Better Acquisition Outcomes Through Better Acquisition Planning
Consider the broader purpose and objectives of the program office when completing a plan. The purpose of acquisition planning is not just to be timely but to ensure the government meets its needs most effectively and economically.
By Al Muñoz, NCMA Fellow
Have you thought much about acquisition planning? Many of us have not. Planning is just a preliminary step before getting to the good part of the acquisition process – award and execution. Like many things surrounding the genuine craft of acquisition, acquisition planning can feel unnecessary, even bureaucratic.
Many teams do not give it much thought once it is complete, and most plans never see the light of day again once they’re finalized and filed. No one revisits them except for more streamlined acquisition professionals who borrow from past plans to help draft new ones.
In fact, most plans can be cobbled together using plagiarized bits or even whole sections from past plans – yours or someone else’s. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) even encourages this practice. (1)
Some agencies take it a step further with templates and sample language that narrowly meet the need to document efforts to comply with the FAR mandate to perform acquisition planning for all acquisitions. (2) A comprehensive template can make writing a new plan downright simple, albeit only a little more than compliant, and seemingly more focused on the plan than the planning.
Completing a plan is not the same thing as planning. According to the FAR, the purpose of acquisition planning is not just to be timely but to ensure the government meets its needs most effectively and economically. (3)
However, in our rush to complete planning we often overfocus on timeliness and forget the broader purpose. Effectiveness and economy – terms we rarely mention – are equally important in the planning process.
Having prepared and reviewed thousands of acquisition plans over the years and watched what happened during the subsequent acquisitions, I can say with absolute certainty that effective planning leads to effective and economical outcomes. Anyone who has taken the time to think about it has reached the same conclusion. So, let’s go back to basics briefly and look under the hood of acquisition planning.
The Two Parts of the Acquisition Plan
Every acquisition plan consists of two parts: Part A, which outlines the acquisition background and objectives, and Part B, which details the plan of action. (4) In simpler terms, Part A tells us where we are and where we want to go, while Part B explains how we’ll get there.
Alternatively, Part A provides the conditions for the acquisition, and Part B is our scheme to complete it. When these two parts are cohesive, detailed, and precise, the resulting acquisition will be a good fit.
Once a need is identified, the planning team should focus on gathering the information from the program office to complete Part A. The team should then analyze that data to craft the plan of action and document it in Part B. It is Part B that the team will work to execute to fulfill the program need. Everything in Part B should be aligned with an objective in Part A. Figure 1 illustrates this structure.
Let‘s look at a simple example of how the two parts interact. If we take a requirement for a routine service such as janitorial or landscaping, our background would be that those services will be required into the foreseeable future with little or no change. That provides the basis for establishing our performance period, to be noted in Part A under Delivery or performance-period requirements. Those are perfect conditions for a contract with option periods, a special contracting method covered in Part B under Acquisition considerations.
The program office’s objective is a contract it can rely upon for as long as possible because there is little or no benefit from crafting a new one with any frequency. Our plan of action then would be to craft a contract that includes option periods that would extend the original contract, as is, into the future.
If you have ever planned a routine service contract like this, you already know that we almost always include option periods. You may have even been able to articulate why. If you stop to think about it, that match between the government’s needs and how we address them is the heart of acquisition planning in a nutshell.
Start Planning by Gathering Information
To complete Part A, planners should focus on gathering information from the program office. This is a critical step in planning an acquisition. Without a thorough understanding of the client’s needs, the team won’t be able to develop accurate, actionable steps in its plan of action. The result can be an acquisition that fails to meet the need, fulfills it less efficiently, or is more costly.
Planners should closely examine the requirement in partnership with the program office and document the concerns, constraints, and considerations that provide the guardrails for the plan of action. This is a time to let your curiosity get the better of you. Ask questions of the program office and use the answers to paint a complete picture of the environment where the acquisition is expected to fill the program office’s needs successfully. Remember that Part A’s key points should be reflected in the plan in Part B to be executed by the acquisition team. If the team cannot act on the information gathered, more gathering is needed.
