The Great Debate: Agency Perspectives on Procurement

Listening to this discussion (not "debate"), I realize that I spent my career in what I'll call programmatic and project contracting. I was engaged in making one-time, unique buys for big things. I never bought a lot of nuts and bolts stuff--commodities, spares, or IT. I consider the talk of "category management," "strategic sourcing," and the various contracting "vehicles" to be about what I have always called purchasing, rather than contracting. When one speaker said that making the deal is the easy part, I thought: M_an, I always that was the challenging part. That was the fun part._

The people on that panel talked like purchasing executives at Ford Motor Co. or Coca-Cola. They talked about buying commodities like handguns. I bought that kind of stuff (typewriters) for only a very short time at the beginning of my training. Then I was contracting in spacecraft and launch vehicle program offices for research and development.

What I'm saying is that "contracting" is really two fields--contracting and purchasing. And there are really two workforces--programmatic and project contracting, on the one hand, and purchasing, on the other. But we've created a single set of rules for two very different categories of acquisition, and we're training everybody in the same things and in the same way.

Personally, I am not interested in purchasing. I would never have been happy buying off-the-shelf IT hardware and software, spare parts, or cther commodities. But it's a good field, and it appears to dominate the concerns of the high-level managers. That means that there are career opportunities for people who take the larger, longer, strategic view.

That being said, I think this takes it too far:

"I didn't come into this business to write contracts, I came into this business to support a mission" (1:06:20)

I believe the GSA representative said they classified 22 different acquisition professions.

The Navy and DHS reps made me look into their opportunities. I found DHS' three year rotation program interesting. I just wonder if it is structured teaching and learning.

https://www.dhs.gov/homeland-security-careers/acquisition-professional-career-program

Vern Edwards said:

purchasing, rather than contracting

How about a firm dichotomy between contracting officers and "others." This follows what Vern Edwards calls "programmatic or project contracting" vs. purchasing.

The "others" can be purchasers, clerks, administrators, procurement techs-- PepeTheFrog doesn't care about the name. Some of the very best "others" earn limited warrants only for commercial supplies. This distinction is comparable to attorneys and paralegals. Instead of "1102" and "contract specialist" positions, which vary substantially, positions are either contracting officer or "other." No chance for advancement to contracting officer while in an "other" position. You can gain valuable experience and skills to eventually become a contracting officer, much like a paralegal. But you must make a clear transition: qualify for and be hired into a different, designated contracting officer position.

Like paralegals, many career "others" will not want to transition to contracting officer. Like trusted and experienced paralegals, some "others" will be entrusted with higher degrees of responsibility, like relatively larger purchases of commercial supplies, or the supervision of...other..."others."

No "other" will supervise a contracting officer. Every "other" can trace their supervisory line to a contracting officer.

The solicitation, negotiation, award, and modification of strategic sourcing vehicles, multiple-award contracts, non-commercial items, commercial services, R&D, major systems, etc. are designated for contracting officers. The "other" positions help out, much like paralegals. But the contracting officers run the show and are solely responsible.

Contracting officers have more stringent qualification requirements and higher average salaries.

When listening to that type of discussion among persons at that level, the most important thing to listen for is what they talk about, not what they say about it.

These people on the stage use terms with no definition, and the definition that they actually use is wrong.  Category Management, Strategic Sourcing, Agile...everything they say included buzzwords that they talk around rather than offering anything clear.  The one clear definition came from the moderator who stated that "the definition of innovation is introducing something new, and not much more than that" (1:00:00 mark).  Actually..that defines novelty, not innovation.  Innovation is the introduction of something new that replaces and repeals something that is pre-existed (creative destruction of markets).  People across government (and Silicon Valley) continually confuse novelty with innovation.  Novelty also means a cheap or inexpensive toy, which could also describe policy development in government.  He went on to say that "innovation is people.  Its ideas."  Watered down tripe.

PEPE,  The "others" are 1105s and 1106s which we used to have but those with, or working on degrees, got converted to 1102 and the others eventually left.  Problem was that HR would not rate a 1105 or 6 over GS9 and most were GS7.  It is very rare to find anyone competent to work for long at that pay in Washington.  So they were converted to 1102s, promoted up to GS13 and the Peter Principal is in effect for many of them.

