Procurement Play Book

What's a "procurement play book"?

I know just the guy that can help you out with processes, procedures, and templates that you can use. I'll send you a private message with his contact information.

What's a "procurement playbook"?

What's a "procurement playbook"?

I assume it explains proper tackling and various blocking schemes.

I think playbooks may also be used in football.

It is interesting that someone would tell someone who is not familiar with procurement playbooks to write a procurement play book. It's like telling a kid who's being a nuisance to go play in the street.

I suspect that a procurement playbook describes acquisition "plays" to run in different acquisition situations. If the situation is X, then do Y. It's an instruction book that you give to someone who otherwise wouldn't know what to do. It's something you resort to when you don't have competent people and don't know how to train them.

And with all the complications in contracting, the playbook will just lead them to make even dumber mistakes. Pick the wrong play and you get sacked.

However, sacked (fired) is if you work for industry. If you work for government, maybe just benched. Or maybe not.

When I started in government I was introduced to a guy who had made a copy of every kind of standard document (D&Fs, various kinds of memos, forms, etc.) that you might ever have to prepare and put them into a big three ring binder. His motto was: Why reinvent the wheel?

I'd never heard that expression before, and I'll never forget hearing it for the first time. Keeping copies of all the bureaucratic b.s. you've ever encountered, just in case you would have to produce it yourself someday -- what a concept! That's when I learned that government is not about thinking, it's about getting through it and moving on to the next routine thing.

I almost quit the job that day. What thoughtful person wants to work with such a crew? But I needed to make a living. I wonder what I'd have ended up doing if I had quit. But I'm still spending my time thinking about such stuff. That's not like seeing C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate.

Think about it, all you young'uns... Do you want to spend your lives doing and thinking about such stuff when the great floodgates of the wonder world await? Anyone for wildlife biology? Buckarooin'? Ranger School? Walking across Borneo? The Foreign Legion? Writing about classical Greek vases in Sicily while drinking good Sicilian wine and enjoying bread and olive oil? All of the foregoing? Life is short. Are you doing what you're doing because you want to, because you need the money, or because you lack imagination? Think, and channel Peter Beard, Patrick Leigh, or Gertrude Bell. Or read about them.

Thanks for the Blade Runner reference!

I about went batty trying to recall the reference to C-beams

I'm proud of you guys! Wasn't that a great scene! Wouldn't you like to see C-beams glittering near the Tannhauser Gate? It sounds so cool.

I've decided to book a trip to Greenland and the Faroe Islands. No FAR there, but you can see the Northern Lights in September.

Vern,

Given that I've spent most of the past week in Spokane I could hardly miss the reference.

http://sasquan.org/

I've decided to take the wife to Oregon next April, to visit the vineyards. If you and your wife are around, we'd love to take you to dinner!

H2H

We'll be here, as far as I know right now. You know how to contact me. Lots of vineyards nearby. Lots of other stuff to do as well.

I did some more research. There are people who take this sort of stuff seriously ... or at least seriously enough to write down a plausible explanation. I found this --

"C-beams are 'cutter beams,' a type of directed-energy weapon which slices ships apart. It's unusual to see them glitter because, like lasers, they don't generally shine at right angles to the beam path. Near the Tannhäuser Gate, however, there's a high enough concentration of interstellar hydrogen that a small portion of the beam will scatter so that an observer can see the beam path."

Essentially then, the replicant was describing a space battle.

Hope this helps.

I always figured he was talking about a space battle as he was manufactured for that purpose.

I need to see that movie again . . .