All Learning Content
Should Contractors Cover the Cost of Protests?
Aug 24, 2016
Recently, the Professional Services Council (PSC) raised the alarm about two provisions that were being bandied about to include in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the big defense spending bill that tows along dozens straggling amendments and legislative language in its...
Federal CIO Tony Scott Opens Up U.S. IT Acquisition and Procurement Policy to New Ideas
Aug 24, 2016
Federal CIO Tony Scott has been on the job a little over a year, and has been front and center trying to push, drag and cajole the government’s approach to IT and digital services into the modern era. In just 16 months or so, Scott has instituted a host of new policies and directives, including...
White House Requires Agencies to Go Open Source
Aug 24, 2016
If nothing else, before January 20 of next year rolls around, the Obama administration will have implemented huge changes to the way the government buys information technology, modernizing policy, approach and in the end, the tech that’s bought. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and...
The Regulatory Road Ahead for Federal Acquisition Policy
Aug 24, 2016
The final year of President Barack Obama’s final term has turned out to be a busy one in terms of federal acquisition policy. Ever since the crash of Healthcare.gov, the president has made it part of his core mission to improve the way the government buys IT. And he has often employed...
Measuring the World: The World Bank’s Public Procurement Benchmarking
Aug 23, 2016
Every year the World Bank benchmarks the regulatory environments in 77 economies the world over, assessing their impact on the public procurement process. The benchmarking essentially cuts across two lines: The procurement lifecycle (how well the contract lifecycle from bid preparation to contract...
VIDEO: An Introduction to the Digital Services Playbook
Aug 23, 2016
Within 10 months of the failed October 2013 rollout of Healthcare.gov, the White House launched the United States Digital Service (USDS) to “work in collaboration with other government agencies to make websites more consumer friendly, to identify and fix problems, and to help upgrade the...
Podcast: 18F’s Dave Zvenyach on Innovation and $1 Procurements
Aug 19, 2016
We all know the problems and the challenges in government grab all of the headlines, but we also know there is an untold number of untold stories of people in the government doing great work to make the government work better and smarter for citizens. These are good stories to tell, and good...
Be Careful Using Procurement Thresholds that Lead to Disqualification of Bidders in Tenders
Aug 18, 2016
A recent court case in the UK is likely to become a much-quoted example of case law for public procurement legal challenges by unsuccessful bidders. The NDA case (click the link to get the full judgment) involves a challenge by Energy Solutions Ltd. which was the incumbent supplier for a huge...
Dan Ward on Innovation, Taking Risks and Doing More with Less
Jul 14, 2016
On today’s episode of the Public Impact Podcast, Public Spend Forum Co-Founder and Chair Raj Sharma talks with retired Air Force Lt. Col. Dan Ward about his approach to innovation, building a culture of trust when it comes to taking risks, and how he changed things up at the Air Force by...
BidView: An Idea Born On The Battlefield – Founders Discuss Mobile App for Government Contracting Opportunities
Jun 30, 2016
“Ramadi 2004 is where I first realized that something wasn’t right. Our unit got hit hard, leaving our vehicles disabled and us stranded, waiting on parts from resupply. We immediately went from convoy to foot patrol, which exposed us to firefights and roadside bombs. At the time I didn’t...
Jennifer Pahlka Talks Innovation, Agile, and California
Jun 23, 2016
For years California’s Child Welfare System—the electronic records system that helped keep track of cases for neglected, abused and vulnerable kids—was woefully out of date. And when California decided to go out to bid for a new one, the request for proposal was typically “monolithic,”...
18F’s Dave Zvenyach on Innovation and $1 Procurements
Jun 14, 2016
We all know the problems and the challenges in government grab all of the headlines, but we also know there is an untold number of untold stories of people in the government doing great work to make the government work better and smarter for citizens. These are good stories to tell, and good...