Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Introducing the Insider
The Industry Defined
HUBZones: Anyone Can Play
Beyond Reproach: The Incumbent's Bind
Breaking Wave: Human Resources BPO
Cooperative Personnel Services: Differentiating Not a Problem
Adventures in Marketing
Policy & Regs: Can We Satisfy the Appetite for Cleared Personnel?
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Posted on August 4
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Sixteen months after Justice Department suits against Accenture, Sun, and HP were unsealed, the federal IT industry remains in the dark about what the acceptable practices are in payments to members of alliances. Well, it seems that the IG at GSA knows what to do when uncertainty abounds: say no to all the incentive payments that the industry customarily uses. Over time, that's going to hurt.
While some protests are lame, others are novel. Avue Technologies' protest of TSA's award of a potentially $3 B+ contract to Lockheed Martin for HR services shows unusual thoughtfulness on government management—but that was not an RFP requirement. We review the apparent strategy in the protest why is could fail, or be sustained. At issue: a competition in which one team had, it asserts, most of the necessary IT ready to go, while the awardee does not.
Congress and the executive branch continue to clamor for more visibility and stricter management of organizational and personal conflicts of interest. No one thinks this trend will reverse. Alan Chvotkin conducts you through the thicket of existing and proposed regs and recommends how to get ahead of the curve.
GAO found OMB's quarterly updates on lists of poorly planned or poorly performing IT projects an unsteady platform to judge progress in federal IT management. Lurking downstream is the companion issue of contractor performance, which the lists do not yet take into account. Also of emerging concern is the possibility that contractor names could be associated with the projects on both lists, in line for strong pressure in Congress for more transparency on contractor activity. Drawbacks and pitfalls abound.
Blasted last year by revelations of shoddy and incomplete construction of health clinics in Iraq, a similar story in another Iraq construction contract drives home the lesson about security and program management by Parsons.
Tough and embarrassing issues for the US government converged in the Congressional efforts to authorize next year's intel programs. With no conclusion yet, more scrutiny and controls seem assured for contractors. The prime issues include: the extent and nature of need for contractors, the gray area of asserted inherently governmental function they are said to perform, reporting to Congress, and last but not least, whether they can use enhanced interrogation techniques, which some call torture and which are banned in the US military establishment.
July 31 marked the official split-up of Booz Allen Hamilton into a commercial consulting firm and a government services company. A recent essay, marbled with mysticism, by Booz & Company's new CEO brought us to bedrock on the rationale. For as long as almost anyone can remember Booz Allen had not one distinctive culture, but two.