Expand Your Federal Contracting Knowledge

When I first became a contracting officer, there wasn't one place you learned federal acquisition.

You learned a little from the FAR. You learned from your supervisor. You learned from legal counsel after asking what felt like a hundred questions. You learned from experienced contracting officers who had already made the mistakes you were trying to avoid. You learned from GAO decisions, Inspector General reports, policy memoranda, training courses, and occasionally from acquisitions that didn't go quite the way anyone planned.

Over time, those experiences came together to form something that's difficult to define but easy to recognize. Professional judgment.

That's what separates someone who knows the FAR from someone who knows how to apply it.

As I work through reading the proposed rules on the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO), I keep coming back to one thought – which is something I learned as a Team Lead, a Branch Chief, a Chief, and an Acquisition Workforce Training Coordinator –

It’s not about writing a shorter FAR.  

Throughout this series I’ve said it’s easy to focus on what has been removed from the FAR. Yes, we see a leaner document. But that’s not the biggest change.  

The RFO separated regulatory requirements from implementation knowledge.

Today, acquisition professionals are working within a broader knowledge ecosystem than many of us grew up with.

1) While the FAR establishes the regulatory framework, the FAR Companion now provides the context for implementation of that framework.

2) Practitioner Albums now explain all of the thinking behind the changes and illustrate how the revised framework is intended to work in practice.

3) Agency deviations implement the revised structure while revisions continue and the RFO moves through the formal rulemaking process.

4) Agency supplements, policy memoranda, training resources, and professional education fill in the gaps.

It's a different model for how acquisition professionals access information.

Let Me Tell You A Story…

When I arrived at GSA in 2012, part of my job was training and developing a contracting staff of more than 50 people at different stages of experience and certification. In fact, part of the application process was developing an Acquisition Workforce Training and Development Plan. Apparently, that requirement scared everyone else away. I was the only person who applied.

My first few weeks taught me something else: GSA's acquisition policy and workforce information was scattered EVERYWHERE. Shared drives. Policy sites. Old documents. Poorly labeled documents. Finding what you needed was a nightmare.

About that time, GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini launched the Great Ideas Hunt. I submitted an idea for an Acquisition Portal where GSA could bring workforce, career development, policy, FAR, DOL, small business and other acquisition information together. The idea took off, and I served on the working group that developed the site's hierarchy. The value was pretty simple: people could find the information they needed in one place.

The RFO just took that model and said – naw.

Instead it says, “We believe in you, Acquisition Workforce! While there is less of you and you’ve lost some of your historical knowledge, we know you can read and you will find the information you need no matter where we put it. Happy hunting!”

The Bigger Change Isn’t the FAR

For most of my federal career, if someone asked me where to start researching a procurement issue, my answer was relatively straightforward. "Let's start with the FAR." It didn’t mean that the FAR had the full answer, but it gave everyone a common starting point with enough context and process to get you going quickly. But today, I don't think that's enough.

Today, based on conversations with Contracting Officers I know still on the job, it sounds more like this: "Let's start with the FAR. Then let's see what the Companion says. Let's look at the Practitioner Album. Was there an Executive Order on this? Has OFPP issued guidance? Is there an agency deviation that applies? Has GAO weighed in? Has anyone done this in our group yet?"

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Eventually it could be a better way of supporting an acquisition workforce that has to learn to adapt more quickly than traditional rulemaking allows. But it does change some important things.

It changes how they learn. And it adds time and risk.

From the Contracting Officer’s Chair

Putting information somewhere the workforce can access it is not the same thing as developing the workforce. A Practitioner Album can explain something. A course can teach it. Neither necessarily teaches a GS-11 contract specialist when to question the answer, when discretion is appropriate, when to elevate something, or what downstream consequence a seemingly small acquisition-planning decision may create.

Some of the best contracting officers I've known couldn't quote FAR citations from memory. But they knew the questions to ask. They could see risk in an underdeveloped requirement before it became a solicitation problem. They understood how an acquisition-planning decision could affect competition months later. And they knew when to bring in legal counsel, small business, or technical experts.

That's judgment. And judgment comes from experience, mentorship, continuous learning and professional discussion, not simply knowing where to find the rule.

I do have some optimism about this new knowledge model. It can make acquisition guidance far more responsive than regulation alone ever could. I've seen firsthand how long FAR rulemaking can take. It can take YEARS. Meanwhile, technology changes, commercial practices evolve, GAO issues decisions, agencies act, and new buying techniques emerge. The FAR Companion and Practitioner Albums give the acquisition community a way to capture some of that evolution much faster. That's a positive.

But it also creates a challenge: Knowledge is only valuable if people know where to find it, what authority it carries, and when to rely on it.

One of the strengths of the FAR has always been consistency. Whether you worked at the DHS, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, GSA, or another agency, everyone started from the same regulation. Today, knowledge is intentionally distributed across multiple resources. That means consistency depends less on where information is published and more on how effectively the acquisition workforce understands the relationship among those resources. That's a leadership challenge. And it's a training challenge.

Contractors, consultants, attorneys, and proposal professionals are adapting to the same knowledge ecosystem. Understanding where acquisition thinking now lives is becoming just as important as understanding the regulation itself.

Frankly, understanding the regulation, processes, and people all connect is one reason I’m still active in this field – even if I’m sitting on the industry side now. I could go chase my dream of being a photog, sell my prints, or get back to the art I've set aside for too long. But one of the things I enjoyed most about supervising contracting professionals was watching the moment when someone stopped looking for answers and started asking better questions. That's when I knew they were growing into their craft.

The FAR can teach requirements, but experience teaches judgment. And good supervisors accelerate that process. And if the RFO expects contracting professionals to exercise more judgment and discretion, then supervisors need tools specifically designed to help them develop that judgment in others.  Give a developing specialist an acquisition and make them explain not just what they would do, but where they found the authority, what discretion exists, what alternatives they considered, and why they made the recommendation. Build that thought process into acquisitions at the lowest levels.

