS CTO Bryan Sivak, is because the agency is paying for a prototype. The two-stage source selection process means vendors have two weeks to submit a proposal. Then, HHS will evaluate bids and select as many as five firms to received $10,000 to create a prototype in three weeks. Finally, HHS will pick one vendor based on their prototype and presentation for the award.

“The down-select process will enable contractors an opportunity to showcase their abilities and expertise by delivering a short-term, functional prototype in support of their proposed concept rather than a detailed paper-based proposal. This proof-of-concept approach is consistent with private sector methodologies,” HHS wrote in the RFP. “The Technical Evaluation Panel [will get] an opportunity to see functional prototypes before an award is made, ensuring that a contractor has the ability and expertise required.”

HHS also stated that the two-step process will streamline the initial competition and let vendors focus on their core competencies rather than drafting lengthy responses to a solicitation.

It will be interesting to see how industry reacts and HHS evaluates the bids. A successful protest could spell trouble for these efforts to change the federal procurement process. At the same time, if HHS doesn’t get the reaction from industry it hopes for, that too could impact future plans for these types of pilots.

The Buyers Club is one of several innovation initiatives industry and Congress are closely watching.

Responses to the RFP are due Aug. 19

Agencies fail email cyber tests

Federal agencies are not adopting industry best practices for securing their email systems.

Even with the move to the cloud, the Online Trust Alliance, a non-profit organization that focuses on enhancing trust and user empowerment of the Web, found only the House of Representatives and the Senate received passing grades when it comes to email cybersecurity.

OTA looked at the adoption of three critical email authentication standards across the top 50 federal websites, the top 100 FDIC insured banks, the top 500 Internet retailers, the top 50 social media sites and the top 50 news or media sites.

“By implementing email authentication, organizations can help protect their brands and consumers from receiving spoofed and forged email,” OTA said in the report. “There has been growth in the deployment of email authentication in all industry sectors, yet major and systemic issues remain. The failure to apply authentication standards comprehensively risks placing consumers and employees in harm’s way. This is often the result of companies authenticating only selected sub-domains and failing to authenticate their top level domain which is the domain most often abused. The inconsistent use of authentication is like reinforcing and locking the front door to your house, while leaving your side door or garage doors wide open.”

Among the Fed 50, OTA found only 4 percent adopted email authentication best practices, such as Domain Keys Identified Mail and not publishing their Domain- based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance records.

OTA recommended adopting email authentication across all channels and domains. It said implementing inbound email authentication to protect employees and corporate data from spear phishing is important too.

IT Job of the Week What a challenge this job would be: the chief information security and senior privacy officer for the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. One of the most customer focused and citizen centric organizations in government. CMS holds the personal data of hundreds of millions of Americans, and it would be your job to protect that information. The CISO/CPO would provide expert advice and collaborate with CMS’ organizations in developing, promoting and maintaining IT security and privacy measures to protect sensitive information. Applications are due by Aug. 31.

MORE INSIDE THE REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK:

Inside the Reporter’s Notebook: Category management launches five pilots; more vendor past performance data

Inside the Reporter’s Notebook: FedRAMP compliance results months away, OMB’s word of the year: Effectiveness

“Inside the Reporter’s Notebook” is a biweekly dispatch of news and information you may have missed or that slipped through the cracks at conferences, hearings and the like.

This is not a column nor commentary — it’s news tidbits, strongly sourced buzz, and other items of interest that have happened or are happening in the federal IT and acquisition communities.

As always, I encourage you to submit ideas, suggestions and, of course, news to me at jpmiller@federalnewsradio.com.

OMB is not the government’s farm team

I was once told if you ever get a chance to work at OMB, take it. It’s filled with incredibly dedicated, hardworking career staff who are the best of the best.

Too bad the Obama White House doesn’t seem to understand that.

I was going to write about OMB’s budget request and how their staff is down by 11 percent since 2010, yet their workload has increased — 40 mentions of OMB in the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act as compared to 18 mentions of OMB in the original GPRA in 1993.

But the budget request doesn’t really matter if the White House can’t keep consistent leadership at the helm.

The nomination of Director Sylvia Burwell as the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services makes sense, but it’s not a good decision by White House leaders.

It’s not that Burwell isn’t qualified to be HHS secretary. She’s shown in the 12 months as OMB director that she plans on doing some good things. She is cool under pressure before Congress and seems to understand the need to rebuild OMB, requesting a $4.2 million increase in its budget for 2015.

But the decision also shows the lack of understanding by the White House of the importance of OMB — the same thing can be said about GSA and the Office of Personnel Management, for that matter.

Not having consistent leadership is hurting OMB’s standing in the federal community. I’ve heard this from several current government executives and former OMB staff members. OMB doesn’t carry the influence it once did, and that has a ripple effect across how well the government is managed.

None of the OMB directors during the Obama administration has stayed on the job for more than 18 months — Peter Orzag, 18 months; Jack Lew, 14 months; Burwell, 12 months. And Jeff Zients has been acting twice and, possibly, is in line for a third go around considering OMB deputy director for management Beth Cobert has been in government for a very short amount of time and has no previous federal experience, and Brian Deese, the deputy director for budget, is more of a numbers guy than the type of political insider needed to deal with Congress.

