Contracted Versus Internal Assembly for Complex Products: From Deepwater to the Acquisition Directorate in the U.S. Coast Guard

It is important to emphasize that the authors have not attempted to assess or evaluate the transition or Project Deepwater itself. Instead, the report focuses on providing lessons learned from the transition and offers three recommendations for contract management staff, agency executives, and congressional and executive-level policy makers.

Framing a Public Management Research Agenda

The IBM Center for The Business of Government hosted a forum in November 2009 to examine the Obama Administration's themes for a high-performing government and to frame a public management research agenda.

Participants included nearly 50 of the nation's top public management researchers, scholars, and distinguished practitioners. The forum was an effort to help bridge the gap between research and practice, and to collectively develop a research agenda that would help government executives move things forward.

The Challenge of Contracting for Large Complex Projects: A Case Study of the Coast Guard's Deepwater Program

The federal government now spends about 40 percent of its discretionary budget to buy everything from office supplies to weapon systems. When the government buys simple products, like paper clips, they can turn to well-established acquisition strategies and practices and apply them to richly competitive markets. When government agencies buy complex products, like weapon systems, conventional acquisition approaches are often insufficient and markets are more challenging.

Moving to Public-Private Partnerships: Learning from Experience around the World

In recent years, many government agencies have sought new project delivery methods. Because of the many drawbacks to the traditional competitive bidding process, new procurement and project delivery methods have been sought.

This project examines new innovative techniques, such as the design-build-maintain (DBM) and the design-build-maintain-operation (DBMO) contracts. Civil infrastructure is used as a case study to illustrate innovative methods of contracting. Co

The Role of Chief Acquisition Officers: What Should They Be Doing?

The Service Acquisition Reform Act (SARA) Legislation of 2003 (41 U.S.C. 414) established new positions of Chief Acquisition Officers to oversee Federal civilian agency acquisition operations. The expectation was that the CAO would be highly placed in the agency, advising the agency head on business strategy and focusing on acquisition in the broadest sense of the term. Many would argue that the CAO position has not lived up to its promise.

SeaPort: Charting a New Course for Professional Services Acquisition for America's Navy

The project presents a case study of the SeaPort operation, established by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) as a faster, better, and cheaper way of procuring over half a billion dollars worth of professional support services necessary to support the Navy’s mission around the world.

Performance-Based Acquisition: What is the Problem?

Since the early 1990's, the federal government has been moving toward a more results oriented, performance-based management environment. Under performance-based acquisition (PBA), agencies tell the contractor the results they want, not how to do the work and then measure whether or not the results are achieved. Uneven adoption of PBA techniques appears to be partly due to holding contracting accountable for a program responsibility, as well as a lack of staff expertise.

State Government E-Procurement in the Information Age: Issues, Practices, and Trends

This report seeks to understand how Information Technology (IT) contributes to the effectiveness of state procurement management and to increase knowledge to improve future applications of IT in state and local government procurement management systems. Technology and E-Government

 

The Acquisition Workforce: What Agency Chief Operating Officers Need to Do

Learn how agencies can put in place or enhance core processes to make the acquistion functions operate as effectively as possible.

The Procurement Partnership Model: Moving to a Team-Based Approach

The emerging partnership model of procurement is characterized by team-based approaches, new contracting vehicles, an outcome orientation, and increased emphasis on open communication and due diligence.This report describes the strategies that have worked for both achieving results and ensuring accountability. The report also outlines what still needs to be done to see these successful approaches utilized more widely in the procurement process. Contracting

Pages