Acquisition Obstacles/Myth Busting in Shared Services

Acquisition Obstacles/Myth Busting: Share best practices or lessons learned or make recommendations for changes around acquisition policies that impact sharing services and/or IT modernization procurements that inhibit agencies and industry from getting to the desired results.

Background:
As federal agencies look to share more and adopt modern technologies to “run like a business”, it is more important than ever that: agencies understand the acquisition policies that impact sharing services and IT modernization procurements, and; if needed, recommendations for changes are made so that the government’s desired outcomes can be achieved. This project will examine the real or perceived obstacles that agencies face when looking to share and/or modernize IT from a procurement perspective and 1) identify best practices and lessons learned from other agencies that could be leveraged government-wide and 2) make policy recommendations to address challenges where it is believed the FAR is limiting the government’s ability to achieve the desired results.

Project Proposal Overview

Aspect	Proposed Approach
Overall Project Objective	Share best practices and lessons learned or make recommendations for changes around acquisition policies that impact sharing services and/or IT modernization procurements that inhibit agencies and industry from getting to the desired results.
Project Approach	Identify a set of real or perceived acquisition obstacles to focus on (e.g., length of IT software contracts). Research and scope the obstacles to understand the current landscape and desired outcomes (e.g., examining the FAR, contract language in various agency contracts, interviewing agencies) Develop an initial set of best practices with specific agency examples and policy recommendations Discuss the initial draft best practices and recommendations with a set of government SMEs for feedback Refine outputs and create deliverables
Anticipated Duration	6 months
Anticipated Outcomes	Presentation Decks of Findings: Executive Summary and Details Presentation of Findings to Key Policy Makers and Implementers Present or use as Discussion item for Shared Service Conference
Government Champions	TBD