The Buzz with ACT-IAC
The Buzz with ACT-IAC
ICYMI: Acquisition Alchemy
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This episode features a panel discussion from ACT-IAC's Imagine Nation ELC event focused on modernizing government acquisition processes, overcoming bureaucratic inertia, and fostering innovation within the constraints of federal regulations. They explore the significance of connecting to mission, embracing new procurement methods like OTs and CSOs, and the importance of challenging assumptions and fostering a culture of infinite learning and innovation.
Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform to never miss an episode! For more from ACT-IAC, follow us on LinkedIn or visit http://www.actiac.org.
Learn more about membership at https://www.actiac.org/join.
Donate to ACT-IAC at https://actiac.org/donate.
Intro/Outro Music: See a Brighter Day/Gloria Tells
Courtesy of Epidemic Sound
(Episodes 1-159: Intro/Outro Music: Focal Point/Young Community
Courtesy of Epidemic Sound)
Harrison Smith: [00:00:00] For, I don't know, like 10 or 15 years at some point at the risk of, yeah, decades as Scott says. Um, so, uh, I, I will apologize. There will probably be some banter back and forth that you might not normally, uh, uh, associate with a moderator. So I'll try to do my best to, to live, live up to the, uh, the best in the three piece suit, um, with these folks.
Harrison Smith: Uh, just a quick announcement. Um, unfortunately Shannon Webers, um, uh, she had a, a last minute issue and will not be able to join us this morning. Um, I may may chime in at some point, uh, with some perspective from, from FDIC when I, uh, was assigned on a detail there. Uh, because I think it's an important, uh, perspective from a, a non far based entity, um, that, that is not subject to the competition and contracting act, but still has a lot of its policies structured around, um, and housed within, within the far.
Harrison Smith: Um, so although I have known you too for quite some time, we're gonna do introductions here for those of us, uh, for folks who have not, um, a senior heard of. I do see some familiar faces. Uh, I was threatened [00:01:00] with heckling and or throwing of pennies earlier, especially 'cause they don't longer manufacture them.
Harrison Smith: Uh, but again, my name is Harrison Smith. Uh, I am with, uh, in a firm called Easy Dynamics. We are a cybersecurity icam and, uh, cloud company. I've been with them for coming up about on a year now. Uh, prior to that I was with, uh, various government agencies, primarily the Naval Sea Systems Command, working on the refueling and complex overhaul of the CVN 70, um, as well as some major weapon assistance programs.
Harrison Smith: I went to DHS in oh five and was there doing, uh, rad nuke detection contracting work. Um, at the tail end of my time there around 20 15, 16 and 17, uh, I really got into the innovation space. And please note, uh, Scott's socks. They are procurement innovation lab socks. They're fantastic. Um, so I very much respect them.
Harrison Smith: Um, then I went to, uh, the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury, uh, where I was an executive. Over procurement. And I also set up a team, uh, and supported them in digitalization, transformation [00:02:00] and innovation projects. So that's, that's my background. Bonnie?
Bonnie Evangelista: Yes. Bonnie Evangelista. I met Harrison when I was with the Department of Homeland Security.
Bonnie Evangelista: I, as soon as I graduated college, I joined the acquisition workforce. I don't know if that was a good or bad idea. Mm. But very good for us. It, I, I started in one of their intern programs. That's how I met Harrison. I was one of the quote unquote interns who was gonna grow up in the field very quickly. Uh, because at the time, and this is 2008 era when I graduated, uh, there was a recognition in the Department of Homeland Security that every, all the boomers were gonna retire.
Bonnie Evangelista: And they needed a pipeline of professionals coming in behind the Boomer. So I was in cohort number two of A PCP and I got my, I cut my teeth in contracting. I was an operational contracting officer, predominantly for the transportation security administration for a little over eight years. And I did TSA version of major weapon systems.
Bonnie Evangelista: You know, I bought all [00:03:00] the, everything from checkpoint to check baggage screening systems, maintenance testing services. I did qualification, vetting and processes, um, every, all cradle to grave procurement lifecycle things. And that's where I got my foundations from. And it wasn't until I transitioned to the Department of Army in 2018 when I started understanding this quote unquote innovation space.
Bonnie Evangelista: And, uh, it was first introduced to me as a rapid acquisition environment. And that's where I started really playing with these things we're gonna talk about today and that you might be familiar with. For those of you who are in the back room, I invite you to come to the front. There's a booklet that I'm gonna reference throughout a lot of my commentary.
Bonnie Evangelista: Some people might already have it. Um, it's, it's an artifact that kind of demonstrates a lot of the themes that I not only learned but practiced many, many times. I think Scott can relate to this as well. Uh, I started in the defensive cyber arena and was trying to buy [00:04:00] a lot of software. 'cause as you can imagine, surprise, surprise, this has not changed.
Bonnie Evangelista: By the way, we can't buy software fast enough before it's obsolete. So that was the problem in 2018. I built their entire, or I helped build the entire rapid acquisition environment using other transaction authorities. I then later went to the joint artificial intelligence center and I really scaled that thinking.
Bonnie Evangelista: That started there into what that book shows, the, this whole Tradewinds environment and really started playing with other non-traditional, and not new, but non-traditional, but maybe novel. Practices, uh, underutilized tools in the toolbox I would call it. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that today.
Bonnie Evangelista: Um, so I have lots of experience doing this, and then I later, um, I'm, I'm currently still with the Department of War. Um, I'm transitioning to the industrial based Policy Office.
Scott Simpson: I've got my own, my thank you. Oh, I'm, uh, Scott Simpson. I was an operational contracting officer with [00:05:00] the Department of Homeland Security for 10 plus years before moving on to the DHS Procurement Innovation Lab, uh, where we kind of championed innovation to meet the mission better, faster, smarter.
Scott Simpson: Um, and I just transferred, uh, after that I spent a little bit of time. I was with the pill for about six years. Uh, just last March I moved over to GSA, where I helped do the revolutionary for our overhaul. Uh, I left after phase with Bonnie. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I, we both left after phase one, I guess. Yes. Um, and I'm now with, uh, KO Ag Government Services doing, uh, business process automation and artificial intelligence.
Scott Simpson: Um, and so I'll just kind of piggyback on where to start here. When I was an operational contracting officer, I'd heard about these non far things, but everyone kind of told me, oh no, that's the lazy way to do it. Or, oh, no, if their, if their customer wants to use a non far, like an OT or whatever, it's because they're trying to get around the far rules.
Scott Simpson: And that was a bad thing. And, but now I, you know, after working with the pill, after doing some [00:06:00] non-fire, it's like that's the whole point is to get around the far things. Right. Um,
Bonnie Evangelista: it's, it's not wrong. It's just different. Exactly. Right. That, that was one of our mantras. Yeah.
Scott Simpson: Um, and so working with the, uh, DHS Innovation Lab, um, really got to see a lot of, um, CSOPs, the commercial solutions opening pilot that's like our bread and butter.
Scott Simpson: Um, OTs not as much, but they're getting a little bit more, we're pushing for, um, the small business innovative research program, phase threes. Um, and the kind of focus that we were taking on it was the cultural mindset. The reason that these weren't being adopted is because of culture and because of this negative connotation with them,
Harrison Smith: and that is what they would call foreshadowing.
