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V. David Zvenyach

The Coast Guard meets "fixit culture"

Earlier today on NPR's morning edition, there was a story about a Netherlands-based e-bike manufacturer called VanMoof that went bankrupt. Apparently, these e-bikes are a "hipster accessory both in Europe and in the United States" that have become "famous for their sleek design and ease

The 8(a) program is on pause

There are many goals of government procurement and many of them are at odds with each other. For example, society values competition in government procurement. But competition can slow things down. Similarly, society values efficiency with taxpayer dollars. But the most efficient thing may not be especially transparent. These goals

Smokey Bear Baseballs

Programming note: Hang on. I go on vacation and I come back and the SBA shut down the 8(a) program?!?! I guess I'll talk about that next week because, yeesh, there's a lot to cover there. And I'm still warming back up after

XOSBs get an A

Programming note: I am off the next two weeks for summer vacation! We are in the midst of the final quarter of fiscal year 2023, during which acquisition professionals everywhere are scrambling to obligate end-of-year funding. So what better time, I guess, to look a whole year backward at how

CIO-SP4, Scooby Doo edition: the case of the hidden Excel columns

The federal IT community is having a moment right now when it comes to Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (known by the delightful abbreviation "GWACs"). After a blockbuster decision earlier this year that affected a handful of GWACs[1], folks were on pins and needles waiting for the outcome of

Sorry, the portal is closed

Anyone who's ever dealt with government contracts knows that the most stressful part of a proposal is the submission process. There's a palpable fear that you'll send the wrong version of some important document that had been edited a million times over. Or that

Buying the last procurement

There's a famous proverb that generals are always preparing to fight the last war. Similarly, one way to think about government contracting is that the government is always preparing to buy the last procurement. Today, we discuss an example of how the government learns — and sometimes overlearns — from

Innovating within a Salesforce environment (and also within FedRAMP)

If you sell software to the government, you probably have feelings about the FedRAMP program. I'll give you a second or two to compose yourself. For everyone else, the FedRAMP program provides a form of centralized security approval for cloud services across the federal government. And as with

Correcting the corrective action

Programming note: I will be posting GovContrActually on Wednesday afternoons for the duration of the summer to better balance personal commitments. Also, while I'm getting meta, if you enjoy these posts, I'd appreciate if you shared with a colleague who might enjoy them, too. Now, on

Remember to read Section L

Although government solicitations can be intimidating to read, it's helpful to remember that competing for a government contract is an open-book test. If you want to win a contract, the thing to pay attention to is the solicitation. If a solicitation says that companies will be evaluated based