Compare the Obama administration’s record with OMB directors with the previous two administrations:

President George W. Bush: Mitch Daniels, 29 months; Josh Bolten, 34 months, Rob Portman, 13 months, Jim Nussle, 16 months- end of administration;

President Bill Clinton: Leon Panetta, 21 months; Alice Rivlin, 18 months; Franklin Raines, 20 months; Jacob Lew, 32 months-end of administration.

This means most of the previous OMB directors had time to create relationships with Congress, go through at least two budget cycles and influence management concepts across government. Additionally, almost all of the former OMB directors came to lead OMB with connections to Congress already. That is not necessarily true for the Obama leadership, and that has hurt its effectiveness.

Moving OMB directors in and out quickly also causes others to be thrust into acting roles and that has a snowball effect. Again, it’s not about the effectiveness of the people in acting roles — Danny Werfel was acting deputy director for management and became the acting IRS commissioner — but there is an importance that is attached to being permanent versus acting and how management issues are focused upon across the government.

Burwell will be a successful HHS secretary, but it’s a shame it’s at the expense of governmentwide management.

GSA pumps up new approach to buying

S trategic sourcing on steroids. That may be the best way to describe the General Services Administration’s new category management concept rolled out by Tom Sharpe, Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner, Wednesday in a blog post.

A year ago when he was about a month on the job, Sharpe told me one of his main goal was to grow the federal market share of FAS, including the schedules. In fiscal 2012, FAS brought in about $55 billion in sales, about 13.5 percent of all acquisition spending. Sharpe said he’d like to see FAS’ share increase to about 17 percent.

Through category management, Sharpe said GSA can provide a more coordinated, strategic approach to governmentwide purchasing and more cost savings.

“Category management essentially looks at product or services categories the way a business might look at its own strategic business units, and then works on customizing purchase channels to better meet customer needs and market demands. Category management also provides deep-dive market analysis and addresses supply chain management; it can even help with changing behaviors, and reducing demand,” Sharpe wrote in the blog. “For FAS, this means we are identifying core categories of business around which we will develop a higher level of expertise, and then leveraging this expertise to direct and guide buyers to the best solutions for them, and ultimately those in the best interest of the taxpayers, regardless of where that solution comes from. Sometimes that solution will be a GSA contract vehicle and other times, it might be another agency’s contract vehicle.”

Think of category management as a highway with an assortment of stops along the way. Contracting officers or program managers eventually will access a series of tools and resources through a new Common Acquisition Platform (CAP).

“CAP will provide access and insights into transactional (purchasing/pricing) data from across government and reduce the need for maintaining redundant and duplicative acquisition vehicles, systems and tools,” Sharpe wrote. “GSA has a unique position in the government marketplace as a repository of purchasing information and expertise related to best practices, buying behaviors, and prices paid. Through the CAP, GSA will make this information and expertise easily accessible online for all government buyers. We will help buyers navigate the process and the universe of purchasing options, thereby helping them to drive down prices, reduce price variability and make smarter purchases.”

The tools or resources that FAS will make available on CAP include:

• Procurement Optimizer: A comprehensive contract-comparison search engine that enhances competition for government acquisition.
• Market Intelligence Center: Category-centric market research materials that guide purchase decisions based on a category manager’s governmentwide expertise.
• Clear View: Real-time data on pricing and purchasing, as well as assessment tools that help provide a big-picture view of government and individual agency spending behavior.
• Collaborative Contracting Library: Provides a resource to jump-start procurements with a central repository of exemplary contract work for complex buys compiled by community experts.
• eMarketplace: An eCommerce transaction platform for simple purchases.

“Initially, we are focusing on a concept we call ‘Category Hallways.’ Here is how the hallways will eventually work. Before any federal buyer goes out to the marketplace with a procurement, they will enter CAP through a digital gateway and choose a category, or search for the product or service they need,” Sharpe wrote. “From there they will virtually ‘walk’ down a hallway which houses everything from subject expertise and data, to tools and on-demand procurement assistance. All of which is specific to exactly what they are looking to purchase. The hallways will house both advice and acquisition sources that governmentwide category managers have determined would help professionals make better buying decisions.”

One last point, the blog post seems to be the final piece to a year-long discussion with vendors, associations and agencies to put a finer point on the concept of category management. Now the hard work begins — implementation and education.

Reaction to category management has been cautiously optimistic.

Larry Allen, the president of Allen Federal Business Partners and a long-time GSA expert, said if the goal is to replace GSA Advantage then category management is a good thing.

“Advantage was great for what it was, but we need a 21st Century marketplace in the federal arena. A flexible emarketplace could be that,” he said. “I also like the idea of a collaborative library being available to share best practices. The key will be to drive people to use it. It has the potential to be a good tool, but only if potential users know about it. How will GSA do this? The market intelligence and clear view initiatives, I think, have a real risk of driving unintended consequences.”