Harrison Smith: Ladies and gentlemen, that will be a reoccurring theme here. Um, and again, I would recommend you, uh, if whether or not you are brave enough to hop up here, uh, as we're talking, which is totally fine, but some of the artifacts that Bonnie was talking about, um, I actually through, it's actually not [00:07:00] the book that's there, but, uh, if you can see this, that's, sorry, that's Easy Dynamics.
Harrison Smith: That's my firm. But life is too short to do something. Uh, life is too short to not do something that matters. So, um, it's really, uh, very much not only a, uh, skill, uh, and, uh, tactical, um, set of information that you can use, uh, but also frankly, it's, it's inspirational. And so, um, it's a lot of really good stuff.
Harrison Smith: What is it? Acquisition? Uh, it's not rocket fuel, rocket science. I'm just kidding. I'm trying to feed it up for you. Rocket fuel. There we go. Yeah, there we go. So Ian, Bonnie, if I may, one of the first questions, um. As part of, you know, what you've worked with, you mentioned tradewinds, uh, and other innovative acquisition methods.
Harrison Smith: Like, so there's a, a broad issue, and I wanna start from sort of the very, the very top before we get into some of the, the tactical implementation questions around SRS or OTAs or CSOPs or, or challenges or prizes. I, when folks are starting to do this from the acquisition procurement space, um, what should they, from the government's perspective really be paying attention to?
Harrison Smith: And, and [00:08:00] how should industry perhaps best be positioned to support, um, an office or an individual who is starting to delve into that area
Bonnie Evangelista: there? My two things, there's a, for me, you have to always challenge assumptions. In Scott's scenario, somebody told him it was the way around. The actual way of doing business.
Bonnie Evangelista: Um, I literally heard people tell me I was gonna go to jail if I use these procedures. Um, things like that and what, whatever it is that might be the barrier. You have to constantly challenge it. And just from a curious nature as a curious person, not as a, you have to do it my way, but be like, uh, I think when I was at TSA, they, my whys were, and it, the team was like, I was the person who always would be like, but why?
Bonnie Evangelista: But why, but why? And, um, but I was doing it 'cause I honestly wanted to understand because the outcomes didn't match [00:09:00] what people say they wanted to have. So you have to have this curiosity that maybe isn't asked of you. You have to recognize it yourself and do it. And then number two, um, if anyone's familiar with the DAU contracting cone.
Bonnie Evangelista: Which is not really a cone, it's a fan, right? It's, I think if it's a 3D model, it's a cone. Um, to be mission ready in the department, you only have to learn like a pizza slice on the DAU contracting cone. But what really makes you an acquisition alchemist is if you know all the tools in the toolbox. So if somebody in your agency trains you to be mission ready and you're only learning a pizza slice of all the tools available to you, you need to proactively seek for yourself.
Bonnie Evangelista: And there's tons of ways to do this, which we might get into, but you have to kind of be your own advocate and be like, what, what's this sipper thing I keep hearing about? Like, who knows about that? Or, you know, doing the thing [00:10:00] like coming to a session like this, but you have to do the work yourself. No one is coming to save you.
Bonnie Evangelista: So I'll start there. Yeah.
Harrison Smith: So, and Bonnie, before we go to you, Scott, about it, can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think there's a difference of something being permitted. Something being permissible and something being promoted or championed or pushed. And, and in that space, like one of the things that I, I found that was especially helpful is, is there are times when you want to communicate to someone, this is the coolest thing ever.
Harrison Smith: This is unbelievable. Nice shiny object. RPA, you know, this is glorious machine learning. Ai, the sparkle button. Exact, exactly. I mean, all of these things. And there are times where you wanna say, well it's, it's not really RPA, it's like mail merch. It's not, it's not machine learning. It's sticky keys. Uh, and it's not artificial intelligence.
Harrison Smith: It's ask achieves. Right? This is not something big. This is not something fancy. And here, let me show you why, because the pill did a solicitation or trade winds did this example, and [00:11:00] it's been cleared and it's been vetted, um, by other government entities. Um, you know, in that space around permitted versus promoted and, and pushed and championed.
Harrison Smith: Um, what was your experience with being able to say, Hey, this isn't something necessarily new or special. We can do this. It's allowed. And other government agencies have cleared it. Bonnie, any any thoughts in that space, ma'am?
Bonnie Evangelista: Always, always. Uh, hard truth. Are we ready for candid? Like maybe unpopular opinions?
Bonnie Evangelista: Maybe. Maybe, you know, maybe not. This might be, I got several
Harrison Smith: thumbs up. I think you're good to go. Let's get it. Um,
Bonnie Evangelista: so one, uh, if someone's, the thing for me, for me, my, this is my experience, um, that I, when I realized I can do more than what I was asked to do, that's when, um, momentum happened. So you, whoever has the vision or the inspiration to take a tactic, run a play that's been done before, or do something totally different.
Bonnie Evangelista: I'm gonna [00:12:00] say eight times outta 10. Um, as long as no one's saying no, just keep going. Just keep going. And that's a. That's a gray space kind of thing, right? Like that's, um, you could run it by your boss. You can brief the boss and, or, or whatever. You can do those things, um, if you have good rapports and stuff like that.
Bonnie Evangelista: But most of the time if you have a commander's intent and you have the latitude, just go. And if someone's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, then you can pivot, readjust, whatever. But a lot of times, um, you can probably, you probably control more than you think you control. Right? Now we are in an environment, in the acquisition community where everyone thinks they have to run every little detail by the boss.
Bonnie Evangelista: And sometimes that's true. Sometimes it's not true. Sometimes we, we assume that is true. Um, and so there's a lot of latitude. So figuring out your discretion and where, what is your [00:13:00] span of control is part of being the acquisition alchemist, I would. Offer on the table. No,
Harrison Smith: thanks, Bonnie. That, that, that's great.
Harrison Smith: And, and Scott, I think one of the things that I was always most enamored with as we, as we rolled out the, the pill at DHS was this concept of you would have the top cover from Soray Career, or the pill coaches, or Eric Cho and all, all these folks. Um, and so there would be that guidance, there would be that support, there would be that promotion, um, and then the CO and the CS would work through the process.
Harrison Smith: Uh, and at the end of the process, it, it was so simple, but so elegant and so wonderful. There was actually a, a briefing where the contracting officer and sometimes even successful and unsuccessful offers would sit down, uh, and have a recorded, um, uh, you know, zoom call and say, this is what worked. This is what, what didn't.
Harrison Smith: And it was so, so amazing to me because it took it out of a, a piece of paper or a playbook, which obviously certainly have [00:14:00] their roles. But it took it out and, and you know, if I'm briefing it, it turned into something. Oh, I know Harrison, like he's not that special. Like, I can do those things. I know that person.
Harrison Smith: I sit next to them. Um, I can do these things too. It sort of provided that, that grace and that latitude to say, Hey, not only has somebody done this, but it's somebody I know. And so it becomes, becomes less scary. So that was one of the things that really has always impressed me about the procurement innovation lab.