One other point.  The head of DCMA talked around this (1:07:00 mark), but what if federal contracting and contracting policy had a foundation of first principle reasoning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_principle) instead of political (or interest group) expediency?  This ties in with Vern's syllogisms, but takes it one step further.  Elon Musk actually applies this in his product design and development:  http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-first-principles-2015-1

Requirements for technology, and that panel, would be smart to apply this.  It allows requirements to become more concrete, otherwise it is reasoning by analogy and we have seen where that has gone wrong in technology.  Cloud computing is like [pick your analogy].  Most of the concepts discussed were analogies to activities taken on part of the private sector (whose conditions are not applicable to public administration) or from design thinking (software development applied to contracting - e.g Agile).

A messy thought, but one I wanted to get out there.

Vern Edwards said:

What I'm saying is that "contracting" is really two fields--contracting and purchasing. And there are really two workforces--programmatic and project contracting, on the one hand, and purchasing, on the other. But we've created a single set of rules for two very different categories of acquisition, and we're training everybody in the same things and in the same way.

Many contractors divide the profession into three fields -- prime contract management, subcontract management, and purchasing. Most contractor employees specialize into one of those three categories. My old boss, Bill, used to tell us he didn't want specialization. He wanted professionals who could negotiate a prime contract, manage a subcontract, or order parts out of a catalog. He wanted to move his staff where necessary to follow the workload. I haven't seen his approach used in very many places.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

― Robert A. Heinlein

here_2_help said:

Specialization is for insects.

Specialization is for animals with complex social orders. Modern civilization is based in part on specialization and the division of labor.

Yet overspecialization due to the scale of modern civilization can be demoralizing. It can make people feel like insects or robots. PepeTheFrog thinks for more and more people, technological and social "advances" have outpaced the psychological and physical evolution needed to cope with them (live an orderly and functional life).

Heinlein's version of the competent man is an unrealistically lofty goal for human beings. Today, you can find people who can perform to Heinlein's ideal level, but they're a tiny fraction of the global population. In some groups, they're an even smaller fraction or do not exist. Maybe he was envisioning a future strain of human being. Isn't Heinlein a popular figure in what was later called trans-humanism?

Boof said:

PEPE,  The "others" are 1105s and 1106s which we used to have but those with, or working on degrees, got converted to 1102 and the others eventually left.  Problem was that HR would not rate a 1105 or 6 over GS9 and most were GS7.  It is very rare to find anyone competent to work for long at that pay in Washington.  So they were converted to 1102s, promoted up to GS13 and the Peter Principal is in effect for many of them.

PepeTheFrog remembers, Boof. But PepeTheFrog has seen contracting offices in expensive cities, including D.C., with "procurement techs" or the like working for $30-45K. They were mostly recent graduates. Most were contractors, some were Federal slots. They did a good job and moved on to other positions after a year or two. Replacement was never a problem for the contractor positions. Some of them stuck around even longer, and did a great job.

PepeTheFrog said:

Specialization is for animals with complex social orders. Modern civilization is based in part on specialization and the division of labor.

Yet overspecialization due to the scale of modern civilization can be demoralizing. It can make people feel like insects or robots. PepeTheFrog thinks for more and more people, technological and social "advances" have outpaced the psychological and physical evolution needed to cope with them (live an orderly and functional life).

Heinlein's version of the competent man is an unrealistically lofty goal for human beings. Today, you can find people who can perform to Heinlein's ideal level, but they're a tiny fraction of the global population. In some groups, they're an even smaller fraction or do not exist. Maybe he was envisioning a future strain of human being. Isn't Heinlein a popular figure in what was later called trans-humanism?

Pepe, Heinlein was a product of his times, and those times were (at a minimum) three full generations ago. I grant you that. My quote was more to get folks thinking (as you did!) rather than to imply I agree with Heinlein or that I was espousing his fairly unique views of competency.

That said, I like the idea of an acquisition "professional" who can deploy where needed, as needed. And I also like specialized training focused on the skills and knowledge necessary for today's position, as well as to help prepare for tomorrow's position. I'm not even going to claim those two "likes" are consistent. *Shrug* I contain multitudes.

