It’s the time of year when many of us take stock of the last 12 months and vow to improve next year. We will be smarter, more organized, perhaps even try something new. The numerous Integrity Matters articles written by our on-the-ground experts in 2014 provide a leg up for the New Year. They contain …
Continue reading “Acquisition and Program Management Tools for 2015”
As a Program Manager, have you noticed a trend that your program keeps on repeating the same lessons learned or mistakes? As a program, when completing a yearly reporting requirement, do you hear yourself stating to your staff that we did not complete x, y, or z in order to fulfill our operational requirements? If …
In this time of tight budgets and potential loss of global technological superiority, the need for innovation is greater than ever. As Frank Kendall, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics shared with an audience of defense industry leaders recently, “We have to focus more on innovation, and we have to get better capability …
Continue reading “3 Tools Worth Reading to Spur Innovative Federal IT Acquisition”
Since 2001, software developers have used the Agile methodology, employing short sprints and cross-team collaboration, to bring products to market faster with earlier customer input. Others have begun to apply the tenets of Agile beyond IT to the general field of acquisition. Why? To speed results, lower risk, and benefit from lessons learned throughout the …
Continue reading “AGILE ACQUISITION SUPPORT: REAL-WORLD CONSIDERATIONS”
No matter how products and services are being acquired, financial analysis can help in decision making to acquire the requirements in the best and most cost effective ways. Federal Government acquisition uses frameworks and processes that leverage several financial tools to maximize the value procured from the solution while decreasing the risk of wasted resources. …
Continue reading “Better Acquisition Decisions through Financial Analysis – Part 2”
Government spending has become a political football, and with budget cuts and sequestration, there is greater pressure to spend taxpayer dollars in the most cost effective way and to be able to prove that we are doing so. It seems like a daunting challenge, as more scrutiny has been placed on Federal programs that are …
Continue reading “Better Acquisition Decisions through Financial Analysis”
Does this sound familiar? Mission and business owners define their requirements, “throw them over the fence”, and then the contracting and contractor community conduct activities to obtain and deliver the contracted solutions. But what about rapid changes in technology, short development time frames, reduced budgets, or greater complexity? These risks in execution lead to schedule …
Continue reading “Use the “A” Team for Integrated Acquisition Planning”
Your team may have spent hours and hours considering the program management, risk management and quality assurance issues involved in letting a new government contract. But have you pulled the key information about how that contract will be managed into a single plan? A Contract Management Plan (CMP) is one of the primary tools the …
Continue reading “With A Great Contract Management Plan, The Sky is the Limit”
With Labor Day weekend over, it’s full steam ahead for government agencies and those who support them. For some, telework will be part of the mix as teams manage the fiscal year-end rush. Recently I started supporting a federal agency where telework is encouraged and systems are in place to enable one or more days …
Continue reading “How to Make Telework Succeed for Your Team”
Congratulations! It’s your first day at your new job as a Program Manager (PM). The last few days have been a whirlwind. You got the call from your director that you had been selected to replace the PM for one of the smaller programs in the portfolio. The previous PM had been reassigned and you …
Continue reading “How an Integrated Master Schedule Can Avert Program Management Disaster”