Harrison Smith: Curious as as to what you see in that space, sir?
Scott Simpson: Yeah, so a lot of those are things that we, we noted. So, um, back last year we stood up a sister org to the Procurement Innovation Lab. We called it the Champions for Alternative Procurement to support the Homeland, which is, is a mouthful, but we called it the capsule.
Scott Simpson: So we had the pill and the capsule. I see what you did there. Right. Um, so the purpose of the caps, the purpose of the pill right, was to streamline the far. One of the big selling points of the pill was, we don't need any deviations. You don't need any special permissions or [00:15:00] authorities. But with the capsule, the big thing was let's get away from the far and start meeting mission with these things that are built to meet mission like OTs and CSOPs and whatever else.
Scott Simpson: And, but we took a lot of the lessons learned from the pill to transfer into the capsule. And some of those are the ones that, like you mentioned, Harrison, like, uh, leadership buy-in. Right? But what we found was it wasn't just at the, the tippy top that you needed to have leadership buy-in. Right? It was really great that Sariah was a champion and like I know Paul Courtney over there is still a champion for the pill and for the capsule, it needs to be closer to, I mean, the CEO on the ground doesn't care about.
Scott Simpson: Um, the chief Procurement Officer, they're probably never gonna meet Paul or Soray, right? But they're gonna bump into their HCA and their division chief and all the other things like on a daily basis. So that's who you need to get to support it. You need the local Cocos, you need the HCAs, you, the division directors.
Scott Simpson: You need their buy-in and not just their [00:16:00] buy-in, but you need them to encourage their teams. And so one of the big things the capsule was doing was going round to all those people and giving them training. We had like these little uh, slick sheet booklets that would give them to say, Hey, here's what we're talking about.
Scott Simpson: Here's when you can use them and we're here to help you. And so it was getting some good traction there. Um, but the other thing that was, we really noted was that with the pill we were just up at headquarters, right? And, you know, we think of DHS as 1D HS, but. It's really not right? There's all these components and even within components there's like different whatevers.
Scott Simpson: And so it's very segmented. Um, so going up to the pill, even though it was encouraged by the CPO, the chief procurement officer, even though it was, you know, we were just advisors, right? Giving advice and guidance, right? We weren't doing anything that to a lot of teams was scary. [00:17:00] Um, and so what we did with the capsule was we stuck up, stood up local branches.
Scott Simpson: So every DHS component had a capsule champion, that was the word we used. 'cause they were gonna champion this. And we gave them on the job training just like we did the, the leaders about here's, here's what we're talking about. We're gonna give you a whole job series on, uh, commercial solutions. We're gonna give you a whole job training on other transactions about sis, um, on all of those things.
Scott Simpson: And we walk through it step by step. Um, and then they had homework. And their homework was to go back, talk with their teams and like identify, maybe not like a future procurement, but think about the ones you've done in the past and think about where you could have used an OT to get a better result. Um, and that was the last thing we were doing with them is, is training them to help answer that question about why, because that's always the question leadership wants to know, [00:18:00] right?
Scott Simpson: Why are we using an OT instead of just going and getting this off a GSA schedule? Um, and we needed to have educated, uh, CEOs who are gonna be able to answer that question to say, well, it's gonna give us more flexibility, it's gonna meet the mission better. Mm-hmm. Um, all of these things versus, I don't know, I was just told to do that.
Scott Simpson: Right? We don't want that in the workforce.
Bonnie Evangelista: So I feel like what Scott is describing sets the table. For new pathways, new ways of doing business. But you, you still might encounter the naysayers, the, the, the people who say no, just because they're stuck in old mindsets. And that's very fair. So al acquisition alchemy tip number one.
Bonnie Evangelista: You have to be able to do your own accusation audit. If, uh, I can think of two examples where that, I've been helping some government buyers recently, and their number one barrier is legal will say no. They, they literally tell me, I, I, I, I'm, I'm, I am recommending to do, doing a non-monetary agreement, uh, to do some [00:19:00] experimentation.
Bonnie Evangelista: They're like, we can't do that. That's not a contract. I'm like, yes, it is a contract. There's consideration, there's value exchange. You know, this is contract law. You know, I'm saying all the data points and there's still, there's this tremendous fear. Legal will say, no, we've tried this before. Legal will say no.
Scott Simpson: And so at the capsule, one of our champions
Bonnie Evangelista: is an attorney,
Scott Simpson: was an attorney advisor.
Bonnie Evangelista: But let's take that at, if you don't have the capsule, you have to address the emotional attachment to the No. And you may not know what that is, but you have to, that this is the curiosity part. You have to figure out what it is.
Bonnie Evangelista: Are they scared, um, of putting their neck out on the ledge? Like, so this is, you know, when I would pitch Tradewinds, I would immediately tell people what I knew they were thinking in the room. Because we had done a ton of, with Tom Suiter's help, by the way, who's in the audience. Uh, we had done a ton of training with acquisition professionals, and when I would brief this amazing new pathway, I'm like, why wouldn't anybody jump on this?
Bonnie Evangelista: The top two answers I got consistently where my boss will say no, or legal will say no. [00:20:00] So before I even talked about the tactic, I had to address why it's legal and I had to address what, like, what they can say to their boss to introduce a new concept. And if I couldn't get there, then everything else I talked about what they would not receive it.
Bonnie Evangelista: So that's like tip number one.
Harrison Smith: No that you didn't
Bonnie Evangelista: ask for it, Harrison, but I just gave it to them.
Harrison Smith: No, I we're gonna have to come back to the accusation audit in a second here. Um, seriously. Uh, but I, I think one of the areas, and I'll, and I'll steal from, from what Shanna Weber's, uh, the, uh, head of contracting over at FDIC would, would've been saying here, um, even though for instance, there are places like the FDIC that are non far based, right?
Harrison Smith: Even though there there other latitudes or you're allowed to do OTAs, right? You're allowed to do, uh, CSOs. I mean, heck, any agency in the federal government is allowed to do a siver phase three. Mm-hmm. I am willing to bet that there's not a hand. Is anyone part of, directly part of a CER phase three in this room?
Scott Simpson: 1,
Harrison Smith: 1, 2,
Scott Simpson: 2, 3, [00:21:00] 4 maybe. Oh,
Harrison Smith: previously, so like two and a half. For a community that is so hungry for intelligent and efficient ways to get industry partners to support what they want, um, that's. Pretty damning, if I may. There's a lot of examples of these types of things and, and I, I will say, I think the counterpoint, and you have to understand this, and I think is that going back to your point of the acquisition audit is that we're all human beings, right?
Harrison Smith: And if someone, someone has created their career around, Hey, in order to get a GS 14, it, it's just a level within, within the federal government, it's usually, uh, identified as a, a senior contracting officer, likely with an unlimited warrant. You have to do a full and open, you have to do a far part 15. And that is by far the most elongated process that we have.
Harrison Smith: And so if you have somebody who said, you know what? I'm gonna do simplified acquisitions first. I'm gonna do commercial career
Bonnie Evangelista: based competitions. Yes.