I find it interesting that every time the topic of "category management" comes up, inevitably the discussion pivots to "strategic sourcing."  Even in the Air Force, as far as I am aware, our conversation regarding category management merely tracks/assesses categories with high spend and then asks the question "can/should we strategically source products/services for this category?"  If yes, we do and create some sort of mandatory use contracting vehicle, if not, we move on to the next category and repeat the assessment process.

The problem I have with the previous approach is that "category management" is not simply a question or strategic sourcing or not, but rather what are the best practices for acquiring the products/services within a category (which may very well be aggregation through strategic sourcing) and then disseminating those approaches to the contracting professionals and their customers.

Maybe I'm mischaracterizing what the Air Force/rest of the Government is doing today (I've been in systems for almost two years now so that may very well be the case), but from the conversation I saw in the panel discussion here, I think the trend is still merely looking at categories for strategic sourcing opportunities and not much else.

Hi, Matthew,

I noticed some glossed-over disagreement between some panel members- specifically the DHS representative (who I seem to be picking on) seems pretty down on mandatory contracts.  Says they don't work.  I think there was a move from GSA to mandatory specifications in IT for computers.  That may be what was eating at the DHS person.  I'm not a Fed anymore so I'm fuzzy on this too, but others around here know for sure.  She didn't bring that up specifically since there was a GSA person a few feet away and the conversation was polite.

I think it's the mandatory *specification* in the mandatory contract that causes the trouble.  Wrangling everyone into fewer specifications seems like the hard part, right?  Nobody bristles at not being able to use their favorite inspection and acceptance language.  Strategic Sourcing is a requirements definition headache above all else.

I find discussions like this to be frustrating.  They got a bunch of smart and powerful people into one room, and, because of a lack of focus, the conversation meandered about without anything revealing coming out.  Given the time restraint, the moderator should've forced a focus on or two subjects.  Pick at areas where disagreement was hinted at, and pick it apart.  That would've been illuminating.

Apsofacto,

It's not just the mandatory use or not (that's a different discussion which I'm happy to have - I'd sum my general position up as if you build a good strategic sourcing vehicle, the users should come) - the concern I was trying to get across in my previous post is that when the Government looks at category management we only ask ourselves "can we strategically source this?" (mandatory or non-mandatory) and, if not, the conversation ends there.  There are other ways to manage categories of spend in addition to strategic sourcing, but the Government does not seem to be doing anything else.

Matthew Fleharty said:

I find it interesting that every time the topic of "category management" comes up, inevitably the discussion pivots to "strategic sourcing."

Matthew Fleharty, PepeTheFrog suspects there is a reason. They want more consolidation (not the FAR or CFR definitions, but whatever you want to call combining smaller, individual contracts into larger, multiple-award contract vehicles with fewer prime contractors). Consolidation is a politically incorrect word, so they say strategic sourcing. But many people are wise to that game, so they came up with a new code word. Now, they call strategic sourcing, or consolidation, or aggregation, or whatever, "category management." They don't want to spook the horses.

Matthew Fleharty said:

but the Government does not seem to be doing anything else.

You got it. PepeTheFrog pays far more attention to what the Government does than what the Government says.

here_2_help said:

*Shrug* I contain multitudes.

"My name is Legion: for we are many."

Your Whitman quotation made PepeTheFrog think of that eerie line, but it is in no way directed at you, which would be quite an insult!

Pepe, I thought of the same quote.  Do you think Walt Whitman needed an exorcism? 

Great timing-- re the workforce reforms discussion: Over the weekend, PepeTheFrog saw that Vern Edwards' article "Out of Balance—Careers in the Federal Contracting Workforce: Urgent Reform Required" was published in the August edition of National Contract Management Association's Contract Management magazine.

http://www.ncmahq.org/stay-informed/contract-management-magazine

PepeTheFrog said:

Great timing-- re the workforce reforms discussion: Over the weekend, PepeTheFrog saw that Vern Edwards' article "Out of Balance—Careers in the Federal Contracting Workforce: Urgent Reform Required" was published in the August edition of National Contract Management Association's Contract Management magazine.

http://www.ncmahq.org/stay-informed/contract-management-magazine

I read the same - Vern would you be open to sharing the article on the forums with all on a separate thread to start/have a discussion regarding your remarks?