As I think about the RFO, personally, I don't worry nearly as much about whether a paragraph moved from the FAR to the FAR Companion. What I think about is the next generation of contracting officers.

How do we help them develop judgment in this new environment?

How do we make sure they understand not just what the regulation says, but why it says it?

To me, that's one of the most important leadership questions raised by the RFO. And who will help them. Too often, leadership does what it it has always done – writes the change and tosses it over the fence. That won’t cut it this time if they expect real change and innovation.

Moving so much of that practical knowledge outside of the FAR is a significant shift. How will we know how well the workforce is taking it all in? We need a structured mechanism for practitioners to identify recurring interpretation problems, conflicting implementation, useful practices, or places where the FAR Companion and Practitioner Albums need clarification.

That turns the workforce from passive recipients into part of the learning system.

Handled well, shifting process out of the FAR could create a more agile workforce. But handled poorly, it could create uncertainty, inconsistent implementation, and uneven professional development. At this point, I don't think we've seen enough to know which outcome is more likely. Jaime Gracia has been raising similar concerns about acquisition workforce development, including his recent article, “The Procurement Workforce Problem No One Wants to Fund” at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/copy-procurement-workforce-problem-one-wants-fund-jaime-gracia-vdmke/?trackingId=BVgMVDCyRY6vwzJDfBYkwQ%3D%3D. There still aren’t enough people having this conversation.

It deserves more attention than it's receiving. And the acquisition workforce deserves more training and leadership support than it is getting.

Three Things Leadership Needs to Think About Now

• Create a common learning framework.

• Develop supervisors as the bridge between guidance and judgment.

• Measure whether implementation is actually producing consistent professional practice.

The RFO may have made the FAR leaner. It did not make federal acquisition simpler to learn.

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What’s next? Weathering the RFO will be back as we work through the latest RFO proposed rules covering several “meaty” FAR parts. Watch for more soon on LinkedIn and Substack.

Author: Shauna Weatherly, President, Federal Subcontract Solutions LLC (dba FedSubK). Shauna is a small business advocate and owner of FedSubK. FedSubK exists to simplify federal contracting, empowering small businesses with practical, understandable resources. We bring first-hand experiences in Federal contracting from multiple perspectives derived from roles held both in and out of Government over almost four decades of Federal service.

Visit us at fedsubk.com to learn more about--

Getting Started in Federal Contracting: fedsubk.com/begin-your-journey-here

Solutions and Our Trusted Support Provider Network: fedsubk.com/solutions-services

Insights from a Contracting Officer: fedsubk.com/insights

Free Webinars and Resources: fedsubk.com/webinars-training

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For years I've heard some version of the same complaint about federal acquisition: "Just let the Contracting Officer use some judgment."

Okay. Now what?

Because removing process from the FAR and actually changing the way federal agencies buy are two very different things.

The Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO) is stripping away some of the detailed implementation language that generations of acquisition professionals grew up with. The idea, at least in part, is to create more room for acquisition professionals to exercise discretion and sound business judgment. I understand the theory. What I'm interested in now is what happens when a Contracting Officer actually tries to use that discretion. Because here's something almost 40 years in federal acquisition taught me: process has a way of growing back.

Sometimes it comes from regulation. Sometimes it comes from agency policy. Legal counsel wants another review. A policy office creates another template. A contracting office develops a local procedure because something went wrong once five years ago.

And sometimes Contracting Officers do it to ourselves.

We keep doing something because that's how we've always done it. Because the template is already there. Because another approval makes everyone a little more comfortable. Or because trying something different means being the person who has to explain why. That's where I think a key test of the RFO is going to occur.

From the Contracting Officer's Chair

Having discretion and being comfortable exercising it are not the same thing. Neither is having discretion and being allowed to exercise it.

A Contracting Officer may look at the RFO and see room for a different approach, but that CO doesn't operate in isolation. There is a supervisor. Legal counsel. Program leadership. Agency policy. Review boards. Local procedures. Templates. Sometimes headquarters. Every one of those layers can influence how much of that theoretical flexibility survives an actual acquisition. That's not necessarily bad. Checks and balances exist for a reason, and I've spent enough time on both sides of acquisition reviews to appreciate the value of another experienced person asking, "Have you thought about this?"

But there is a difference between oversight that improves an acquisition and process that exists simply because it has always existed. And that raises a question I think agencies need to consider as the RFO moves forward: If we remove prescriptive process from the FAR and then recreate it through agency policy, local procedures, mandatory templates and layers of review, what exactly did we accomplish?

We could end up with a shorter FAR and essentially the same acquisition system. Or we could end up with something else entirely: agencies and contracting offices rebuilding different versions of the processes that used to reside in one common regulation. That isn't necessarily flexibility. It could simply be fragmentation.

There is another part of this that I don't think gets enough attention. Detailed process provides something besides bureaucracy. It can also provide cover.

"The FAR requires it."

That's a pretty comfortable place for a Contracting Officer to stand when someone challenges an acquisition strategy. It's different when the answer becomes, "The FAR gives me discretion, and based on the market research, risk, requirement and facts of this acquisition, this is the approach I determined was appropriate."

Now the CO's/KO’s judgment carries more weight. So does the signature. I don't say that as a criticism of Contracting Officers. I've been one. There is a reason experienced COs/KOs sometimes become cautious. Acquisition decisions can be reviewed by a supervisor, legal counsel, an Inspector General, GAO, a court—or someone several years later who has the luxury of knowing how everything turned out. That experience teaches you to think about not only whether you can make a decision, but whether you can explain and support it later.

That's why I don't think simply telling the workforce, "You have more flexibility now," will necessarily change acquisition behavior.

The system around the Contracting Officer has to permit that flexibility, too. This is where leadership has some decisions of its own to make.