Harrison Smith: I [00:22:00] mean, all of these things. Yeah. I'm gonna do just basic order off the GSA, like for these people who have genuinely had a career progression template or a career ladder description that says, when you do these things, that's when you become eligible to do this.
Harrison Smith: They're, they're people, right? People see that as a, that's my opportunity to get promoted and I want to be able to do this. I wanna have greater opportunity. Um, that's my opportunity to get a raise. And that means that I can buy my kid a, you know, new pair of shoes or, or whatever it is. Or I can help take care of my family shoes, right?
Harrison Smith: Uh, like I can help take care of my family better, or that gives me, you know, better opportunity to go back to school and get a degree like this is, these are things that scare people as human beings because what they see coming, whether or not it actually is coming, what they see coming is something that is, this is going to mess with my life plan.
Harrison Smith: Mm-hmm. This is going to mess with my life plan. If I, as the attorney advisor aren't telling you, stay away from that, that's bad news. Um, then what's my role in this process? And, [00:23:00] and so there is a level of patience that I think you do need to have. But it's that preparation, right? It's that preparation around these are the concerns you're gonna have.
Harrison Smith: I understand why they're valid, um, and something that she Webers did. Um. While we were at the IRS together, that was fantastic. She said, I'm willing for us to take risks and procurements and to do different things and to try different applications here, here, and here. Do not touch that part over there.
Harrison Smith: Just, it was, it happened to, happened to do with a requirement for IRS contracts for, uh, the IRS to check and ensure that a firm who was going to get an award didn't owe taxes. That was a, a they, Shannon said, do not touch that. That happens a hundred percent of the time, every time. I don't want you to recommend something new.
Harrison Smith: I don't want you to find a different way to do it. That stays put. But every way over here, I want to hear new ideas. I'm okay with mistakes I want us to try and push. And so I think in, in those spaces, it's really, really important to identify where, where are the risks possible? [00:24:00] Um, where are we willing to take a chance and maybe stub our toes or do something wrong?
Harrison Smith: And if there's an area that we don't wanna touch because it's got taxpayer data or it has to do with any number of things, that's okay. Create a box and create a structure and create a framework and set the understanding and set the conditions for success where you can try to use something different.
Harrison Smith: Like these sibs, like these OTAs, like the CSOs.
Scott Simpson: And I think that's where, um, the local kind of leadership comes into play. Because I'm a, I'm a big agile fan. I like to fail small. Um, if I'm gonna and, and fast,
Harrison Smith: right? Small and fast.
Scott Simpson: Well, I don't care about fast necessarily, but I'll take small and then after that I wanna learn.
Scott Simpson: But let's start with failing small. Uh, at least at DHS, right? The HCAs only see things that are over like $4 million. That's not small. Um, so you need to bring down a little bit. You need to have like the branch chiefs and the division directors who are like, let's go out here and learn things. Uh, let's fail fast, fail small, um, and then fix the problem.[00:25:00]
Scott Simpson: And then you need the overarching land of leadership. To come in and say, yes, that's a great job. Um, but they're not gonna set the tone there for failing because it's too big for them. Like when they're seeing it, it, you can't fail then. But we need to, we need to create a space in the government where it's okay to fail.
Scott Simpson: Because there's so many times where you hear the answer, well, this mission can't fail. This can't fail. And, you know, I understand it, but um, all right, this is weird, but one of the, uh, greatest podcasts I ever, ever heard about, uh, innovation was by David Decoy, the X-Files actor. And, and he said, I've never learned anything from success.
Scott Simpson: I have learned everything I know from failures. And it's so true, right? Like you have a success and you're like, great, I did a good thing. But when you fail is when you really sit down and you're like, man, what happened? I want to know where I go from here. And so we need those failures in the government.
Scott Simpson: We can't say, this can't fail. [00:26:00] We have to be able to say. This can fail, but then we need to get it back on track.
Bonnie Evangelista: And that might be a nice segue or, or foreshadowing of an explanation of the paradigm that has led us to where we are. It's not wrong, it's just what was done for the last 40 ish years or so was planning to avoid the failure completely.
Bonnie Evangelista: Um, so much planning, you know, I called it the swirl. Like you're just constantly writing documents and memos and strategies and things. Um, because there's this w whether it's you're in procurement, can't have the protest, can't, you know, ha have anything, delay the award, whatever. If you're doing big a acquisition, like we can't have downstream, uh, downstream testing, you know, delay our production l rip or whatever, and all of.
Bonnie Evangelista: That paradigm just does not work today. Like that's so some, there's a little, there's a [00:27:00] gentleness though, that Harrison is suggesting you don't have to come in hard, but there has to be acknowledgement and awareness for the buy-in. You're not gonna get that buy-in until someone is actually willing to accept that old paradigm that made us successful then is not gonna make us successful.
Bonnie Evangelista: Now we need new ways of thinking, just like he's talking. Fail small, maybe fail fast. Continuous learning is another theme you're gonna think about. Um, having a, a mind of curiosity and maybe not knowing the end state of what this project is gonna do because it's experimental in nature. But right now, especially in the Department of War, a lot of operational exercises are being combined with experimental merit based competitions to, to accelerate delivery because that is what's working.
Bonnie Evangelista: So there's, um. I don't know. There's, like you said, there's a lot of identity, uh, that people are attached to that is really hard [00:28:00] right now. And so having some emotional IQ on that and being gen, you know, having some compassion and empathy toward any, any peer that is a naysayer, um, is very helpful. One
Scott Simpson: of the things that the capsule is trying to do with that is, um, create something called an infinite learner.
Scott Simpson: Um, technology is changing really fast, and so we need to be able to learn new technologies and new, new ways of doing things. Um, but you can only learn the next thing if you actually unlearn the thing before, like, like Harrison was saying, we put so much like blood, sweat, and tears into doing that far 15, and you're like, I finally got it.
Scott Simpson: This is it. And then someone comes around and tells you like, no, actually we're gonna go on to OTs now you've gotta like, and you're like, oh my goodness. And so there's this, there's this whole process of unlearning and it starts with kind of celebrating like, Hey, you did a great thing. You, you know, the way that you were doing it, that was the right thing to do.
Scott Simpson: Then now we're in a different [00:29:00] place. We need to move faster. Uh, we need to adopt software faster and, and new technologies faster. And so we need to be able to move fast. And that far 15 full and open doesn't get us there.
Bonnie Evangelista: I think Shanna Weber's, uh, she champions the idea of an entrepreneurial procurement professional.
Bonnie Evangelista: And I think that kind of fits what you're the, what did you call it? The, um,
Scott Simpson: infinite learner. Infinite
Bonnie Evangelista: learner type of, so it's a different mindset and this is the cultural shift that people maybe talk about but don't really know how to do it. Um, yeah. And,
Harrison Smith: and so I want to, I also wanna highlight before we get into kind of like the reason why it's such a sticky and difficult thing.
Harrison Smith: 'cause I wanna, I wanna drill down into that in terms of is it workforce, is it training, is it incentives or Yes. All of those things. But I think it's, IM important, even as we talk about. Um, OTAs, CSOs, sbra, phase threes, all of these, these frankly cutting edge opportunities to get, do things [00:30:00] differently.