At the end of this step, the team should know and have documented what they’re buying, why, and where the lines are that, if crossed, could jeopardize the achievement of successful acquisition outcomes.
Taking another look at our routine service contract, suppose we failed to gather information about the location where our janitorial or landscaping services are going to be performed. This might seem to make little difference until we consider that the location might be remote, have limits on the hours the contractor will have access or will require the contractor’s personnel to have background checks or security clearances because of the nature of the facility or its work. We can already see the implications for several sections of our plan of action, including Sources, Logistics, Government-furnished property and Security considerations.
Analyze the Plan
While the FAR provides guidelines on what to document in each plan, it fails to speak to the need to analyze what the team has gathered so far before venturing into Part B. This critical step of analyzing Part A before moving to Part B separates a good plan from a great one.
Your ability to analyze the information gathered in Part A is vital to crafting an effective strategy that meets the program office’s needs. Your insights into the program office’s strategic direction and skill in identifying contracting solutions to match are invaluable. This step is where your expertise shines.
The analysis should focus on understanding the program office’s strategic direction so that it can later be aligned with the plan of action. The team should examine external and internal issues affecting the program office’s goals and objectives to reveal the parameters for a successful acquisition. Identify the program office’s strengths and weaknesses and any threats (risks) and opportunities (trade-offs) that may arise during the acquisition.
When the analysis is completed, the team should be able to articulate clearly what a successful acquisition should look like: one that fulfills the requirement within the limits of the environment and addresses the needs of the program office in terms of price, quality, and schedule.
Looking back at our routine service requirement, at this point we should know everything the client knows about what successful performance looks like. We should also know any constraints like those arising from the location of the facility in our example or from the program office’s budget or schedule.
We might not see any risks yet, but we should have at least had that discussion with the program office and examined any input they had to share. We should also reach back into our experience during this analysis to think about other routine service contracts we have recently engaged in. Maybe the last iteration of our janitorial contract went smoothly for this program office, but the one we just completed for another office had much more competition than expected. It might not be enough to act on yet, but it is certainly something to keep in mind as we move into the plan of action.
This step should also highlight gaps in the government’s understanding of its needs and what is needed to fulfill them. The gaps will be explored, and perhaps new ones will be found when the team undertakes market research. Often, industry partners have a better, more complete, and more up-to-date understanding of delivering to the government’s needs. A good analysis will help us form the questions we must ask them during market research to complete our knowledge to deliver our expected outcomes.
Remember that the acquisition plan is a living document. The results of market research may require updates to Part A to document our updated understanding of our acquisition environment. Because Part B stems from what we documented in Part A, our plan will not be complete until we update it with the results of market research in both parts.
While not common, a state will occasionally impose new license requirements on contractors performing work in that state. Our program office might not yet know that, which means we will only find out through market research.
Suppose our facility is now in a state that requires licensing. In that case, we will need to go back and document that in Part A under Capabilities or Performance since a contractor who does not have the appropriate license will be unable to perform the work.
The Plan of Action
Now that we have documented the environment in which our acquisition must succeed and analyzed what has been gathered, it is time to start planning. Remember that everything in the plan of action should address the objectives or concerns noted in Part A.
The planner should refer to Part A frequently during the planning process to ensure that the plan stays aligned with the documented concerns, constraints, and considerations the team identified. The team should also ensure that each objective documented in Part A is addressed in the plan of action.
Looking through our routine services example, our performance period requirements in Part A have already generated a plan for option periods that we documented under acquisition considerations in Part B. Security requirements at the facility, a known performance constraint documented under applicable conditions in Part A, resulted in our planning for security and logistics among other potential planning considerations in our plan of action.
Our experience with higher levels of competition in similar acquisitions might result in changes to the way we seek, promote, and sustain competition in our plan for this acquisition, documented in our Part B description of competition.