If we really want Contracting Officers exercising reasonable discretion, we have to accept something that comes with it: reasonable people will occasionally make different decisions. Two experienced Contracting Officers looking at similar acquisitions may choose different approaches. One may engage industry differently. One may structure the competition differently. One may decide a particular procedural step adds value while another decides it does not. That doesn't automatically mean one of them is wrong. It really comes down to whether the decision was lawful, reasonable, supported by the facts, and documented well enough that someone who wasn't sitting in the room can understand why it was made. That's a different acquisition culture from one built primarily around procedural uniformity. And I'm not convinced yet that the Government is entirely comfortable with that distinction.

There is a natural tendency in large organizations to standardize. Something goes wrong, so we add a review. Someone makes a poor decision, so we create a template. An audit finds a weakness, so we establish another procedure. Individually, each response may make perfect sense. Collectively, that's how process grows back. That’s how we ended up with the FAR we had before the RFO. It grew the way it did because the FAR Council wanted to fix common mistakes through regulation versus process and training.

Five years from now, we could find ourselves with a much shorter FAR surrounded by layers of agency policy, local procedures, templates and unwritten rules that recreated much of what was removed. If that happens, did we really change federal acquisition?

Industry should be watching, too. This isn't just an internal Government issue. If the RFO works as intended, industry may encounter more variation among agencies, contracting offices and even individual acquisition teams as they make greater use of the discretion available to them. That makes meaningful market engagement even more important.

Don't just tell the Government what you sell. Help the acquisition team understand the market it is buying from. Explain what drives competition. Explain commercial practices. Explain what happens when requirements are bundled or structured a particular way. Explain where an acquisition strategy may unintentionally create cost, schedule, performance or competition risk. Give the Contracting Officer useful information on which to exercise judgment. Then let the Government make the decision.

That's an important distinction, especially in this environment. Industry isn't making federal acquisition decisions. But industry can—and should—give the Government better information on which to base them.

As the RFO moves from rewriting regulations to changing actual acquisitions, this is what I'm going to be watching. I'm not particularly interested in counting how many fewer pages are in the FAR. I'm much less interested in whether every old procedural sentence eventually finds a new home somewhere else, either.

I'm watching what grows back.

• Will agencies resist the temptation to recreate deleted process through policy?

• Will contracting offices allow experienced COs/KOs to use the discretion the revised framework gives them?

• Will supervisors and reviewers support a reasonable decision even when it isn't the decision they personally would have made?

• And will Contracting Officers themselves become comfortable enough with that discretion to stop reaching for an old process simply because it feels safer?

Those answers will tell us much more about whether the RFO changed federal acquisition than the page count of the new FAR ever will.

And we can't forget how this is closely coupled with what is going on with the workforce in general with recent OPM changes. New organizations, reorganizations, new performance metrics, changed RIF structure, NDAs, and a culture of extreme politics in some organizations. We can't forget how that will weigh in to who goes first and who wants to be the test case for innovative judgement calls that may not go according to a clean E.O. or leadership plan.

We've spent years saying federal acquisition needs more judgment and less process. Now we may finally get to find out whether the acquisition system -- and the culture -- is willing to or can live with what that actually means.

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What’s next? The RFO isn’t only changing the text of the regulation, it’s changing where knowledge sits. How does that impact learning a complex profession on the inside, and what does it mean to you in industry as you work with the acquisition workforce? Watch for the link soon on LinkedIn.

Author: Shauna Weatherly, President, Federal Subcontract Solutions LLC (dba FedSubK). Shauna is a small business advocate and owner of FedSubK. FedSubK exists to simplify federal contracting, empowering small businesses with practical, understandable resources. We bring first-hand experiences in Federal contracting from multiple perspectives derived from roles held both in and out of Government over almost four decades of Federal service.

Visit us at fedsubk.com to learn more about--

Getting Started in Federal Contracting: fedsubk.com/begin-your-journey-here

Solutions and Our Trusted Support Provider Network: fedsubk.com/solutions-services

Insights from a Contracting Officer: fedsubk.com/insights

Free Webinars and Resources: fedsubk.com/webinars-training

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"We need to engage the agency early."

It's hard to argue with that.

But what does "early" mean, actually? I mean – in Government terms and from their viewpoint.

Most companies are going to say “early” means before the solicitation is released. A lot of GovCons on LinkedIn talk all about getting in there while acquisition planning is going on. They say that’s the window when key decisions are made about contract types, competition pools, and evaluation factors. Others say it has to be well before acquisition planning.  

Listen to those people!

They are the ones in industry that “get it”!

The best market research – and industry’s best opportunity to help inform the discussion – happens before acquisition planning formally begins.

Reading through the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO), and as a former KO/CO, I had hoped it would catch up and understand that “early" is too narrowly defined. Maybe I get it now from being out here in industry for a number of years fully immersed in the talk of capture and pipeline development.

Knowing the federal marketplace should be an ongoing acquisition competency, not an activity tied to a single procurement.

Technically, FAR Part 10 is gone but experienced contracting officers understand that market research and acquisition planning belong together. They influence each other constantly. From that perspective, integrating the regulatory text of FAR Part 10 into Part 7 recognizes that connection.

But putting market research in Part 7 may reinforce another problem; treating it as something that begins when acquisition planning begins. Market knowledge should lead acquisition planning, not begin with it.  

A good requirement starts with knowing the market well. It’s when your Program Manager starts talking to you a good six months before the purchase request hits that a project is coming, prepping you for the drop. They give you intel on who the major players are, how commercial buying might fit, and outside influences like economic conditions or materials shortages.

From there, I can start talking to the Small Business Specialist and looking at the likely small business pool. I can talk with the estimator about likely dollar values and start thinking about contract type, pricing structure, clauses, and ways to streamline the procurement.

Right there.

Did you see that?

I’m already thinking about the competition pool, contract type, and pricing structure and there isn’t any talk about a purchase request or acquisition strategy yet. That’s what EARLY is.  And when contracting is included in programmatic budget discussions, those wheels turn even earlier.  And even with that six-month head start, it’s only useful if I’m not starting from zero.