Not sure a new thread is needed, and thanks for bring this up Pepe.  This point of view is what had been sorely needed in "The Great Debate".  However, can the bureaucracy actually adjust?  

C.  Northcote Parkinson developed Parkinson's Law when he retired from military service and made the observation that the Navy had more admirals than ships.  He also noted that as the empire was shrinking, foreign posts were increasing.  He then developed a Public Administration Theory that stated bureaucracies expand over the course of time, and this is the result of two behavioral factors:  (1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals" and (2) "Officials make work for each other."  I think it can be argued that the 1102 job series and functionality has been a by product of both factors over the course of time.  We can see this internally within our branches, and we have seen this across government "lets hire people and then we will figure out what we want to do."  Sound familiar? 

What Vern proposes would try to decrease the amount of subordinate 1102s (while increasing the number of subordinate 1105's and 1106's).  I would also argue that many in the 1102 community may not be totally on board with his proposal, because now they (we) would be ill-suited for 1102 work if the basics were stripped from their (our) responsibilities and thus need to be knocked down a peg based on skill sets alone.  Who on this thread would welcome a demotion because of where we stack as compared to the requisite skills needed to be considered professional (strategizing, program/industry engagement, analyzing, writing, advising, performing, developing, resolving, determining, negotiating, etc...)?

I don't think everyone has access to it (which now requires NCMA membership) - hence the request for the author to share so everyone can read it and then intelligently discuss.

For those that have read the article (and the author), I think the portion of the argument that could be improved on with data is when Vern argues that "the government's contracting workforce does not reflect the contracting workload and the government's actual needs."  I would like to see an analysis of the Governments' contract actions through FPDS-NG data identifying those non-complex actions that could be performed by 1105s and 1106s versus the number of actions that might require an 1102.  Such an analysis (if performed correctly) could go a long ways towards strengthening the argument that a certain labor mix is needed within the 110X workforce.

I have Fedscope posted somewhere on this site--probably the Workforce page.  You should be able to find the make-up of the contracting workforce with it.

Matthew Fleharty said:

I would like to see an analysis of the Governments' contract actions through FPDS-NG data identifying those non-complex actions that could be performed by 1105s and 1106s versus the number of actions that might require an 1102.  Such an analysis (if performed correctly) could go a long ways towards strengthening the argument that a certain labor mix is needed within the 110X workforce.

I would like to see people who want to see things do things.  If you want to see it...do it.  Prove or disprove the premise of the argument.  I am not intentionally being a jerk Matt, but I am guessing you are in a command where you are having people act on your behalf.  You may be right, and if it is something that you are willing to undertake (rather than request) I would welcome it.  Forget about strengthening a case, either make the case or disprove the case. 

I was thinking about this and my car.  When I bring my car to get something fixed someone under the age of 40 will inevitably tell me they have to do a diagnostic to fix the problem ($90 charge).  I refuse and then find the oldest mechanic in the room, ask him what he thinks the problem is, and he tells me without the need for analysis (and usually offers the lowest possible cost to fix the problem).  He goes by what he hears from the engine, what he knows through years of experience, and what he observes from other less senior mechanics.  The younger mechanic will want proof via analytics thinking that they will validate their approach.  The older mechanic only engages in the analytics if it saves time and money, or when he wants to prove to the younger mechanic that he knows exactly what he is talking about.

Congress would certainly agree with you in that to support the claim they will want more robust metrics and analysis.  What Vern had closed with was this "If you are a GS-1102 with a long time to serve until retirement, you cannot be neutral about this. This is your career that I’m talking about."  If you are not neutral, then pick up the torch and carry it.

jonmjohnson said:

I would like to see people who want to see things do things.  If you want to see it...do it.  Prove or disprove the premise of the argument.  I am not intentionally being a jerk Matt, but I am guessing you are in a command where you are having people act on your behalf.  You may be right, and if it is something that you are willing to undertake (rather than request) I would welcome it.  Forget about strengthening a case, either make the case or disprove the case. 

