Nearly none of the industry analysts expected we would have a government shutdown. After it happened, many predicted it would last a few days, or a week or two. This shutdown is both better and worse than previous ones. Whereas previous shutdowns affected most of Government, this one affects only 25% of [...]
Anyone who picks up a newspaper can see the significance of Martin Luther King. Scarcely a day goes by without news of killings by extremist groups in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere. The beauty of Dr. King is that he chose a different but more powerful method – non violence. What [...]
Bob Kucharuk-- The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its Bid Protest Annual Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2018 on November 27. During FY 2018, GAO received 2,607 cases: 2,474 protests, 55 cost claims, and 78 requests for reconsideration. The majority of protests were dismissed as GAO deemed evaluation to be [...]
Anthony Maggert -- a former Contracting Officer (CO) Evaluating thousands of federal proposals I’ve seen a lot of bad. As a Contracting Officer (CO), my job was to weed out the bad and embrace the good. What does bad look like? Easy. Remember your 8th grade English class? Bad grammar, misspelling, punctuation, [...]
Love them or hate them, storyboards serve as an indispensable tool to help organize proposal sections. I was surprised to learn that storyboards originated in the studios of Walt Disney in the early 1930s. At Disney, storyboards allowed the company to get control over the movie making process in a setting where [...]
Every government contractor faces the question: Do we use in-house staff or outsource our Federal proposal writing to consultants? During the past 30 years, I have seen companies keep the work entirely in-house or entirely outsource it to Federal Proposal consultants. The following factors may help you decide what is best [...]
Ken Blair-- Background With the release of the Sources Sought Notice (SSN) in January of 2017, the Navy began its journey on a long road to replace seven contracts with a single vehicle to provide Cyber technical, training, and analytical support to Naval Information Forces and its subordinate commands. The seven previous [...]
Tom Hodges-- Political Considerations A recent change in political climate enhances the value of RMADA 2.0. Whereas the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was controversial at the time RMADA 1.0 began, its services have recently won endorsement across the political spectrum. Notable for bidders, this removes an element of risk from the contract, [...]
Nigel Thacker-- This article provides critical insight into the way customer priorities change during a contract life cycle. Aligning your performance to these changing priorities is the key to winning the recompete. Many Government customers have a lifecycle approach to managing contracts. That means their priorities change at different points during the [...]
John Capewell-- Background I accepted, what I was led to believe, was a typical assignment to be a consulting proposal manager for a Washington D.C.-based, 8(a) company. The reality detail was that the Client company had recently been purchased by a large business, thereby losing their small business status and their ability [...]
