Page 50 - Federal Computer Week, May/June 2019

TheLectern
Prototyping efforts should be organized
as two-stage down- selects, with perhaps two finalists chosen based on past performance and a brief discussion of how they intend to solve the problem.
significant presence in the commercial market, and CGI had the searing expe- rience of the HealthCare.gov fiasco.
Can tech demos produce
real change?
The procurement system has shown an
uncanny ability to assimilate source- selection reforms with less actual change than had been envisioned. Even today, there are oral presenta- tions that more or less correspond with the original vision of interactive conversation around specific questions the customer asks. Yet I suspect that most presentations are tightly orches- trated and pre-rehearsed presentations of slide decks with little interaction. (A similar observation about reality fall- ing short of hopes can be made about another 1990s innovation — using past performance in source selection.)
I have a number of concerns about the impact of tech demos on the pro- curement process. First, the emphasis on demos could result in companies developing teams that only conduct demos but aren’t involved in the work being procured. The Federal Times article states that SAIC plans to deploy “expert teams of developers that stay
together across projects,” which is very different from the idea that par- ticipants in a tech demo would be assigned to the project if the team won.
Second, I’m concerned that demos might be added to the existing system rather than replace significant aspects of it. In other words, demos could make the procurement process even more complicated.
Another concern is the extent to which these new efforts will produce phony tech demos. For example, some contractors have called what they do “agile” even if it has little in common with agile practice. However, just because tech demos embody “show me, don’t tell me,” phoniness is not an option in the same way. It’s not enough to talk a good tech demo game. It is what is produced that counts.
Finally, in my view tech demos are appropriate mostly or only for small projects. If the government will need a hundred developers, they cannot all participate in a tech demo, so the infor- mation such a demo provides becomes less valuable. In my view, if the project is larger and the government wants a “don’t tell me, show me” approach, competitive prototypes for source
selection would be
a better option. I hope
we start seeing more of those.
Prototyping efforts should be organized as two-stage down-selects, with perhaps two finalists chosen based on past performance and a brief discussion of how they intend to solve the problem. Pricing must be consid- ered before final source selection (as required by procurement regulations), but an advantage of prototyping over traditional source selection is that it will likely be more practical for bid- ders to quote a fixed price once the prototype has been developed.
I have been around long enough to know there are no contracting pana- ceas. But despite some caution about tech demos, “don’t tell me, show me” represents a promising development in the contracting system. n
Steve Kelman is a professor of pub- lic management at Harvard Uni- versity’s Kennedy School of Govern- ment and former administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. His blog can be found at fcw. com/thelectern.
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May/June 2019 FCW.COM