I was thinking about this and my car.  When I bring my car to get something fixed someone under the age of 40 will inevitably tell me they have to do a diagnostic to fix the problem ($90 charge).  I refuse and then find the oldest mechanic in the room, ask him what he thinks the problem is, and he tells me without the need for analysis (and usually offers the lowest possible cost to fix the problem).  He goes by what he hears from the engine, what he knows through years of experience, and what he observes from other less senior mechanics.  The younger mechanic will want proof via analytics thinking that they will validate their approach.  The older mechanic only engages in the analytics if it saves time and money, or when he wants to prove to the younger mechanic that he knows exactly what he is talking about.

Congress would certainly agree with you in that to support the claim they will want more robust metrics and analysis.  What Vern had closed with was this "If you are a GS-1102 with a long time to serve until retirement, you cannot be neutral about this. This is your career that I’m talking about."  If you are not neutral, then pick up the torch and carry it.

I did not state that I thought Vern was wrong or that the data would disprove his point, quite the opposite in fact.  I was making the point you referred to in order to crowd source research ideas to further explore the issue because, while I'm not "in a command where have people act[ing] on [my] behalf," I do have contacts and former professors back at the Naval Postgraduate School that get new students every 1.5 years that are looking for research/thesis topics - this would be something that those individuals have the time, energy, and resources to research and write on.

So thanks for commenting on the merits of what further research might or might not be beneficial on this issue and not assuming I'm already some lazy, dejected contracting professional that just wants to complain...

I looked at FedScope from OPM -- I have visited there before.  I wanted to see how an agency that I once worked for compared to the federal government as a whole -- here is what I found, using MAR 2016 data:

.        FEDERAL      FORMER

.        GOVERNMENT   AGENCY

GS-1102   37,165       266

.           89.4%     56.4%

GS-1105    3,048       166

.            7.3%     35.2%

GS-1106    1,369        40

.            3.3%      8.5%

My former agency appears to have a healthy balance between GS-1102s, -1105s, and -1106s -- at least, far more healthy than the federal government's as a whole.  I know some agencies (my current agency, for example) are 100% GS-1102, with 0% GS-1105 and 0% GS-1106.

HA!  OK...I am clearly showing my age because I was about to poo-poo crowd sourcing before ji20874 replied.  That is a matter for another debate...but carry on.

ji20874 said:

MAR 2016 data:

.        FEDERAL      FORMER

.        GOVERNMENT   AGENCY

GS-1102   37,165       266

.           89.4%     56.4%

GS-1105    3,048       166

.            7.3%     35.2%

GS-1106    1,369        40

.            3.3%      8.5%

SEP 1998 data for the entire Government:

1102: 27,817 employees / 1105: 4,323 employees / 1106: 4,834 employees

The 1105s and 1106s represented 24.77% of the total of 36,974 combined.

Note: This was after (or towards the end of when) DoD cut the acquisition (not just contracting) workforce by ~50% in the 1990s, for the old frogs like Pepe.

For some historical trends re procurement spending and workforce, see:

DoD Inspector General, Audit Report, "DoD Acquisition Workforce Reduction Trends and Impacts" (February 29, 2000)

http://www.dodig.mil/audit/reports/fy00/00-088.pdf

Congressional Research Service, "Twenty-five Years of Acquisition Reform: Where Do We Go From Here?" (October 29, 2013)

http://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS00/20131029/101414/HHRG-113-AS00-Wstate-SchwartzM-20131029.pdf

On 8/4/2016 at 11:21 AM, Vern Edwards said:

Listening to this discussion (not "debate"), I realize that I spent my career in what I'll call programmatic and project contracting. I was engaged in making one-time, unique buys for big things. I never bought a lot of nuts and bolts stuff--commodities, spares, or IT. I consider the talk of "category management," "strategic sourcing," and the various contracting "vehicles" to be about what I have always called purchasing, rather than contracting. When one speaker said that making the deal is the easy part, I thought: M_an, I always that was the challenging part. That was the fun part._

The people on that panel talked like purchasing executives at Ford Motor Co. or Coca-Cola. They talked about buying commodities like handguns. I bought that kind of stuff (typewriters) for only a very short time at the beginning of my training. Then I was contracting in spacecraft and launch vehicle program offices for research and development.

What I'm saying is that "contracting" is really two fields--contracting and purchasing. And there are really two workforces--programmatic and project contracting, on the one hand, and purchasing, on the other. But we've created a single set of rules for two very different categories of acquisition, and we're training everybody in the same things and in the same way.

