# Presentation: 038770

## What we’ll cover

- Acquisition’s role in the CPIC process
- The Acquisition Strategy Segment of the Exhibit 300  &  Scoring that Segment
- Related Stuff
- John Peterson, Office of Acquisition & Property  Mgmt
- 202-208-7269       j_k_peterson@ios.doi.gov

**Notes:**
As you can see – every expense has been spared in preparing this presentation.

I call it the plain vanilla universe mode.

I didn’t want to kill too many trees so I didn’t run off hard copies – check on soft copies –  those of your under the continuing court induced denial of service attack give me a fax number after I’m done and I’ll send you a copy.

## Acquisition’s Role in CPIC Process

- Bureau/Office CPIC Review Board
- Planning
- Budgeting
- Procurement
- Management in Place

**Notes:**
There are four spheres under the Exhibit 300 universe plus there are the bureau level boards.

## Acquisition’s Role Bureau/Office CPIC Boards

- Bureau Procurement Chief or Senior Procurement Staff Member should be a member of the Bureau CPIC Review Board (Boards if separate ones are established for const. & IT).

**Notes:**
This board is the initial reviewing activity for bureau and Congressionally generated projects.
Investment decisions are made at the bureau/office level, at the department level, at OMB and by Congress.
The Bureau/Office Review Board will make decisions on projects that do not rise to the formal – full blown CPIC level and will select and make recommendations to the Department on those that do.

Not necessarily a ‘voting’ member  --- he or she is there for business advice.

## Acquisition’s Role - Planning	

- The Integrated Project Team should be formed at the outset and includes the PM, the CO and members from other disciplines as appropriate. (CPIC Guide, Appendix S)
- CO Assists in preparation of Exhibit 300 and its supporting documentation – specifically:

**Notes:**
If you remember only one thing from my portion of the presentation – this is what it should be.  The team has to formed early and acquisition needs to be represented.

This can be a dramatic change from past practices in that acquisition’s presence needs to be from the outset and no longer begins with a requisition to execute a contract for the investment.  Theoretically, the IPT could begin 2 – 3 or more years prior to the contract award(s).

This is in concert with the philosophy of the contracting staff becoming business managers rather than simply fulfilling requisitioned requirements.

## Acquisition’s Role - Planning

- Key member in developing the Acquisition Strategy laid out in the 300  - preliminary market research - competition – contract type.
- Helps assure various segments of 300 are in agreement
- Assists in identifying multiple alternative approaches (GOGO, GOCO, lease-to-own, lease, acquire service vs capital investment in equipment to produce items, as applicable)

**Notes:**
Over the past several years I have often seen initial 300 submissions where various segments of the package were not in agreement with each other – often related to the contract approach.

## Acquisition’s Role - Planning

- Assists in cost/benefit analysis of the various alternatives.
- Assists in assuring that systems life costs are estimated *in toto*.
- Often called upon to award/administer contractual program management support services to assist in moving the project through the budget process.
- Assures solicitation will require contractor to report information on cost, schedule and performance criteria through implementation and management in place phases.

## Acquisition’s Role - Budgeting

- Available to assist PM in dealing with any questions/issues arising from DOI’s and/or OMB’s review.

**Notes:**
Once the Exhibit 300 is on it’s way through the budget request process – the role of the CO is fairly limited.  

The project is pitted against the other projects requested by the bureau within the bureau’s review board, then against the projects submitted by the other bureaus, then against those submitted by other agencies, once it gets to OMB and the Hill

## Acquisition’s Role - Procurement

- For those projects which make their way through the Exhibit 300 process and get funded in our appropriation, the CO, as part of the IPT, manages the execution of the procurement process for the requirement.

**Notes:**
This is the part of the process that the acquisition staff is most familiar with.

## Acquisition’s Role – Management in Place

- The CO administering the contract through the development, implementation and management in place phases of the project assists the PM in assuring that the contractor is providing information useful in reporting cost, schedule and performance variances to OMB as required.
- If the system’s life is extended, additional contractual support to update and/or maintain the system/facility maybe required.