And one thing the RFO is telling us very clearly now is that there is no requirement to conduct market research using a specific method or set of methods.  There is no mandate to issue a Sources Sought or Request for Information (RFI).

The RFO doesn’t prescribe a method. It tells the acquisition team to conduct market research appropriate to the circumstances under certain scenarios, and to engage in responsible and constructive exchanges without creating an unfair competitive advantage or violating procurement integrity requirements. (Proposed rule RFO 7.201(b)).  

The method isn’t the point anymore. The quality of the information and the judgment applied to it is.  

With that I think a mindset shift needs to take place for the RFO to be successful. And when the FAR prescribes less about how to get that information, what the acquisition team already knows becomes more important, not less.

Look at market research as continuous learning, not a one-time action.

Industry watches markets continuously because it has to. Government acquisition teams tend to examine them one procurement at a time. Hopefully it's not just me that sees how that creates an information gap about the market before acquisition planning ever begins.

The market research contracting personnel are all familiar with is done to support an individual acquisition. It informs the strategy, contract type, commerciality determination, competition pool, pricing approach, and documentation supporting those decisions.

Continuous market learning does something different. It builds knowledge before there is an acquisition that demands it. It means understanding how an industry, its suppliers, technologies, pricing practices, and commercial business models are changing before a requirement forces us to ask.

So let’s get back to that word – “Early”

Earlier and more continuous engagement raises the obvious question about how does the Government keep it fair? The answer hasn’t changed. Engage ethically, document, protect procurement integrity, and don’t give individual firms an unfair competitive advantage.

Continuous market learning should never become continuous market favoritism.

In fact, broader and more continuous market awareness should make acquisition teams less dependent on what they learn from the handful of vendors who happen to show up for a particular procurement.

From the Contracting Officer's Chair

Using continuous market learning would create a focused ongoing procurement effort to understand industries, technologies, suppliers, and commercial business practices, whether or not an active procurement is immediately on the horizon.

Because of lumbering procurement timelines, many believe starting market research two years out is ample time to adjust to the market changes.

Yeah, I’ve fallen into that trap. It doesn’t work like that. Continuous market learning moves some of that discovery upstream, before changing direction becomes an acquisition problem. Or, as we call it in Contracting -- our problem.

Well-seasoned COs and KOs know instinctively continuous market learning is a much-needed best practice, but they aren’t always allowed to go to key industry events (because no travel funds), they don’t have time to meet with vendors (because of an end of fiscal year that goes on for an entire quarter), and they don’t have access to trade publications (because the Government won’t buy them a subscription). They try to pay attention to how markets are changing. But by the time the acquisition team discovers how much the market has changed, changing course can mean rethinking the solicitation, evaluation approach, competition strategy, and/or pricing structure. And anyone who has sat in the CO/KO chair knows the lift required to make those changes on an already compressed schedule.  

The RFO’s FAR Companion says that “…acquisition teams should approach market research as an incremental process that builds understanding step-by-step.” That’s still looking at market research tied to an individual acquisition. The RFO writers had an opportunity to take the next step and distinguish procurement specific market research from continuous market learning. And they didn’t.  

Ugh – heartbreaking!  

But by integrating market research into acquisition planning in the text, and by relying more heavily on professional judgment, it creates space for the acquisition workforce to -- themselves -- think beyond procurement specific research to the possibility of continuous market learning. That gives agencies and programmatic teams within agencies a lot of leeway to create their own best practices.

If / how that happens is something to watch. BUT…

What the RFO Missed

RFO writers put their confidence in the acquisition workforce. Less prescription in process = more reliance on professional judgment. But judgment doesn't develop automatically with a new reg; I’ve been doing this long enough to know and live that. It comes from trusted and experienced leaders across the acquisition workforce – and by workforce I mean Contract Specialists (CS), COs, KOs, Contracting Officer’s Representatives (CORs), PMs, and Small Business Specialists. Those leaders step up and teach newer team members how to ask better questions, recognize bias, separate market understanding from vendor preference, and remain curious without compromising fairness in their research and engagements.

But the tools the RFO FAR Companion suggests aren’t starting points, not market knowledge. SAM.gov, CPARS.gov, FPDS.gov (which is now SAM Contract Awards and SAM Data Bank Reports), SBS, and other tools and datasets on Acquisition.gov and the GSA Acquisition Gateway don’t fully hit the mark. Talking to counterparts in other agencies, reviewing existing contract databases, reading industry publications, and examining vendor websites or online product literature are sources of information. They aren’t a substitute for market knowledge.

Useful? Absolutely. Enough? Not even close.

Tools provide data. Engagement provides information. Experience turns both into market knowledge.

A couple of things…

The question “Have we conducted market research yet?" isn't the same as "What do we know about the current market?"

‍The first asks whether an acquisition step has been completed. The second asks whether the acquisition team is informed.

The first is a report. The second can change an acquisition.

See the difference?  

One of the unintended consequences of organizing market research as a separate FAR part was that it became easy to think of it as another acquisition milestone. Complete the market research, write it up, and move on and don't think about the market until the next buy.

The RFO has created an opportunity to break that habit. If we do break it, acquisition teams can begin acquisition planning informed by the market instead of using the start of acquisition planning to begin learning about it.

But, will we?

Acquisition Leaders – you have a challenge!

Five years from now, should market research still be something we conduct for an acquisition or will market knowledge finally be treated as a continuous learning acquisition workforce competency?  

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Author: Shauna Weatherly, President, Federal Subcontract Solutions LLC(dba FedSubK). Shauna is a small business advocate and owner of FedSubK. FedSubK exists to simplify federal contracting, empowering small businesses with practical, understandable resources. We bring first-hand experiences in Federal contracting from multiple perspectives derived from roles held both in and out of Government over almost four decades of Federal service.