Allen said the first concern is around how a database of “like buys” could work because pricing decisions have multiple variables and it would be difficult for any automated system to capture all of those inputs.

He said another concern is if contractors know their discounts will be made available to all agencies, then there may be less spot discounting and, therefore, the government may end up paying more than previously.

“GSA needs to be reminded of the old adage ‘If you lie down with dogs, you’re gonna get fleas.’ The agency will always be able to find people who will sell to you cheaply,” he said. “The question is whether GSA–or its customers–will be comfortable with the new company they keep.”

FAA, GSA kick off security, telecom acquisitions

Two interesting procurement actions came out over the last two weeks that you should know about.

The first is GSA’s request for information for the Network Services 2020 (NS2020) Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) acquisition initiative — one of six program areas under the umbrella program to replace the Networx telecommunications contract.

The second is a draft statement of work from the Federal Aviation Administration to run its security operations centers (SOC) under the Security Line of Business effort.

Wait, that still exists? This is one of the few mentions of the security LOB in the past five years around SOC shared services.

In fact, OMB’s own report to Congress on E-Government benefits doesn’t mention the security operations center as part of the LOB.

The FAA is one of eight agencies under the security LOB to provide shared services.

The Office of Management and Budget named four agencies — the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Public Debt; the Interior Department’s National Business Center; the Transportation Department’s Federal Aviation Administration Enterprise Service Center; and the Justice Department — in 2009 as shared service providers for certification and accreditation services.

It also named four agencies — the departments of Defense and State, the Agency for International Development and the Office of Personnel Management — in 2007 to provide Federal Information Security Management Act training.

Agencies have taken advantage of the Justice Department’s shared service for certification and accreditation, called Cyber Security Assessment and Management (CSAM), but there’s been less discussion about shared security operations centers. Additionally, a lot of the efforts around the Security LOB have been to set up blanket purchase agreements for different levels of security awareness training.

FAA is looking for operations and maintenance support for hardware and software platforms, tools to perform event correlation, data reduction and anomalous event detection, and situational awareness and an up-to-date snapshot of cyber events that are on-going within the world of cybersecurity

In reading the draft statement of work, it seems the FAA is looking to create a continuous monitoring shared service center, which would make a lot more sense given the requirement by OMB and the Homeland Security Department to move a more dynamic approach to cybersecurity.

Now why they just didn’t say that is unclear.

Comments to the draft SOW are due April 22.

One former DHS official says FAA may be making a play at servicing small and micro agencies under the CDM program. FAA recently lost one of its largest customers, the Education Department, which decided to bring a SOC in house. The former DHS official says they were surprised to see FAA come out with the draft RFP.

As for the NS2020 RFI, this is among the first specifics GSA has released about its new strategy.

GSA expects to issue a solicitation for EIS in spring of fiscal 2015 with a contract length of up to 15 years.

The RFI details eight categories of products and services under EIS, including voice and video, network security and equipment, data center and managed services.

“This scope is intended to allow agencies to acquire comprehensive solutions through the EIS ordering process without having to compete and integrate multiple procurement actions across multiple GSA or other vehicles,” GSA stated in the RFI.

Reponses to the RFI are due May 8.

GSA has said it’s using lessons from the arduous and delayed transition to Networx in the planning for NS2020. Agencies took about 33 months more than expected and the government ended up spending almost $400 million more than it should have for telecommunications services because of these delays, according to the Government Accountability Office.

It will be interesting to see industry reaction to this RFI. Telecommunications firms were frustrated with the Networx process, but pleased that agencies continued to pay them well as they transitioned mostly to like services instead of taking more advantage of new technologies and new approaches to telecommunications.

IT Job of the Week

This week’s winner is the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and its search for a new chief information officer. Rus Pittman held that role since May 2010. FDIC promoted Pittman to a new position as director of the Division of Information Technology. Martin Henning is the acting CIO and chief privacy officer.

In case you are interested in knowing what you may be getting into, Pittman outlined his priorities in April 2013, including a more specific focus on mission area IT improvements.

Out&About

• The Professional Services Council is hosting OMB’s Cobert on Tuesday to discuss security clearances in Arlington, Va.
• On Thursday, AFFIRM has a good discussion on the future and evolving roles of the CIO featuring Kevin Cooke, HUD’s CIO; Simon Szykman, the outgoing Commerce CIO; David Bray, the FCC CIO; Paul Brubaker, DoD’s director of planning and performance management in the Office of the Deputy Chief Management Office; and former federal CIO Karen Evans.
• The AFCEA Northern Virginia chapter is hosting Maj. Gen. Wendy Masiello, the Air Force’s outgoing deputy assistant security for contracting and nominee to be the next head of the Defense Contract Management Agency, on Friday.

RELATED STORIES:

March 28 — Inside the Reporter’s Notebook: DoD taking own path with cloud security, Treasury’s Reger joins OMB

March 14 — Inside the Reporter’s Notebook: USPS cloud credential exchange almost ready, flood of GSA contract protests

Feb. 28 — Inside the Reporter’s Notebook: CIO switching DHS components, HUD stuck in 2005