**Notes:**
For those actions covered by the CPIC process, there are quarterly reports required by OMB on any project with more than a 10% variance from cost estimates, scheduled delivery and performance criteria --- not just through initial project development and implementation but through the end of the system’s life.  This reflects not only OMB Capital Investment policy but also the Clinger-Cohen Act in the case of IT projects.

## Exhibit 300 – Section I.G. Acquisition Strategy

- Content of the 300 (formerly 300b) has been a moving target because it is evolving.
- Current version of Acquisition Strategy is found at Section I.G. and includes coverage of accessability standards (Section 508)

**Notes:**
Now we will dig into the Acquisition Strategy portion of the Exhibit 300

My first exposure to the process was in the summer of 1999 for the FY 2001 budget cycle when OMB was looking almost exclusively at NPS Construction - - FY 2002 was about the same. But, in the FY 2003 process expanded the coverage and it really got rolling in the FY 2004 & FY 2005 budget process – the name changed from 300b to 300.  

Several questions associated with Section I.G. were added after the initial submission of the exhibits for the FY 2005 budget process and I wouldn’t be surprised if additional changes are made in the future.

## Scoring Section I.G. (0-5 points available)

- To the best of our knowledge OMB is looking for Acquisition Strategies based upon:
- Competition, Competition, Competition
- Using Firm-Fixed Price Contracts & Performance Based Contracts for Services, including contracts with performance incentives.
- Using COTS (or commercially available) with the least amount of customization possible.
- Addressing Section 508 standards requirements.

**Notes:**
As part of the process to enhance the viability of DOI projects in the fight for limited budget dollars, the OCIO has designed a process to ‘score’ the Exhibit 300s based upon our knowledge of what OBM is looking for in their ranking process.

So this is what we look for in scoring this section of the Exhibit 

## More on Performance Based Contracting

- True performance based service contracts represent a new world of contracting
- You contract for outcomes or results not for levels-of-effort or labor categories.
- This is reflected in dropping Statements of Work (what to do and how to do it) and utilizing Statements of Objectives / Outcomes (what are end result(s) that would represent success of the project).

**Notes:**
Everything in Section I.G. points the agency to utilize performance based contracting.

If you are only comfortable with level-of-effort types of contracts where the contractor is supporting you with bodies based on what job skills and how many hours they are to provide in pursuit of an objective you are in for a rocky road.  Even though these contracts or schedule task orders are often call ‘fixed price or fully loaded labor rate contracts/orders”  They are explicitly NOT what OMB is looking for as FP types of contracts.

PBSCs are not as yet, easy to design and develop but things are progressing.  There are a number of support services vendors who can assist in getting you there.

Give border security as an example.......Fence  -- Heliostat --- watch towers.

It is dotted with references to:
Project outcomes
Cost, Schedule and Performance goals
Contract provisions that allow the contractor to provide innovative, transformational solutions.
Providing that the agency must detail why contractual risk cannot be mitigated to permit a fixed-price environment thus enabling the agency to burden the contractor with cost, schedule and performance risk.
Financial incentives for contractor performance. 

## Issues that make scoring difficult

- The exhibit 300, Section I.G. questions address new, fully developed conceptual capital investment projects.
- Difficult for PM to address and for us apply scoring criteria to 300s prepared for up-front planning funding for huge projects & for projects that have moved into the ‘management in place’ arena.

## Watch Your Step

- Do not start ‘proof of concept’ or prototyping contracts and then expect to be  able to continue with the same vendor/product in a large scale non-competitive investment.
- Where the legacy system involved government operation/data collection etc., & the new investment alternatives include vendor provision of the system and operation/data collection – get your competitive sourcing (A-76) staff involved.

**Notes:**
- DOI entities that compete with other Federal agencies and/or private industry concerns for another agency’s requirements need to be aware that A-76 may also come into play ( Typically, the requiring agency will have to deal with it more than the servicing agency.)