Being able to efficiently and effectively diagnose the health of an organization’s portfolio of contracts takes time and persistence. Earned Value Management (EVM), a project management technique for measuring project performance and progress, makes it possible. However, those in the federal sector, including EVM experts, need to do more to communicate its value for increased …
Continue reading “EVM – Communicating its value to the “big A” acquisition community”
Imagine working in a high stress environment where contract support for a mission critical program may expire at the end of the month and there is no backup plan. Your organization had plans to re-compete the contract earlier in the fiscal year, but the procurement package or requisition was not developed on time. Several documents …
Continue reading “Procurement: Meeting the PALT in Four Simple Steps (UPDATE)”
As you probably observed weekend, maximizing treats and minimizing tricks is a primary objective of the annual Halloween ritual; as is the case when making decisions. A properly performed Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) maximizes the high value information you take in and minimize the low value information to increase the odds of making sound decisions, which …
Continue reading “Tricks or Treats? Depends on Cost Benefit Analyses”
“Quality” may be one of the more over-used and least-thought-about words in our business vernacular. We’ve gone through cycles where we used different terms to characterize our attempts to “do” quality better. Remember Total Quality Management? How about the focus on ISO 9000? And more recently, “Six Sigma,” “Lean,” and “Agile” have emerged as concepts …
Continue reading “What Is Quality and How Is It Achieved In a Service Environment? – Part One”
Can you think of a time when you said to yourself, “there’s got to be a better way to do this?” I know I can. We’re always looking for ways to make our business practices and our lives more efficient. Standardization provides an answer. It can help increase productivity and efficiency by defining expectations, formalizing …
Continue reading “How Standardization Can Improve Contract Management”
Facing an aging workforce, the question of how to train the next generation of acquisition professionals is a challenge that federal leaders and industry managers have yet to solve. The need for training is great, but budgets and time are often limited. Senior government procurement executives and practitioners say agencies have cut training dollars even …
Continue reading “Acquisition Workforce Training – Rethink Your Approach”
In this digital age, we depend on our computers and devices for so much that we need to be constantly proactive to protect against cyber threats and attacks. Multiple studies show that government, corporations, and individuals are being increasingly targeted. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for example, said federal cybersecurity incidents were up …
There is an old saying, “the second act is the best” because it delves deeper into the meat of a story, including challenges and the rising actions in response to them. So it may be with the story of Government performance management. Federal Managers have seen many plot twists impacting governance since the early 90’s when …
Continue reading “Performance Management Act II – Overcoming Challenges”
Imagine working in a high stress environment where contract support for a mission critical program may expire at the end of the month and there is no backup plan. Your organization had plans to re-compete the contract earlier in the fiscal year, but the procurement package or requisition was not developed on time. Several documents …
Continue reading “Procurement: Meeting the PALT in Four Simple Steps”
Integrity just completed relocation to an expanded new headquarters this week, custom-built to meet the needs and goals of the business in 2015 and beyond. Like any major project, it involved complex planning, thousands of individual decisions, and frequent deadlines that had to be met to move on to the next phase, and ultimately project …
Continue reading “Milestone Decisions: Checkpoints for Acquisition Success”