Visit us at fedsubk.com to learn more about--

Getting Started in Federal Contracting: fedsubk.com/begin-your-journey-here

Solutions and Our Trusted Support Provider Network: fedsubk.com/solutions-services

Insights from a Contracting Officer: fedsubk.com/insights

Free Webinars and Resources: fedsubk.com/webinars-training

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"I guess FAR Part 10 is gone."

I've seen statements like that in a few posts floating around LinkedIn. And yes, on the surface that's true.

But in practice, market research just became more important and has moved upstairs to live with FAR Part 7 where it belonged all along, in acquisition planning. It's now woven directly in there and no longer seen as a separate activity. I mean, as a Contracting Officer, this is how we have approached it for decades. Good acquisition planning always depends on good market research. You can't develop a sound acquisition strategy without understanding the marketplace you're buying from.

From my perspective, that's not a bad thing.

While acquisition planning encompassing market research is a change in structure, we really need to take it a step further and look at...Why did the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO) bring them together while simultaneously reducing much of the prescriptive language that historically guided how market research was conducted and documented?

For years, we taught acquisition planning and market research as two separate FAR parts. But they never really lived separately, though industry might think that:

“First, the Government conducts market research then it plans the acquisition.”

Not so quick.

If you’ve been around the inside of the Federal acquisition lifecycle as a member of the acquisition team – the requiring activity, the small business specialist, the end user, or in contracting – you know that's not how good acquisitions worked for real. Planning never stops once a need is put into the budget. It only ramps up on a trajectory that gets faster and steeper the closer to you to either the need date or the end of fiscal year. That trajectory includes market research throughout the pre-solicitation phase.

We used market research to shape, then adjust the acquisition strategy and acquisition plan with what we learned. And that learning didn’t always come in the form of an RFI. We refined requirements, reconsidered contract types, identified capable small businesses we hadn't previously considered, discovered commercial solutions that changed the direction of the procurement, and poured through acquisition history in our agency and others.

In other words, market research isn't one step.

It is always on your mind as the budget becomes known, the requirements start to materialize, and the opportunity becomes known to industry.

The RFO recognizes that reality by integrating market research now into FAR Part 7. That's a positive evolution. It reflects how acquisition professionals do the work.

But something else changed, too.

The rewritten framework is noticeably less prescriptive…intentionally. The FAR Council has been very clear that one of the objectives of the FAR re-write is to reduce unnecessary procedural requirements, simplify the regulation, and place greater reliance on professional judgment.

I understand that objective and I support it. BUT… I keep thinking about the fact that federal contracting isn't just about making good business decisions. It's about making decisions that are FAIR.

And those two things aren't always the same.

When people outside Government hear the word “process”, they often think “bureaucracy”. Federal employees like little hamsters on wheels running the cogs of a system where they are looking for ways to slow down, do less, take up more time, eat up more industry dollars, and short cut the system.

As a Contracting Officer, “process” to me meant “fairness”. And it provides certain tests you have to meet.

Could another company look at this acquisition and conclude it had a fair opportunity to compete?

Could GAO understand why we selected this acquisition strategy?

Could an Inspector General reconstruct our thinking?

Could my supervisor understand my rationale for this acquisition strategy?

Could I defend this decision six months from now if someone challenged it?

THAT STILL MATTERS.

Those questions are part of what makes federal procurement DIFFERENT from commercial buying, EVEN WHEN the Government's version of commercial processes are used.

It’s precisely why market research evolved into more than simply learning about the marketplace.

It also became one of the ways agencies demonstrated that acquisition decisions were informed, deliberate, and fair.

Not perfect, but fair.

From the Contracting Officer's Chair

One of the themes you'll continue to see throughout Weathering the RFO is a simple question: Why was this process or procedure there in the first place? That's very different from asking whether it was statutory.

Many of the historical procedures surrounding market research weren't created simply to generate more documentation. They evolved because they promoted thoughtful decision-making, encouraged agencies to explore commercial solutions, supported small business participation, and helped acquisition teams avoid unnecessarily restrictive requirements.

And most importantly, they created a record explaining how the Government arrived at its acquisition decisions.

Understanding why they evolved in the first place is equally important as putting process and procedure through a woodchipper. Because we all know – because it’s been said – that this is all about clearing perceived dead wood. But dead wood holds history. Trees grow through resilience. Every ring a year; a set of seasons that tested its endurance. The nonstatutory language shifted out of FAR holds years of lessons learned, protest wins and losses, shifting markets, and economic and national crises. While some may still be in the FAR Companion and Practitioners' Albums, they no longer carry the same weight.

It should carry some weight. It must inform judgement -- good judgement.

"Trust the acquisition workforce" is now basically what the RFO says.

The rewritten framework relies more heavily on judgment – but not professional experience, education, business acumen, and common sense.

Just less prescriptive lingo and little to no instruction.

Experienced Contracting Officers are capable of not missing a beat and exercising that good judgment. Many do daily. The larger question is how we develop that judgment across the workforce. Judgment doesn't appear because regulations shrink. It comes from experience, mentoring, training, discussion, successes, mistakes, and protests.

If we reduce regulatory prescription, we need equally strong investments in developing professional judgment. They go hand in hand.

As a Chief, I never just asked, “Did you complete your market research?"

This list of questions were almost always asked to at least one project manager in our Advanced Acquisition Planning Boards (AAPBs) in USACE and FAA.

“What do we know about the differences in the market between this procurement and the last.”

“Who is in the market now and who has left? Who is emerging?”

“What economic factors could change this acquisition throughout its lifecycle?”

“What are current trends and market indicators in this industry telling us?”

“What don’t we know and how are we getting that information?”

If the answer was, "Nothing," I usually wasn't encouraged but I also didn’t just let it slide because good judgement and due diligence demands these questions be asked and the answers found and considered.  

Good market research should occasionally prove us wrong. It should challenge assumptions. It should make us rethink a requirement, reconsider a contract type, or discover capability we didn't know existed.

If market research never changes the acquisition strategy, we need to ask ourselves if we are really studying the right marketplace or simply documenting decisions we've already made to fit a solution we already know we want.