Harrison Smith: It's simply the mindset around that particular tool that is important. You can do. We talked about protests as any contracting officer can tell you, um, in the room or anybody who's ever received a brief explanation of award, which means what? Absolutely nothing. You get nothing and you like it. Yeah. Zero.
Harrison Smith: Exactly. You get nothing and you like it. You know, someone was rated better and their price was less. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Have a good day. Right. So a lot, a lot of head nodding, which by the way, I'm seeing, so I'm glad that everybody's engaged here and it's resonating, but, uh, I did a major procurement. I was at DHS, this was the PACS procurement.
Harrison Smith: Uh, we had 666 proposals from 216 vendors.
Bonnie Evangelista: Without ai. Without ai.
Harrison Smith: I'm very embarrassed to say that we printed out seven copies. My, but we actually used them all. Oh my God. We actually had evaluators, we had to do it. It was crazy. Anyway,
Bonnie Evangelista: with binders and tabs, I bet
Harrison Smith: there were stickers, whatever. No, but gen it was good at the time, Bonnie.
Harrison Smith: No, seriously. But, but here's the [00:31:00] piece that I was honestly most proud about. We had a fantastic attorney advisor, Pete Hartman. He was actually with, with the right Pete Hartman. Um, he was with the Army. And I said, listen, I, I want to reduce the chance of protest. And I think in my brain that people really want to know as much as possible.
Harrison Smith: And if we give them all the information and we've made a good decision, the only people who are gonna protest are the people would've protest regardless. So it's more effort on our part. But Sure. And, and Peter Hartman's eyes light up and he goes, you wanna give him the Rule nine file? I was like, sorry.
Harrison Smith: He's like the rule nine. You wanna give him everything? Yeah. He's like, strengths, weaknesses, deficiencies. I was like, yes. I said, can we provide 'em what the average price of the winning firms were? He's like, yes. I was like, and we've ranked every single person on the technical evaluation scale. You were ranked first, you know, first to one, to a hundred, to 666.
Harrison Smith: This is where you fell. So we gave them all their strengths, all their weaknesses, all their deficiencies, where they ranked in terms of price, where they ranked in terms of [00:32:00] technical rating. We gave it all to them, and it was, how many protests did you get? No, let's not talk about that. No. Okay. No, but genuinely there were, there were two and they were gonna protest.
Bonnie Evangelista: But that's, that's a I'm impressed because that's awesome. Out of 600, what was it? 600. 600. Six. Six. That's very impressive. How many, unfortunately, that's an
Harrison Smith: easy number to remember, by the way. But, but, but my point is here. That was entirely within the far, that's a judgment call. The same thing has to do with one of the, one of the items that we pushed at IRS called Pilot IRS Mercer.
Harrison Smith: Ted was, was heavily involved in that. It was usage of the commercial item, borrow authority. We bought anything from scanning, uh, paper tax returns and e-filing them to de anonymized and cryptocurrency transactions. Um, the statement of work was usually eight sentences or less, and it never took more than 30 calendar days to award ever.
Harrison Smith: Um, purely far based. And so I think, again, the point of this conversation is around the [00:33:00] tools and I want us to get into that and maybe we can go back to kind of the blocking and tackling of trade wins or CSOs or whatever like you, like to get into. But this is far more a mindset and a conversation and, and a collaboration tool than anything else.
Harrison Smith: If you're able to identify what your intended outcome outcomes are, who you're trying to make sure you can assuage their guilt or their fear or their apprehension. There's a lot of really good ways to do this. Bonnie, please. Thoughts around like how we actually do some of the implementation? Okay. Some of the more blocking and tackling pieces, because I know, I know, I know the folks here wanna hear about that.
Bonnie Evangelista: I'll, I'm gonna start with a blocking and tackling thing. Maybe segue to a tactic thing. Um, another, uh, unsolicited advice for everyone in the room. So you have to be aware, uh, as the original Defense Maverick, if you're not familiar with that term. Um, I started a podcast called Defense Mavericks. It was part of how when I realized I couldn't change culture by myself, I needed other people to believe the things that we were saying.
Bonnie Evangelista: Just like we're talking all [00:34:00] the things like that you can do this. Like there is a path, you know, I needed people to believe it. Um, so we started a podcast and we talk about like hard things in government, not, and, and it was also an AI podcast. Um, we, but we did talk about procurement things. The person, you have to be understand the person who does something different, especially for the first time.
Bonnie Evangelista: Has a target on their back, whether they like it or not. And, uh, so you mentioned incentives. I won't get into that unless you, unless we want to as a group, but there, there's no one is incentivized to do that. Um, you, when we were talking earlier about, you know, people's identities or careers or tied to these ways and paradigms, um, once, once somebody goes and upsets someone's apple cart, whether they intend to or not, there's just that target on their back.
Bonnie Evangelista: So if you notice, if you're in industry or if you're in government, I don't care if you notice the person who's trying to do something different, whether it succeeds [00:35:00] or not. To Scott's point, it could fail, but everyone will learn. Everyone will learn because of it. This is the same with bid protests. Like everyone, I, I feel like all bid protests are lessons learned that every acquisition professional should, like, take advantage of.
Bonnie Evangelista: Um, I. When, if you see that, find ways to either encourage, champion, or protect them because they are trying to move the needle and they're, someone has to start the momentum. Someone has to take the first step. So that's like one of my, you know, acquisition Alchem is tip number two. If you're an industry and you see that, like hold onto that person and really try and help them be successful, you know, through whatever you do.
Bonnie Evangelista: And then same if you're on the inside in the government, try and protect them from the, the people who are trying to shank 'em in the kidneys, in the hallway and stuff like that. Uh, that's really important.
Harrison Smith: That was not on my bingo card for the day, by the way.
Bonnie Evangelista: Um, I had that [00:36:00] analogy is from someone who protected me at the Jake.
Bonnie Evangelista: Um, who would, he, he would always say like, I see them trying to shank you in the hallway, in the kidneys. And like, uh, so he would try and like, uh, and help. P and, and those defense mavericks, whatever you call 'em, unicorns first movers change agents. I don't, whatever the term is. Uh, they're the ones who are progressing all the thing.
Bonnie Evangelista: The pill didn't, the pill probably started with an idea, and I'm sure I, I, I think Sariah and whatever that small group of first movers were, had a little bit of a target on their back because nobody wanted it. And now everybody loves it, by the way, to the point where other people are modeling it as an example.
Bonnie Evangelista: So everything starts with something. So that's like thing one. And then two, like, um, if we can embrace more of the things we're not familiar with, whether it's, I, I've never done an ot, like let's figure that out and do it. Um, if you think it'll make me go faster. Uh, and that [00:37:00] the, your point to like understanding why that tool might be better is really, really helpful in those conversations.
Bonnie Evangelista: Uh, my next maybe. Uh, not traditional tip for the acquisition. Alchemist is talk to people you're not supposed to talk to. Um, especially in the Tradewinds environment. Tradewinds got good because we started talking to people who were way like outside of our lane. And in, in our case, it was the end user.
