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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

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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

Some super boring finance stuff about stock buybacks

A few weeks ago, Matt Levine wrote an article entitled "People are worried about oil stock buybacks" where he wrote about how the oil-and-gas industry is using its record-setting profits to return money back to shareholders in the form of buybacks rather than invest in new energy supply.

You can't protest if you don't ask

If you think about it, bid protests are kind of amazing. Like, if I personally decided to buy a Toyota, Ford couldn't sue me saying that I made a bad choice. Or, like, if the NFL picks FedEx over UPS to ship the Lombardi trophy[1], UPS can

You gotta have a plan...

Here are two ways to think about the burdens of federal procurement: 1. The burden in federal procurement is a bug. Federal procurement policymakers should be making it easier for companies to win business with the government. The government creates silly rules and processes that weed out companies that don&

Multitasking your way through the revolving door

A couple weeks ago, a subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on the Pentagon's "revolving door." Senator Elizabeth Warren, the chair of the committee, produced a report with some good anecdotes and an awesome title—"Pentagon Alchemy: How Defense Officials Pass