The VALUE of market research is that the "THINKING" piece of it MADE ACQUISITIONS BETTER. The report you spit out to check a box is not the value.  

What I see working through the RFO is that there is strength in integrating market research into acquisition planning. However…we need to pay close attention is the corresponding reduction in prescriptive procedures. Those procedures didn’t only historically tell contracting officers what to do. They promoted consistency, transparency, and fairness in how acquisition decisions were made and documented.

The question isn't whether procedures should remain. It’s whether acquisition teams will continue to approach market research with the same discipline now that the RFO has created a less prescriptive process.

If acquisition teams can maintain discipline, consistency, transparency, and fairness, then the RFO changes have real potential to improve acquisition planning. But if market research becomes something we document after the important decisions have already been made, we'll have missed the opportunity the RFO, I believe, intended to create.

Ultimately, success won’t be measured by deleting FAR Part 10 and shifting it to FAR Part 7 to say we eliminated redundancy for some quick Administration win. It needs to be measured by whether acquisition planning becomes more informed because market research is fully integrated into it and not treated as a compliance exercise that happens alongside it.

Some measures of RFO success related to market research include assessing if:

• Agencies create ways to encourage thoughtful market research while reducing costs for industry. No more RFIs that are mini-RFPs.

• Tools, training, and leadership develop the critical thinking skills needed for newer contracting professionals in a less prescriptive market research environment. Moving beyond checklists to business acumen.  

• Agency acquisition strategies demonstrate fairness and consistency.

• Market research is integrated into acquisition planning earlier, resulting in more meaningful engagement -- and new methods for that engagement -- with industry.

• Five years from now, acquisition professionals aren’t viewing market research as a report but an innate requirement for good acquisition planning.

It’s up to industry and Government to keep market research fair and real versus it being relegated to a claim of less pages or a shorter FAR.

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What’s Coming Next -- When Judgment Carries More Weight

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Author: Shauna Weatherly, President, Federal Subcontract Solutions LLC (dba FedSubK). Shauna is a small business advocate and owner of FedSubK. FedSubK exists to simplify federal contracting, empowering small businesses with practical, understandable resources. We bring first-hand experiences in Federal contracting from multiple perspectives derived from roles held both in and out of Government over almost four decades of Federal service.

Visit us at fedsubk.com to learn more about--

Getting Started in Federal Contracting: fedsubk.com/begin-your-journey-here

Solutions and Our Trusted Support Provider Network: fedsubk.com/solutions-services

Insights from a Contracting Officer: fedsubk.com/insights

Free Webinars and Resources: fedsubk.com/webinars-training

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Before I got my first warrant (required to sign contracts), I was a Contract Specialist writing my first acquisition plan. It was for a large Total Environmental Restoration Contract (TERC) that included A-E, Services, and Construction terms and conditions. I was told, "follow FAR Part 7." I thought, "Okay, looks like I'll be doing a lot of these in the coming years. Figure it out." With a few years under my belt, I learned quickly that acquisition planning is the foundation for every successful procurement.

‍When I moved into leadership roles, we built acquisition planning into our entire program and project lifecycle.  We implemented Advanced Acquisition Planning Boards (AAPBs) before writing lengthy acquisition strategy and planning documents. We invited stakeholders like Contracting to attend the budget request preparation meetings for the next FY. We started shaping an understanding and a plan of action months and years in advance of analyses and research.  

Anyone who has spent time around acquisitions in the Federal space knows that most procurement problems begin at the beginning, before any procurement forecast goes into Acquisition Gateway or on the agency’s small business page, or any Sources Sought notice is issued in SAM. Long before a solicitation is issued and proposals arrive. And long before anyone files a protest.

You can almost always pin-point where, if you are going to have a problem, it will begin.

When an agency hasn't fully thought through what it's buying, why it's buying it, how the requirement should be structured, who might be capable of performing it, or what risks need to be managed before the acquisition ever reaches the marketplace.

Acquisition planning is preparation. If that’s not what we’re doing, we’re already creating problems for every acquisition phase that follows.  

And that's why this topic in federal acquisition and the proposed RFO rules deserves attention, especially now that FAR Part 10, Market Research, has been combined with FAR Part 7, Acquisition Planning. Combining acquisition planning and market research recognizes something practitioners have known for years -- they're inseparable.

But it also means that changes to planning now ripple directly into how agencies understand the marketplace before they ever write a solicitation.

Congress never cared whether agencies produced acquisition plans. Congress cared whether agencies made good acquisition decisions. They care about competition, stewardship of taxpayer dollars, thoughtful use of small businesses, commercial buying, performance-based acquisitions, and risk management.

Those are the objectives.

Acquisition planning has been the primary tool for achieving them. But the plan itself was never the goal. The effort behind the plan was. Acquisition planning is simply one of the first steps in the procurement process. It is the place where the most important decisions have already been made.

Consider the examples I gave above about the discussions in the AAPB and budget request preparation. All of that is well before anything was put into writing. And heck, by the time the RFI was released (if we released one), just about every big question was already answered.

• Will this be a small business set-aside?

• Have commercial solutions been considered?

• Should the requirement be bundled?

• What's the acquisition strategy?

• What contract type makes the most sense?

• How will proposals be evaluated?

• How much performance risk is acceptable?

Those decisions are a product of discussions very early in acquisition planning. By the time industry reads the solicitation, many of the biggest decisions have already been made. The solicitation simply makes those decisions visible. So that begs the question…

…If acquisition planning changes, doesn’t everything downstream change, too?

I have a ton of notes in the margins of my electronic copies of the RFO parts issued so far. Most center around... Where is the acquisition leadership expecting contracting specialists and contracting officers to learn how to think through these decisions? I'm not talking training sessions, listening sessions, leadership briefings, webinars, the FAR Companion, Practitioners' Albums.

