How the Federal Government Can Make Procurement Great Again

The partnership between government and industry can be a sticky one: Government is not always the best customer, while some vendors fail to live up to the promises they make to secure contracts.

As long as that disconnect exists, IT users will suffer, and so will those who rely on government services. But there’s hope, according to one government innovator who spoke on Wednesday at the 2016 NASCIO Midyear Conference in Baltimore.

“We want to make acquisition joyful,” said David Zvenyach, the director of acquisition management for 18F, a digital services office within the General Services Administration that focuses on bringing new ideas to government.

Changing the Procurement Process

To do that, Zvenyach wants to shorten the government procurement process. It's a goal long desired by many federal workers, but Zvenyach may have the tools to achieve it. These include using agile practices with shorter deliverables, more communication between product and technical leads, and purchasing officers that actually work the length of the contract as opposed to leaving once the ink is dry.

“Sometimes government loves vendors so hard it crushes them,” Zvenyach said. “We need to understand how to work with vendors in a sustainable way. For government, that may include taking on more risk.”

The best example may be mobile technology. The first iPhone was released in June 2007, and over the past nine years the popular device has dramatically shaped the technology landscape. Out of the phone’s creation came the need for responsive design, faster websites and enhanced cellular and Wi-Fi networks.

Now, consider that some government contracts go back 10 years. An agency theoretically could have signed an agreement before the first iPhone hit the market — and that contract would still be in effect today. While government has tried to reduce risk with longer deals through exhaustive bidding processes, it ultimately has hamstrung itself.

Zvenyach wants procurement to be done in weeks, not months. His project, Agile Blanket Purchase Agreements, will create software that government vendors can use to compete for software acquisition projects. Announced in January, Agile BPAs are open to existing vendors on Schedule 70, and require them to submit a working prototype based on a public data set — and then show their work in a publicly available Git repository.

The process, though, goes well beyond procurement methodology. For it to truly work, Zvenyach said, agencies need to improve communication.

“There needs to be internal communication with the agencies to understand what is really needed, and then a constant dialogue with the vendor,” Zvenyach said. “There has to be constant engagement. Every day government needs to show up to communicate, and every day vendors need to show up.”

In many ways, Zvenyach said, government has tried to protect itself too much. One example: contracts that put the onus heavily on just one vendor. Such contracts leave government with “only one throat to choke” when things go wrong, Zvenyach said ­— but they also can lead to large failures, such as the initial healthcare.gov rollout.

“The challenge is how to get procurement cycles to match up with agile development cycles,” Zvenyach said. “There is a lot of potential to change procurement within government. Technology today demands it.”

For more on the federal procurement process, check out FedTechMagazine.com/procurement.

This content is made possible by FedTech. The editorial staff of Nextgov was not involved in its preparation.