Bonnie Evangelista: And in the department of War, that means operators at lower echelons. And if you're, if, if you're an industry, hopefully you are aware of this, there is a buying community. The acquisition people like me and Scott, maybe Harrison, uh, at, you know, before he left and or the trader and, you know, um, ouch. Dirty contractor, whatever.
Bonnie Evangelista: They're excellent. It's you and me, Scott. Now I'll forget and, uh. The buying community will not make your product better, but they have [00:38:00] all the money and resources. So they're the ones who buy the products that eventually go to the end users. So when you do these operational exercises and stuff like that, the end users who, especially startups, they're like, oh my God, this, this unit loved my product, et cetera.
Bonnie Evangelista: And they will make your product better, but they cannot, the end using end user community cannot buy your product. So when I, my team started engaging with that community, we got such clarity on the problem we were trying to solve. That tradewinds exploded in my opinion, and, and it helped us really clarify what our vision was.
Bonnie Evangelista: And then it also gave us a community of champions that we didn't even ask for.
Harrison Smith: So that's like, Bonnie, I wanna, I wanna interject here and make sure that I understand. So you actually went and talked to the people who would be using the thing that you were buying.
Bonnie Evangelista: Actually, it wasn't the people who might be using it, but who would benefit from the thing where if I could get the acquisition community to use the thing I built, the end user could get what they want when they needed it [00:39:00] for operation, you know, within an operational relevance, whatever term you wanna use.
Harrison Smith: I mean, I don't know if heretical is instilled in the alchemy thing, but it sounds like No, and, and we're making, please, please understand that everyone here is, is saying this in, in respect and admiration for what everyone is trying to do on, on all sides. And so we are, we are using a humor, um, as, as a tool, uh, to and as a foil.
Harrison Smith: Um, but these are, these are hard things and I, I think this is the space where we really wanna to, to dig in. And, and, um, Scott, if I can ask you for, uh, a couple minutes to talk about some of the more, um, you know, best practices or, or lessons learned that you, you've gotten from the pill, but I, I want to be very, very clear here.
Harrison Smith: I wrote the one page memo that started acquisition innovations in motion to the point that I can tell you, we argued about what font to use because it looked like it was AIM versus a lim. Like this happened a long, long time ago, and there was a lot of targets on a lot of people's backs. Why are you doing this?
Harrison Smith: This is headquarters. You don't need to be telling me what to do. Why are you providing me [00:40:00] guidance? I need help to actually issue awards, all very well-meaning and frankly accurate. And so now to look at where it is and how many agencies have been pushing comparable and frankly improved upon it, right?
Harrison Smith: Improved upon the pill, uh, and done their own version, how much the Office of Federal Procurement Policy has been pushing these things. Um, it's very hard to recognize when you're, when you're in that morass, um, that, that you are making a difference. Um, but again, if you are, if you are leading with openness and honesty and frankly willingness to learn and be corrected and be wrong.
Harrison Smith: Um, there's a great quote, which I've lost here, but it's something along the lines of, if you are honest and true, you cannot really harm the world or really seriously distress her. Um, and I think it's a great space to be in here. So back to some more of the sort of best practices and lessons learned.
Harrison Smith: Scott, from all the acquisitions that you saw as part of the pill, are there any that really stood out in terms of like, Hey, I saw somebody trying to use an OT in this fashion, or a CSO or any of these types of, sort of real, real life [00:41:00] examples that would be helpful?
Scott Simpson: Yeah. Well, um, I wanna go back to, uh, something that y'all both have kind of hit on and that's like positive versus negative reinforcement, right?
Scott Simpson: And I think most of the contracting world, there's a lot of negative reinforcement. Oh, you gotta protest, that's a bad thing. Oh, you're late, that's a bad thing. Oh, you know, whatever. That's a bad thing. There's all these shocks and no one gets any cheese. And so one of the, that's true, right? Um. One of the things we did with the capsule and with the pill is we gave people cheese, right?
Scott Simpson: So like, the champions that stood up with the capsule, like that took some bravery to stand up and be like, I'm gonna be a champion for something new. Um, so we got 'em all hats, like, it's not that much, but like a hat is, they're like, this is cool. Now they like a, they feel like they belong to the capsule and they're like part of something bigger, right?
Scott Simpson: But b, like they've been recognized. And how often does that happen? Like, not [00:42:00] often enough. Whether you do something new or whether you did something great, you don't get recognized often enough. And so one of the big things we did with the pill was trying to recognize people as often as possible. And so we did this in a bunch of different ways.
Scott Simpson: Uh, the pill has a, uh, a micro learning series called the DHS Pill Cast. A lot of times we had contracting officers, program managers, cores on there to tell the, tell everybody on YouTube, um, all like a hundred people that watched the channel. Um, you know, like, what, what happened? And like, I feel like that's something cool.
Scott Simpson: Um, and I think a lot of the, the CEOs and stuff did too. It doesn't just push learning, but it's like a nice pat in the back to say like, Hey, you're kind of an expert in this like, little thing now that you tried. Share the goodness. The pill also has this great yearbook. Um, it's like their annual report, but it's like super fun instead.
Scott Simpson: Um, and it's, it's fun. It's got graphics in there and bad dad jokes and stuff like this. [00:43:00] And we recognize people in it, or the pill does. 'cause I'm with cognac now. Sorry. Um, but, um, trader, no, uh, no.
Bonnie Evangelista: I'm, I'm sandwiched in between traders. I don't know what to. Um,
Scott Simpson: so I think that positive reinforcement and recognizing people for, for taking a chance is so important.
Scott Simpson: Um, but I also think that there's two other parts that go along with that. And the, the first is something that Bonnie was saying about connecting people to the mission. Um, if I get a purchase request and I'm told this needs to be bought in the next like two weeks or something like this, or whatever that timeframe is, and that's all I know, I'm gonna be really frustrated.
Scott Simpson: Why was this PR late? Where is all like, what's the rush it? This is your problem, not mine, right? But if you've got a connection to the mission, then all of a sudden it's not a you versus me. It's a a we, right? And so we get the mission done then. And so that really helps. Anytime you can connect [00:44:00] someone to the mission, do it.
Scott Simpson: Whether that's like talking to somebody, whether it's taking 'em on a tour, whether it's just sitting down and explaining what that mission is, so important. I, go ahead.
Bonnie Evangelista: Uh, uh, just an anecdote on that. I was in a, so I mentioned, I, I started talking to end users in the Department of War. That meant, usually meant, uh, depending on your service, you know, like arm soldiers, seamen, airmen, whatever.
Bonnie Evangelista: And, uh, spaceman, I started spaceman. Uh, no, they're guardians. Guardians, yes. And, um, uh, we, I started getting very connected to the Special forces community, the special SOCOM community, because like, they, they honestly could go really fast if they wanted to. I won't get into that, but like, so I started trying to teach their communities, like some of the things we've been talking about.
Bonnie Evangelista: And at a conference, it was a South by Southwest. Um, someone on my team was on a panel with three other soft people. And he said, one of the staff members said, if I [00:45:00] knew like the acquisition people would work as hard as, you know, this person and Bonnie, and he said, F China. They're, they don't even know what's coming.
Bonnie Evangelista: And like that is what I think you're talking about. Like they, when the end user knows, we, the acquisition, the back office people have their back. It's magic. It's true magic. I've never felt it anything like it.