Personally, I am not interested in purchasing. I would never have been happy buying off-the-shelf IT hardware and software, spare parts, or cther commodities. But it's a good field, and it appears to dominate the concerns of the high-level managers. That means that there are career opportunities for people who take the larger, longer, strategic view.

Vern, 

With much respect and as a person that has gone out of his way to see you speak, I think you are projecting your experience on the career field. I was active duty in the Air Force at LA AFB in the mid aughts for 3 years. I spent 18 months in a program office (GPS) and 18 months in the operational shop (61 CONS). I also did two, four month deployments during that time (Iraq 05, and Afghanistan 05-06). I bought zero things during my time in the program office--I attended endless meetings, mostly planning on ensuring that nothing actually happened. I was on an IPT of 50+ people. Contrast that with my time in 61 CONS where I worked construction contracts that literally facilitated the base moving from Area A and Area B to only Area A. The colleagues that I deployed with that had only program office experience had no idea how to buy, well, anything. They'd been sitting in meetings while I was thrust into roles that people actually depended on in the operational shop.

At this point in my career, I'm a GS14 and I supervise 6 people at a civilian agency. The bulk of my work is research and development contracting. But the things that really get the SES worked up is the operational stuff--commercial services, IT purchases, and basic "blocking and tackling" contracting. I spend a lot more time defending those things and making sure they have tight files and justifications than I do the R&D stuff. It's also totally possible I stink at my job, I suppose.

So I guess it is fine to prefer the once in a lifetime buys that you did at SMC etc. But your attitude towards "purchasing" is daft and shows no real understanding of what the government is buying. And it's mildly offensive to those of us that don't inhabit the program office world.

That said, I roll my eyes when I hear people talk about strategic sourcing and the person saying such stuff is the sort of procurement leader who has never signed a government contract talks about.

Looking forward to the ensuing flame war.

Quote

Looking forward to the ensuing flame war.

I'm not!

KeithB18 said:

So I guess it is fine to prefer the once in a lifetime buys that you did at SMC etc. But your attitude towards "purchasing" is daft and shows no real understanding of what the government is buying. And it's mildly offensive to those of us that don't inhabit the program office world.

I know very well what the Government is buying, in considerable detail, and I've dealt with a lot more government buying offices and people over the course of 40+ years than you have. I'm pretty sure I've dealt with a lot more of them than you even know exist. And all over the world.

I don't know why you say that my attitude is "daft." I haven't really expressed any "attitude" toward purchasing other than:

On August 4, 2016 at 8:21 AM, Vern Edwards said:

But it's a good field, and it appears to dominate the concerns of the high-level managers. That means that there are career opportunities for people who take the larger, longer, strategic view.

So how is that "daft"?

I prefer doing program or project contracting to purchasing. I had fun in program offices. As you said, I'm projecting my experiences in the career fiield. And as you said, that's fine. If you are doing purchasing, and if purchasing excites you, then I'm happy for you. 

I'm not interested in engaging you further on this. There will be no "flame war" between you and me. I have my opinion. I expressed it clearly. I respect purchasing, but it doesn't interest me. I never wanted to be a purchasing executive. I guess you think that I should be interested, but I'm not. Unlike the one speaker in the video, I loved negotiating and writing contracts, and I had fun doing it. I'm sorry that your experiences in program offices were not as rewarding as mine.

That's all there is to it. Have a nice day.

Thank you, Vern.

So what does the CO of the future look like?

In a couple of months I'm going to be asking a room of acquisition professionals that question. I expect a "lively" discussion. I hope for something to start our people thinking about the future.

While criticism of the idiots in charge is always entertaining, I'm very interested in what the members of this community think. 

What would you tell a CO starting out today? Will we be slaves to the machine inputting more and more data just because we can? Will we be split into Purchasing and Contracting groups? Will COs still need critical thinking skills in a world of automated contracting? If critical thinking is still required, how will we train COs of the future in this skill? Is consolidation by any other name here to stay or will the pendulum swing back? 

And my personal favorite: Will Liberal Arts majors ever be allowed back into the field?

Any and all thoughts welcome.

I was a Fine Arts major.  I may have ruined it for you.  They may have been more desperate back in 2001!