We are overwhelmed by data these days -- there is no shortage.  Collection of data isn't the issue. it's what to do with it once we have it. What is meaningful and what isn't? That's a legitimate concern from the perspective of a contract specialist working different types of contracts in their cradle-to-grave office set-up. Or the specialist or contracting officer moved as a result of agency realignments and now buying something new, with no training whatsoever.

With the FAR Council is intentionally moving away from detailed procedural direction in favor of shorter regulations supported by guidance outside the FAR, we have to acknowledge that, historically, the FAR didn't just tell contracting officers what it needed to comply with, but often explained how to ensure compliance and answered questions about how to get it done.

From the Contracting Officer's Chair

Let’s start with a discussion about curiosity. Bring me a purchase requestion and I would have a list of questions ready for you. I know from experience that my answers and how this action continues hinges on what those answers are. That includes everything that goes right and wrong, long before I use any AI tool and ask questions.  

• What problem(s) are we trying to solve?

• Is there another way to buy this?

• Has it been purchased before?

• Who in industry might already be doing it and how is it procured?

• What risks are we creating and mitigating?

• What opportunities are we overlooking and creating?

• What is it that we don’t know yet but need answers for?

And then the standard "dollar value", "when do you need it", and "do you have money yet" questions.

Every profession has it and the contracting craft is no different. Knowing what questions to ask is part of the craft. Also part of the craft is learning how best to pass information from one experienced professional to the next. The RFO is forcing us to reconsider where and how that institutional knowledge should live going forward. And, how we preserve it in market research and acquisition planning.

Written acquisition plans preserve all discussion and decisions points. It is the ultimate fallback for the building of the solicitation and the justifications of what we are doing and why in the pre-award phase leading to the solicitation. It is never seen by industry but relied upon by acquisition. Making preservation discretionary means documentation practices could vary significantly across agencies, depending on each agency's implementation decisions and tolerance for risk.

What gets lost are rationales, alternatives considered, risk discussions, disagreements, lessons learned, why things changed from the last procurement, and what outside influences impacted current decisions. Acquisition plans in their written form allow that information to be inherited by future acquisition teams. This deserves more attention than it's receiving in the RFO.

The RFO made the changes in FAR Part 7 about the laundry list of what had to go in the plan.  

Wrong argument.

It is ALL about careful consideration of facts and circumstances before acting. How much consideration is required to make informed decisions, preserve those decisions so we have them as a guide moving forward, and actually use them to improve and streamline the process. Contracting officers know that their judgment can't be regulated. They stop relying on checklists and start recognizing patterns. They know the questions to ask end users, requiring activities, legal counsel, budget, and small business specialists because seeing the patterns for a poor acquisition form. That's because most know where acquisitions tend to go off track from living through it.

If the FAR is going to become shorter, the acquisition workforce needs a deliberate and consistent strategy across the board for preserving the judgment, rationale, and historical knowledge that good acquisition planning has always provided.

Otherwise, while we simplify the rulebook, it will -- for now -- make the profession harder to master.

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What’s Coming Next -- Article Four: Market Research Isn't About Checking a Box

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Author: Shauna Weatherly, President, Federal Subcontract Solutions LLC (dba FedSubK). Shauna is a small business advocate and owner of FedSubK. FedSubK exists to simplify federal contracting, empowering small businesses with practical, understandable resources. We bring first-hand experiences in Federal contracting from multiple perspectives derived from roles held both in and out of Government over almost four decades of Federal service.

Visit us at fedsubk.com to learn more about--

Getting Started in Federal Contracting: fedsubk.com/begin-your-journey-here

Solutions and Our Trusted Support Provider Network: fedsubk.com/solutions-services

Insights from a Contracting Officer: fedsubk.com/insights

Free Webinars and Resources: fedsubk.com/webinars-training

‍

In my last article, I talked about one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO) is the idea that the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) itself creates procurement policy. It doesn't. And if you are in GovCon, you should know that basic truth. Congress creates procurement policy. The FAR implements it. That distinction changes how we should think about the RFO. Instead of asking, "Why did they delete that?" I think we should first ask, "What purpose was that requirement serving?"

That question brings me to one of the most overused words appearing in every conversation or Government briefing about the RFO (aside from "empowering")...

Nonstatutory.

But it really is the most misunderstood word in the current conversation.

You'd think it was pretty straightforward. When you hear that the FAR Council was removing nonstatutory requirements from the FAR, the reaction was pretty simple. “Well, okay. If Congress didn't require it, why should it stay?" Just one thing...that assumes something that isn't necessarily true --

...if Congress didn't specifically require a process or procedure, the process or procedure isn't important.

Whoa! Think about that for a minute.

I spent most of my career implementing FAR, not just reading it, and that is NOT the right conclusion.

Being a Contracting Officer teaches you is that two questions can sound almost identical while leading to very different answers. And as Contracting Officers, we’ve been taught to pay attention to words very carefully.

In this case, the first question is a legal question:  "Did Congress require this? " But the next is an acquisition question: "Why did this process or procedure exist to begin with?" Sometimes the answer to both questions is the same. Congress required it. Case closed. But more than not, they aren't. And that comes out when you sit in a FAR policy working group meeting. You hear the discussion and debate over what Congress said is the law and the intent of that law, versus how we implement the law and ensure compliance with the law. In that room, the conversation always went back to Congress established the objective and intent or outcomes. The FAR established the procedure with which to ensure objective or intent was achieved.

And THAT requires consistency to get there Governmentwide. So, how do you get consistency? Processes and procedures.

Ouch! There are those pesky processes and procedures again. Those "nonstatutory" actions.

Congress rarely dictates via law how to get from point A to point B for something like acquisition planning. Or market research. Or documenting a responsibility determination.

The FAR has historically translated policy into repeatable acquisition practices. And for good reason. Left to their own devices, agencies have as many ways to do acquisition as the number of acquisition professionals they have on staff.

Honestly -- how many times have you worked with two Contracting Officers in the same office that didn't do the same thing the exact same way, even with processes and procedures in place.

