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                                  House ceremony, President Bill Clin- ton and Vice President Al Gore both cited her contribution.
Veterans Affairs leading the way
The authority granted under that law brought about a huge expansion in the use of government credit cards, which was a big quality-of-life benefit for frontline federal employees. Those cards have been used for all sorts of purchases but particularly for personal computers and peripherals. However, it has been used almost exclusively to buy products, not services, which seemed to require larger contracts than $2,500.
Until last December, there had been no governmentwide statutory chang- es to the micropurchase threshold, though it had risen in two stages to $3,000 and then $3,500, based on a regulatory ruling that tied most thresh- olds for various procurement policy requirements to inflation. In 2016, the defense authorization bill increased the threshold for the Defense Depart- ment to $5,000, and last year’s defense authorization bill raised the threshold to $10,000 for civilian agencies while, bizarrely, keeping the one for DOD unchanged at $5,000.
Regulations for implementation are expected by the end of the summer, and in the meantime, agencies are not allowed to use the new thresh- olds. However, the departments of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Secu- rity have received a class deviation to allow them to use the threshold now, and the General Services Administra- tion has published guidance for other agencies that might want to request deviations for themselves.
Raising the threshold to $10,000 makes it practical for the first time to use micropurchases to buy services,
not just products. The change has the potential to revolutionize the procure- ment system.
During the transition period, some fast movers in government and indus- try have already started asking what useful services can be bought for $10,000. First out of the gate has been the VA, under the leadership of con- tracting officer Mark Junda.
VA become the first agency to use the $10,000 micropurchase authority by awarding two orders: One seeks recommendations for ways the VA could more effectively use applica- tion programming interfaces to help the developer community, and the other seeks input on prioritizing new APIs for the department to develop.
The regulations for micropurchases do not require that agencies conduct a competitive bidding process, but VA officials decided to make their awards competitive and transparent in a streamlined way. They have made it clear what the government wants and what the acceptance criteria are. Proposals are limited to one page, and evaluation is therefore rapid and pretty painless, with no requirements for how proposals must be evaluated — a fea- ture that appeals to both government and industry.
‘A short burst of work on a specific topic’
A year ago, Chris Cairns, a longtime veteran of 18F who had just left the government, announced the formation of a new firm called Skylight whose specialty would be what he called microconsulting.
“Not every problem requires a full- blown consulting engagement,” he wrote in the announcement on Linked- In. “Oftentimes, a short burst of work on a specific topic is all that’s needed
to help propel government managers and teams forward.”
Cairns developed the idea that became microconsulting while running a consulting unit at 18F. He observed that agency demands for 18F services were far larger than the organization’s capacity. In trying to decide what proj- ects to take, he learned that many gov- ernment customers believed a short engagement of only a few days could provide most of the value agencies sought.
Skylight is the contractor on the VA’s new microconsulting contracts. Cairns’ company offers a “health check” to “identify high-impact opportunities to improve the health of your digital service delivery project.”
According to Skylight’s description, “We rapidly assess key dimensions, such as the user experience and code quality, and recommend priority areas for improvement.”
Cairns told me other possible uses for microconsulting include developing hiring plans for certain jobs and mak- ing recommendations for Section 508 IT accessibility compliance. He also believes some simple software devel- opment projects can be completed for under $10,000.
There is now a second small firm in this space: Arc Aspicio, founded by Lynn Ann Casey, formerly of Accenture.
Arc Aspicio recently organized an “idea slam” to discuss ideas for micro- consulting projects. The resulting ideas included visualizing data in Pow- erPoint, Tableau or some other tool to show the key findings and using the visualization to help executives make decisions.
Other ideas involved specific ele- ments of developing a request for proposals or other kinds of acquisi- tion support.
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