Scott Simpson: And that's one of the, one of the best programs that I worked on. It not as exciting as like SOCOM or whatever else, but it was this finance system, uh, modernization.
Scott Simpson: And we had agile sprints with it. So every two weeks I got to sit in on the Agile sprints and like slowly, I learned a whole lot about the FSM program. But as the contracting officer, it was also really good for me because I could start to see where problems were gonna come from and I could start to offer advice to say like, whoa, whoa, it, it seems like we're gonna need a mod here to like add this or change this.
Scott Simpson: Like if we get to this point, you need to tell [00:46:00] me. So I had like months of, of, uh, prior knowledge then. And it wasn't just all of a sudden, like I got a PR on my desk to say, we need a modification for this. And it's like, whoa, what now? Like I could actually, it was so important. So connection to the mission.
Scott Simpson: But the last thing is, uh, empowering your folks, right? They need to be empowered, um, with small things. Let 'em run, like let 'em run until they hit the wall. And when they hit the wall, sit down with them and ask them, what did you learn? Right? Put it back on them. Don't like shame them and like give 'em the shock treatment, give 'em the cheese and say, you did a great job.
Scott Simpson: What did you learn though? Right? And then from there, you can trust them to start moving iteratively into bigger things, right? So people need to be empowered because I don't know if it was, uh, Harrison or Bonnie that talked about like, everyone needs to ask permission for everything right now. Um, that, like, that's not the way to, to run anything, right?
Scott Simpson: People are just sitting on their hands doing, well, I'm not making the decision, so I'm not gonna do it. [00:47:00] Right. I'm gonna take my sweet time on this because it's not my decision, it's somebody else's. And so you need to empower them so that they know that this is mine, this is the programs, like I am part of this team and we are gonna get it done.
Bonnie Evangelista: And, uh, continuing to pull the connection to mission piece. 'cause I think that trumps almost everything. Oh yeah. In terms of like, when you feel empowered, you're gonna make the right calls because you're so connected to mission and you understand the problems, et cetera. Um, again, this is, uh, just being a probably harsh reality.
Bonnie Evangelista: Kind of sucks to work in the government right now. And a lot of people are like, why am I still here? And so a lot of that is also going on. If you have what Scott is talking about, that connection to mission, it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. I don't know why, but like that is one of the best plays in the playbook.
Bonnie Evangelista: Sometimes that looks like
Scott Simpson: free play,
Bonnie Evangelista: getting, getting money to send your people on TDY. I don't know why [00:48:00] acquisition never has any money, but like we, I, I will, I'm gonna toot my own horn here. And in the Jake, it was a $238 million organization. At the start, I think we had like less than 1% of that budget, and I did more with that budget than anyone else.
Bonnie Evangelista: I had a, a scaled prototype that is now being used across the department. Tradewinds is still a scaled acquisition model that is working today and that everyone is using, I think there's over a trillion dollars in contracts across the department that, that has helped accelerate. Um, we did a ton of education and AI literacy, like we did all of that with what in the department would call pennies, right?
Bonnie Evangelista: Like maybe 15 million. Yeah, it's, it's insane. So anyways, sorry. That was my, that was, but connection to mission. Connection to mission. So like TD, TDY dollars, like advocate for TDY dollars and send your people to whatever the field is for them.
Scott Simpson: You can do so much. So with free staff, you can, so I was part of the DHS leadership program and we were went around to [00:49:00] all the different components and we visited them to find out more about their mission.
Scott Simpson: Awesome program. No longer there, but it really helped me connect to the mission, no TDY right? We went to Dulles airport to see CBP and Customs and Border Protection as they were screening, uh, people through coming into the country. We went to Reagan to see, um, the Coast Guard and TSA, right? We went to FEMA on Sea Street to see like their war room when a hurricane was coming in.
Scott Simpson: We did all these things just locally and so there's so much you can do that's just like. Free as well. And all it costs is like a morning off of work or like a day off of work, but that day off of work is gonna pay so many dividends. Yeah.
Bonnie Evangelista: So when you have that deep connection to mission where that we're trying to like really give some color to in this conversation, I think that trumps almost everything.
Bonnie Evangelista: You're going to get the right people solving the right problems and who are willing and [00:50:00] courageous enough to be the first mover, the change, all the things.
Harrison Smith: Yeah. And I do wanna leave some time 'cause we've got about I think seven or eight minutes. We'll leave some time for a question or two. So if you've got one, please, please raise your hand.
Harrison Smith: But while, while we're doing that, I, I think the other piece that quite an often industry tries, says, how can we help? Right. And I think there, there are two major, major ways to do so. Um, and one is to, there are several awards programs. Act, IAC has one of them. It takes very little time for you as an industry representative.
Harrison Smith: To put somebody's name in to write the paragraphs or two, or three or four, uh, about what they did. Even if, to be honest, even if they're not your customer, even if they're not paying you, if you see somebody who you think is pushing the envelope in a good way, that is productive, respectfully challenging things that need to be challenged, all those things, put them in for an award.
Harrison Smith: Share their work, share their [00:51:00] name to other government agencies that you think can be helpful. And the other thing that you can do is that if you have a novel approach that you think would be very good for the government and it involves some people that you wouldn't mind losing a contract to, that will really open the government's eyes.
Harrison Smith: If you come in and say, Hey, I really think you should use Tradewinds. I really think you should use this consortia. I really think you should do any of these things. You know, I think I'm best suited to support you. I really wanna support you, but I wouldn't mind losing to Bonnie and Scott. I think we would all love to run a competition and try to support you and give you the best, the best that we can give you.
Harrison Smith: The government's eyebrows will go straight up because you just, you didn't do what everybody else does. You didn't come and say, I'm the only person who does this ever. 'cause that's frequently not true. You said, I wanna come help your problem, help solve your problem. I'm connected to your mission and I wanna help you do something different.
Harrison Smith: Uh, we have a question. Please go ahead, sir.
AUDIENCE: Uh, Jason Kool, uh, fed Scale, just left government. Um, I spent, uh, many years having to live under this moniker of I can do anything you [00:52:00] can do with an OTA as fast as you can with the far 'cause it's very flexible if you use it. But the big question I have, Jason, a little bit closer to your mouth.
AUDIENCE: Oh, thank you. The big question I have is the cone. I've used almost all this side. I'm not even allowed to touch that side because I'm in the USDA. Is there a push somewhere that says. This is a toolkit that we should give all of our acquisition professionals instead of just the people that are in DOD.
AUDIENCE: 'cause I had it in DODI could do that when I was doing major weapon systems. We did things like that. I go to a different agency. It is forbidden.
Bonnie Evangelista: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: You cannot get it. You can't get it. You ask, you ask, you ask, you ask. And we have a toolkit out there that most of government that are the acquisition professionals, that are innovators that take the pill and take it full throttle.
AUDIENCE: And we cannot touch an ot. Yeah. We cannot do this. ESL. It's not allowed now. Sims. Yeah, absolutely. I've done 'em and sure you make, have you seen a push or is there a push to get that authority for people?