Often.

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How FAR Actually Evolves

FAR didn't appear one day as a finished document. It evolved. And that evolution was expressly the oversight of the FAR Council which allowed the document to grow to into a perceived answer book, versus a regulation. And every acquisition professional has lived some part of that evolution. We've seen the legislation, been involved in protests, participated in IG reviews and seen the reports (and responded to them), instituted best practices and lessons learned...and more. Over time one-off procurement issues in a single agency or type of acquisition across Government become a way to migrate fixes into regulatory language in an effort to reduce risk. If Contracting Officer's weren't taking risks it was because the FAR kept the lanes narrow to the point there couldn't be an innovation race to streamline acquisition. The grey area in FAR become harder to find. Not because Congress required it but because acquisition leaders across Government kept watering the regulatory jungle of the FAR.  

The thread of consistency is created in the rulemaking process.

‍Congress passes a law requiring agencies to maximize practicable opportunities for small businesses. Congress doesn't necessarily prescribe every analytical step a Contracting Officer should take before deciding whether a procurement should be set aside.

But take that law, give it to SBA, they write a rule, and upon finalization...if the FAR Council believes it should be incorporated into the regulation, it creates a FAR case and tasks one of two councils – the Civilian Agency Acquisition Council (CAAC) or the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council (DARC) – to lead the process of drafting, coordination, and agreement on the text of the rule.  

The entity on point (CAAC or DARC) and its co-chair (whichever isn't the lead) herd procurement analysts in working groups to write FAR changes that include PROCESSES for implementation. These acquisition professionals from across government talk about interpretations and context. And they are sorting out the commonality all of what they all do. That's where process and procedure start to become important.

Interpretation and context is everything in the acquisition business. The words are chosen carefully and the decision to create a process or procedure within the FAR is the way to ensure consistency and the outcome / intent is achieved.  

Once rules become final and their processes were implemented, they become tied to other processes and you get a series of procedures that tie across types of contracts, use of certain funding, types of buying methods, and types of evaluation processes... and more.

Those processes and procedures become threads of consistency across government.

But that doesn't mean every process or procedure put into place should remain forever. I mean, the RFO just now got rid of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) language from awards made in 2009 and 2010. Why did that take so long?

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From the Contracting Officer's Chair

We need to understand what role processes and procedures have been playing before deciding they are no longer needed. Particularly with an acquisition workforce turned upside down through "The Fork" and DRP and people jumping ship. We don't have the same level of historical knowledge now. Face it. Things are different. Not bad, just different.

Without process and procedures in place, how do they learn? By making bad decisions and getting your neck chopped in a time of threats to your livelihood coming from several directions? Behavior isn't likely to include a new level of taking risks in that environment.

Government acquisition leadership (and some of those hosting Government acquisition leaders in their think-tanks) simply aren't facing reality.

Now, I'm not arguing against simplification. Frankly, it is the exact opposite. Ive wanted a more readable and user-friendly FAR for years. That part of the RFO is worthwhile. But simplification being good, isn't what this is all about. It's about -- Now that “X” has disappeared, what else disappears with it? It's about distinguishing between simplifying regulations and building better outcomes. It's really easy to simplify something when you're looking at it from 30,000 feet. It's much harder when you're the Contracting Officer responsible for defending the acquisition file two years later.

Will Contract Specialists and Contracting Officers still have the same training, historical knowledge, management support, and tools available in while operating in the shell of the former workforce capacity -- especially at the end of fiscal year?

Did you notice the thing missing in my take versus the FAR Council's take?

I'm not asking whether the provision was statutory.

I'm asking questions the acquisition workforce is asking.

If someone had walked into my office twenty years ago and said, "Shauna, this thing you're making me do, it isn't statutory." My next question probably would have been, "Okay...but it helps accomplish X, so why wouldn't we use it?" Not because I was defending regulations but because I was trying to understand whether not doing something changes how I approached an acquisition and create efficiencies. Should I push back and how far can I push the envelope? Or could I defend taking a different action and argue I'm still compliant?

Some procedures existed because they genuinely improved decision-making. Others existed because they reflected old ways of doing business that no longer made sense. One of the responsibilities of a good Contracting Officer is learning to tell the difference. Working in the grey area. Understanding where it lives and not get rid of it when it is needed to achieve the outcomes intended by Congress.

That is our charge as acquisition professionals - exercising business judgement. That often involves a process to ensure we hit the mark and do our due diligency. And you Contracting Officer's know just how often you used processes and procedures in the FAR to fall back on when they actually helped streamline decision-making, efficiency, and consistency.

The RFO now revolves the conversation around statutory information that remains which short-circuits the discussion we need to have.

Statute tells us where a requirement came from, but experience helps us understand why the nonstatutory stuff mattered. And why it might still be needed.

We need that both perspectives as we move forward reviewing proposed RFO changes.

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What's Coming Next -- Article Three: Where Good Procurements Really Begin?

One of the first places it gets real is acquisition planning. The FAR has historically translated procurement objectives put in place by Congress into how we determine acquisition planning requirements. And that influences everything from competition to market research to small business participation.

Next, I’ll be talking about why acquisition planning became one of the foundations of federal procurement and what it means when many of those implementation details move from regulation to guidance…again, two very different things.

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Author: Shauna Weatherly, President, Federal Subcontract Solutions LLC (dba FedSubK). Shauna is a small business advocate and owner of FedSubK. FedSubK exists to simplify federal contracting, empowering small businesses with practical, understandable resources. We bring first-hand experiences in Federal contracting from multiple perspectives derived from roles held both in and out of Government over almost four decades of Federal service.

Visit us at fedsubk.com to learn more about--

Getting Started in Federal Contracting: fedsubk.com/begin-your-journey-here

Solutions and Our Trusted Support Provider Network: fedsubk.com/solutions-services

Insights from a Contracting Officer: fedsubk.com/insights

Free Webinars and Resources: fedsubk.com/webinars-training