OMB, ACT-IAC launch website to improve acquisition process

Management

OMB, ACT-IAC launch website to improve acquisition process

The groups have launched a website, asking for public input in an effort to improve the acquisitions process between government and industry.

Federal News Network Staff

February 15, 2011 6:12 pm

2 min read

wfedstaff | June 3, 2015 9:12 pm

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By John Buckner
Federal News Radio

A public-private partnership is trying to put to rest some of the most common acquisitions myths that are hampering the ability of the government to successfully complete acquisitions.

The Office of Management and Budget and the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) have launched BettergovernmentIT.org to let people post “myths” about the federal acquisition process in order to improve it.

Ben Coit, chair of the Acquisition Management Shared Interest Group at ACT-IAC, and Tom Suder, the ACT-IAC lead for the mythbusters dialogue effort, told the DorobekINSIDER about the online tool to provide an open forum for these conversations. Users have until Feb. 28 to provide their feedback.

“The main objective of this site is how do we improve communication between government and industry during the IT acquisition process?” Coit said.

The website provides users with four different categories to post a myth:

Government communication myths
Industry communication myths
Communication impediments
Communication best practices

Users are encouraged to put their names on the posts but do not necessarily have to. Once a myth has been posted, users can either comment on them or vote for them anonymously.

“We want to collect all the ideas and then we are going to go back to our friends over at the Acquisitions Management Group, that’s Ben, and his group is going to go over all the ideas that were submitted and produce a deliverable that we can hand over to the government that has some of the best ideas,” Suder said.

This open forum grew out of OMB’s memo highlighting 10 common myths that hinder government-industry communication released earlier this month.

“The overall goal is to develop actual recommendations so the government can be more effective in their mission by improving the quality of proposals that come in through effective communications,” Coit said. “The government’s mission is going to be better served by industry.”

John Buckner is an intern with Federal News Radio.

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