Bonnie Evangelista: So, uh, two things to myth bust a little [00:53:00] bit. There are over 40 civilian or agents, federal agencies who have other transaction authority.
Bonnie Evangelista: If you want to know a full comprehensive list, because there's a couple lists. I think Mitre has a list and there's another one. It's not a full comprehensive list. If you go to ADA solutions website and go to their resource tab. She and, uh, she partners with another company called Enlighten. They do research on this maybe every other year to to, and they literally go through all the US code to see who has it.
Bonnie Evangelista: So to your question, is there a push Congress? Uh, their precedence has been, they don't really give it to, or agencies that don't really have like a lab authority kind of mission. So I'm not sure if that's USDA. I would first check the list and see if USDA is on that list. 'cause maybe they don't know, or it's, it's not well understood.
Bonnie Evangelista: We are on it, but it's for this. Yeah. So I would challenge that challenge. Remember challenge assumptions respectfully, but with curiosity. [00:54:00] Um, literally the, the, another acquisition Alchemist tip is you, you have to know the rules better than everyone else. If someone told you that, go to the actual statute and read it yourself.
Bonnie Evangelista: When I was at TS, a policy told me I could only use ot. For, um, public good. They, they, they, the policy had made it look like OTs were only reserved to what we would use in the r and D world. Um, like grants and cooperative agreements and things like that. If you actually go read the statute, and if I wish I had known this, then there's like one sentence that says TSA use OTs.
Bonnie Evangelista: Like, so nothing in the statute precluded TSA from using OTs in a non r and d fashion, but that's what somebody had decided to do at the agency. So that's just an example. We'll just challenge that assumption and read the statute yourself. Um, I maybe, I think
Scott Simpson: before we left TSA though, there was some discussion about, uh, incorporating some expansion as part of the [00:55:00] revolutionary FAR overhaul.
Scott Simpson: Uh, maybe not for OTs, but for some of the other things like CSOs and prizes. Um, but I, I also think that, you know, coming from the pill and, uh, the first thing we always teach people is you don't need special authorities to innovate. Um. You know, you don't need an ot. OTs are great, but you can also do things that, um, mimic an ot.
Scott Simpson: We had a, a group at, uh, DHS, the Science and Technology Directorate who wanted to do some r and d stuff, but they didn't have r and d money, so they couldn't use the ot. So we did a far based one for, um, radiological backpacks, structured at like an OT with like phases and different things, and it worked out great for them.
Scott Simpson: So a little bit is also about changing the mindset of like, Hey, I need to do, get to here. What are the different paths I can take it to get there?
Bonnie Evangelista: The, the other last, uh, data point for you, um, on OTs d, the DOD, other transaction authority is the most, um, has the highest standard, I'll call it. [00:56:00] Uh, so the whole prototyping and production, the approval thresholds and.
Bonnie Evangelista: The eligibility to enter into ot. Most other agencies don't have those requirements. So that's another thing when you challenge assumptions, like it probably may not be as limited as what you're used to in the, in the DOD land.
Harrison Smith: Now we've got one more question just to, as the, the mic makes it way, makes its way over.
Harrison Smith: The other thing that I think is really interesting as part of the revolution revolutionary far overhaul are the, are the deviation sort of examples because there's quite a bit of things that you can do. For instance, with commercial buying power, uh, sorry, commercial buying practices in far 12 and 13.5.
Harrison Smith: Um, you can get a HCA or SP deviation from the limit of seven point half million. You can bump it up to $50 million. You could do a bunch of different things. Uh, so again, that's a far based activity that there's should be Right, a greater interest or a willingness to do a, a deviation for Yes, please. The next question.
Harrison Smith: Last question.
Speaker 5: Okay. Hey, so there's a lot of chatter right now about outcome based competitions. [00:57:00] Bonnie, you mentioned earlier, merit-based competitions. How do, how are you guys seeing or foresee that showing up in actual eval criteria?
Bonnie Evangelista: Uh, I'll start from the Department of War perspective. This is mostly playing out with commercial solutions, opening procedures.
Bonnie Evangelista: Um, all that is is, uh, there has to be a public, a published evaluation criteria to meet the compe, the competition process. Um, for Tradewinds, we, we, we asked for a five minute video pitch on a product or service you think could solve a problem, outcome-based, and it was graded against this published evaluation criteria.
Bonnie Evangelista: And then that created a post-competition pool. So you're, if you pa, if you were graded, highly graded favorably against the criteria, you went into this affordable pool. So at that point, competition is over. And this is where we had to explain [00:58:00] to agencies, Hey, you have a menu. Of competition ready, uh, rewardable solutions, and you can just directly buy.
Bonnie Evangelista: So the, the weirdness or the ickiness that people in the old paradigm are feeling is, wait a minute, there's no full and open competition. And that is correct because the authority allows for that type of merit based. I'm not sure how that's gonna play out on a far based acquisition. Maybe you have some thoughts on that.
Bonnie Evangelista: Um, technically, CSO, the defense CSO is a far based mechanism. So this is like a totally new pathway that came from a congressional pilot back in 2018. So that is how it's, it is currently playing out in a department of war. I'm not sure if that's gonna trickle into any more traditional, like competition environments like we're seeing other than maybe down select stuff on far based, like you might see, uh, some discretion on if, if they're doing advisory down selects or if there's other multiple down selects in an evaluation on a far traditional [00:59:00] contract.
Bonnie Evangelista: Yeah, but just
Speaker 6: I'm curious,
Speaker 6: but what's interesting is
Speaker 6: that rate not being required by the government back that I'm just trying to establish whether there's some patterns
Scott Simpson: in terms of what these,
Scott Simpson: I mean, I think that the whole next year or two as the revolutionary for our overhaul really kicks into high gear and like gets solidified and used it. There's gonna be so much learning going on. [01:00:00] And so to say that it's gonna be a pattern, I mean, there's not gonna be a pattern. There's gonna be a whole lot of trial and error and learning.
Scott Simpson: Um, and so, and after that, that's when we're gonna start using best practice patterns. Um, and hopefully people aren't just using copy and paste. Hopefully people are learning, um, and seeing what's tested. But I think the next, like whole year or two with the RFO is gonna be really fascinating to watch and see what happens.
Scott Simpson: Especially as you look at this solicitation asset. This way, this solicitation asked, this way, this award was protested. This is what, I can't wait. This could just be an amazing year.
Bonnie Evangelista: I, for one, one quick caveat. If you're doing software, I do think it's gonna be demo based or go in a sandbox and show me something based.
Harrison Smith: So we are at time and actually a little bit over time. One more thing,
Scott Simpson: Harrison. What? Sorry, I was just teasing.
Harrison Smith: Oh, I thought I was gonna be like, I wanna show you a picture of the far faders, both of 'em. He's got the, he's got the far, he brought the far with him, ladies and gentlemen. Oh. There's, there's a lot to unpack there.
Harrison Smith: Thank you all so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Bonnie Evangelista: Don't [01:01:00] forget to pick up a book if you have, if you don't have one. There's books in the front for everybody to kind of demonstrate a lot of the themes we've talked about,
Harrison Smith: and they really are rather cool.
Bonnie Evangelista: They're fun.