Download Contracting: Surfing the Waves of Change

NCMA World Congress
50th Anniversary Celebration
April 5-8, 2009
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Summary of NCMA Sessions attended by
Pamela Hill
NCMA Great Lakes Program Chair
News from NCMA
2009 is 50th Anniversary Celebration
Launched new Logo
Added Business Development as new Track
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Carly Fiorina-Keynote Speaker-April 5, 2009
 President of Carly Fiorina Enterprises and former CEO of
Hewlett-Packard Company
 Technology-Global in the last 20 years: any info/any time/any device
 www.wikileaks.org: Think “wikipedia,” except this leaks confidential
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information
Most important person managing a relationship over time is the
Contract Manager
Should always remember it is the ‘spirit of the contract, not just the
letter of the contract’
It is a personal decision to use common sense, good judgement, good
ethics and maintain perspective
Always remember what matters-Carly announced she was just
diagnosed with breast cancer and would begin treatment upon leaving
the conference
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General Lester L. Lyles, USAF (Ret.)
Board Director, General Dynamics Corporation
 To all Contract Administrators:
 There is a lack of proponency for contracting profession
 Be professional, get certifications and training
 Know your job, know the job of those around you
 Consider expanding to role of Program Manager
 Reach out and educate the “uninformed” about importance of contract
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management
Industry should reach out for “gems”, wherever they may be
Estimates indicate that NCMA membership is <20% of
contracting/acquisition communities
Remember these 3 words - communicate, communicate, communicate
“We’re out of money, now we must think”..WWII anon quote
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Charlie E. Williams
Director, Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA)
 DCMA oversees $ 2.2 trillion face value
 18,000 contracts in 900 locations
 Current staffing level of 9,500
 1990 staffing level was 25,000
 Currently have 250 staff in IRAQ, plan for 150 more by end of
2009
 Acquisition needs have been recognized by Secretary of Defense
 EVM critical for DOD, not doing “well enough” with it now
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Jan Frye
Deputy Asst. Secretary for Acquisition and Logistics, Veteran’s Admin.
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VA provides services to 24 million veterans
Has faced marginalization of procurement workforce
Inspector General stays busy due to poor quality of work
Let’s do our jobs right and give necessary resources to our
contracting officers
Need 4000 contracting professionals to fill government positions
Believes that Obama Administration “gets it” with procurement
Estimate is U.S. can save approximately $40 Billion with better
contracting/acquisition services
VA has 3-step intern program:
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Acquisition Intern School
Professional Contracting School-over 200 taking courses now
Program Management School
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Frank Anderson
President, Defense Acquisition University (DAU)
 Shay Assad regrets missing the conference - he is playing a big role
in shaping the workforce initiatives
 Hiring, Training, Retention and Incentives for procurement
workforce are key DAU initiatives
 Estimated that 73% of the procurement workforce is Baby Boomers
 Has a 15% growth strategy between 2010-2015
 “Once conventional wisdom prevails, fact and data cease to matter.”
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Business Development Sessions
 Using the BD- CMM - a Framework for Business
Development Excellence
 Contracts has a critical role in BD, in past was just negotiations
 Immature organizations have higher win rate than capture ratio
 BD - CMMI levels:
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Level 1 - Initial: less disciplined approach to pursuits
Level 2 - Repeatable: process discipline in place to repeat earlier successes
Level 3 - Defined: process documented, standardized, and integrated into
organization
Level 4 - Managed: end-to-end management of pursuit and focus on relationship
management
Level 5 - Optimizing: culture of continuous improvement and business
transformation
 Where does OCI fit in BD? OCI should be early milestone in pursuit
checklist
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BD Sessions Cont’d
 Understanding Your Organization’s Strategic Planning
Process and Tools
 What is Strategic Planning?*
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Continuous process of making risk-taking decisions systematically
Organizing systematically the effort needed to carry out these decisions, and
Measuring the results of these decisions against the expectations through
organized, systematic feedback
 What Strategic Planning is NOT:*
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Techniques and Quantification
Forecasting - masterminding the future
Dealing with future decisions
An attempt to eliminate risk
Questions to ask our organizations:
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Is our Strategic Planning Process effective?
Does Management actually commit resources to activities which will bring results in the future?
* Adapted from Peter F. Drucker Management Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, 1985
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BD Sessions Cont’d
 Applying Competitive Intelligence (CI) to Understand
Customers and Competitors
 SCIP-Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals:
www.scip.org 3000 members
 70% Industry, 20% Consulting, 5% Vendor, 5% Academic
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Organizations that systematically collect, analyze, process and
disseminate intelligence can tailor product and services to
customer needs, and improve chances of winning
Can shape customer and contract requirements
Consider the “what ifs”
Noise, Data, Information, Intelligence - Know the difference!
Actionable Intelligence is end result of successful CI collection
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BD Sessions Cont’d
 Understanding Proposal Development and the Contract
Manager’s Role (presented by Shipley Associates)
 Market Segmentation – identify new markets, core competencies - Marketing
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Decision
Long-Term Positioning - prioritize business opportunities, develop marketing
campaign - Interest Decision
Opportunity Assessment - gather prelim customer intelligence, prepare pursuit
recommendations - Pursuit Decision
Capture Planning - establish capture team, develop capture strategy, collaborate with
customer on needs analysis, draft SOO,SOW, TAAs, NDAs, preliminary bid/no bid
decisions - Blue Team 1 Review, Black Hat Review
Proposal Planning - receive customer RFQ/RFP, Technical/cost approaches
determined, In house SOWs, investigate need for subs, final bid/no bid
recommendation - Blue Team 2 Review, Proposal Kick-Off, Pink Team 1 Review
Proposal Development - finalize teams, subs, develop compliance checklists,
finalize technical, price volumes, legal, submit proposal, update Kick Off meeting Pink Team 2 Review, Red Team Review
Post-Submittal Activities - organize, maintain proposal documentation, respond to
customer questions, negotiate contract, customer debriefing - celebrate!
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THANK YOU NCMA Great Lakes
I appreciate your support of my attendance at the
2009 World Congress.
This was my first NCMA World Congress… not to be the
last I hope!
Let’s have a great 2009/2010 for our Chapter!
Pam
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