Finally, we found out during market research that our contractor will need licensing, resulting in an update to the performance standards in Part A, which could be addressed with a new pass/fail evaluation criteria in our source selection procedures in Part B.
Although it is easier to state only what we plan to do, the best planners also document why, even where the FAR does not prescribe it. This helps the team focus on the plan’s objectives and will clarify how each decision contributes to acquisition success. This is especially important when choosing a contract vehicle, selecting a contract type, and formulating the selection criteria.
Evaluate and Correct
Good planners spend time with each part, pausing in between to analyze the information gathered for Part A before venturing into a plan of action. Better planners evaluate the success of their plans in meeting the need to deliver the best value product or service to the customer on a timely basis while maintaining the public’s trust and fulfilling public policy objectives. (5)
At a minimum, the team should reflect on the success of its acquisition to see where improvements can be made in the planning process and employ them in future planning efforts.
Although it takes more time and attention to plan an acquisition thoroughly, the outcome will be a closer match between the program office’s needs and the acquisition results.
Acquisition Planning in the Era of Artificial Intelligence
Eventually, as with most parts of the acquisition process, acquisition planning will soon be enhanced by artificial intelligence. A plan can be drafted with decisions that artificial intelligence can easily recommend based on the acquisition environment documented by the team while completing Part A. By analyzing the objectives and constraints documented by the team, artificial intelligence can make reasonably accurate recommendations to address them.
Suppose the work is commercial, for example. In that case, artificial intelligence can easily recommend that the contract be fixed-price because that is what the team would look at first and what the artificial intelligence program would be taught.
However, it will be more difficult for artificial intelligence to accurately recommend time and materials or labor hours, which are also allowed, because it is much harder to determine when a fixed price is unsuitable. That type of recommendation takes the critical thinking and problem-solving skills that planners already possess that artificial intelligence never will.
Soon, the ability to plan an acquisition to address these more complex and often unique situations will be much more critical for planners than the ability to write a plan. Artificial intelligence can already generate text in response to prompts like those in Part A of an acquisition plan without getting tired or bored.
However, it will never be able to replace a planner’s ability to deliver insights and make connections that a human planner can make. It will also never be able to ascertain if the team has painted a complete picture or if essential data has been left out or overlooked. Only an experienced planner can spot when more questions need to be asked before executing a plan.
Better Acquisition Outcomes
In our example, what started as a routine services contract – the type that most of us rarely think about and would consider simple – quickly shifted as new information came to light. Any of the changes that were examined could have delayed or even sidelined the acquisition if the planner had failed to gather enough information and planned for them appropriately.
Routine services like these are not the most glamorous contracts, but I can tell you from experience that if you want everyone to notice the janitorial contract, try leaving the bins full for a week or two.
There are many more considerations in planning acquisitions than what is written here. Each part of the plan has its own best practices, and an article could be written on the do’s and don’ts of each subsection.
Better acquisition outcomes come from a genuine curiosity about the program office’s needs and crafting a plan to fulfill them that aligns with its objectives while addressing any limitations in the acquisition environment. By exploring the requirements carefully, planners gain a more profound stake in delivering better acquisition outcomes and a better ability to provide them.
Rely upon the knowledge you gain as you plan more acquisitions and have the courage not to wrap yourself in the warm blanket of process. Writing an acquisition plan is a step, not a skill. Planning an acquisition successfully requires the knowledge and experience of the acquisition professional who has honed their planning skills and deploys them freely. CM
Al Muñoz, NCMA Fellow has many years of experience buying technology for the federal government and has held leadership roles in acquisition and information technology for some of the largest federal agencies. He has worked on bringing innovative technology and advanced contracting techniques into the government and is a frequent speaker on acquisition and leadership. Muñoz is an NCMA Fellow and recipient of the Excellence in Contracting Professionalism Award.
ENDNOTES
1 FAR 7.104(a)
2 FAR 7.102(a)
3 FAR 7.102(b)
4 FAR 7.105
5 FAR 1.102(a)