Rep. Mike Gallagher on multiyear procurement, budget, and oversight
Here’s a slice from a great episode of Hondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula’s Building the Base podcast with Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI). The Pentagon doesn’t […]
OTA
Podcast: Getting weapons into production with USD A&S Bill LaPlante
The Undersecretary for Acquisition & Sustainment (USD A&S) Bill LaPlante joined us at the 2022 Conference hosted by George Mason University and Defense Acquisition University. […]
Consortia-based OTAs larger, but slower growing than stand-alone OTA
The same day I dropped the podcast on Stephanie Halcrow and Moshe Schwartz’s event on industry consortia, the GAO released its own report Other Transaction […]
How SOCOM makes price tradeoffs to accelerate contract delivery
Here is Paul Weisgarber and Noel Burke on the Air Force Contracting Experience podcast discussing their experience working with Special Operations Command (SOCOM) through the […]
Defense primes have an advantage in OTAs due to a quirk in IRAD
I was tipped off recently that there’s a weird loophole in contractor independent research and development (IRAD) that gives them a significant advantage when it […]
Other Transactions continued growing in FY21, but will it soon level off?
Contracts using other transaction authority saw another year of growth in the Department of Defense, but only when excluding awards for COVID-19. Obligations unrelated to […]
Podcast: Other Transactions Authorities
In this episode of Acquisition Talk, we listen in on a recent event on Other Transactions Authority hosted by George Mason University’s Center for Government […]
Time is running out for DoD with Silicon Valley
To those at Reagan National Defense Forum #RNDF, if there’s one BLUF you take away from the weekend, you should know: Time is running out […]
All that acquisition reform, and scaling programs still looks like the old system
When we think of alternative acquisition, that tends to be other-transaction authority and middle-tier acquisition. For [Jonathan] Etherton, these prototyping mechanisms amount to a […]
GMU Playbook: Reduce risk with modular contracting
In this week’s blog post on Mason GovCon’s acquisition playbook study, we discuss modular contracting for software-intensive systems. The Federal Acquisition Regulation prefers modular contracting […]
Did SpaceX and Palantir transform government contracting? A VC’s view
The DoD is starting to run commercial-like procurement processes as opposed to purely cost-plus contracting. In traditional government contracting, the government comes up with a […]
DoDIG finds issues in OT reporting, consortium mgmt fees, and more
There was no consistency on how to report the value in FPDS‑NG and each contracting office may report the information differently… When a contracting office […]
Podcast: Intellectual Property in Defense Contracts
In this special episode of the Acquisition Talk podcast, we listen in to a great conversation on intellectual property in defense. The panel is moderated […]
Analysis: How DoD supports the COVID-19 response using Other Transactions
The DoD’s extensive contracting workforce is closely supporting Health and Human Services in executing Other Transactions (OT) contracts for COVID-19 under the joint Operation Warp […]
NASA sets a model using high-level requirements and letting private companies innovate
The cost-saving success of @Commercial_Crew is based on @NASA establishing high-level requirements and letting private companies innovate. For the Artemis Moon base, NASA will establish […]