Will liberal arts majors be allowed back in the field?   Certainly as long as you also get 24 hours of business credits.   However, my opinion of Government contracting has been that a law degree is needed, not a business degree.  The OIG and other outside oversight don't really want us to be business advisors, just follow the laws and regulations perfectly without error, ever!!!  .

While I think it cannot hurt to have some business education, I also think the typical undergraduate business courses are not of much immediate applicability. What is needed more than anything is the ability to think and communicate. See Krieger, "Professionalism in the Acquisition Contracting Workforce: Have We Gone Too Far?" Defense Acquisition Review Journal (ARJ145):

Quote

Although the motives may have been well-intentioned, we are now living with the result of unintended adverse consequences. It is now time to reassess these past decisions, specifically degree and course requirements, and determine whether a mistake in approach has been made. By selecting the wrong solution to solve a problem, has a more significant problem been created? The BLUF (bottom-line-upfront): I believe we have made a mistake.

Persons with liberal arts degrees should be welcomed with open arms. A person who has read Plato, Montaigne, Mill, Darwin, Tolstoy, Hofstadter, Scalia, and Posner and can write a coherent argumentative essay is just as capable of doing contracting as a person who has gotten As in undergraduate courses in financial accounting, business law, economics, marketing, and organizational behavior.

What should the future look like?

We should organize our world into the separate, but related, fields of contracting and purchasing. We should designate the key professionals as contracting officers (COs) and purchasing executives (PEs). And we should provide COs and PEs with appropriate support staff (buyers, technicians/clerks). We should publish appropriate regulations for each of those fields, and provide the respective personnel with appropriate training--for example, COs should learn about cost estimating and cost-based pricing, while PEs should learn about market-based pricing (which is a very complex topic). Both should learn appropriate negotiation techniques.

Of course, it will never happen. The bureaucracy is too deeply entrenched.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have an MA in Political Science and an BA in PoliSci/History. I had to go back to school for the business credits. Maybe we should send the Business Majors and the Lawyers to 24 hours of Liberal Arts training?:)

I took a 400 level English class called Technical & Professional writing. Probably one of the most useful classes with real world application as it relates to contracting. Taught you how to write an email, memo, white paper, etc. and when the use of those would or would not be appropriate. Those kinds of things.

From what I see, not all, but a good amount of people who don't have the 24 business credits end up just taking online classes where they don't really learn anything because they don't take it all that seriously and just need to check the box for the purpose of progressing.

I agree with the general sentiment that liberal arts majors should be more welcome in this career field.  As much as I love my Economics degree, the time I spent in high school and college competing in speech and debate has served me infinitely better as a contracting professional than any statistics, business, or economics class has.  I could crunch numbers, build models, and understand ratios all day long, but if I can't convincingly reason, debate, and critically think when I'm sitting across the table from a contractor (or a clearance official), what good are those perfect numbers and what odds do I have in successfully negotiating that position?

I have known some of the smartest and most effective and successful contracting officers and contracting directors in acquisition over the last 42 years, and except for one or two of them, every one of them had a liberal arts undergraduate degree. Not one would have qualified for an entry level GS-1102 position under today's criteria. Including me. I think that's a hoot.

We had some excellent contracting officers who were woodwind players prior to me coming on board at my agency.  I think they paved the way for me to be hired.  I worked out as well!  Unfortunately, we did not have enough players for a woodwind quintet.  We were always short a bassoon and a clarinet.  The HR people wouldn't let us put that requirement in the job announcements

Too bad, it would have been fun.

When I apply for a new position, I emphasize my business degree (Economics). But I obtained that degree from a liberal arts college.

apsofacto said:

We had some excellent contracting officers who were woodwind players prior to me coming on board at my agency.  I think they paved the way for me to be hired.  I worked out as well!  Unfortunately, we did not have enough players for a woodwind quintet.  We were always short a bassoon and a clarinet.  The HR people wouldn't let us put that requirement in the job announcements

Too bad, it would have been fun.

That's great, also. Great story, even if you made up some of it. The CO Woodwind Quintet.

I like to think of my self as an asset to the profession, and I have a liberal arts degree.  However, I did have the 24 undergraduate hours in business because I was an accounting major until my junior year.

Meet the acquisition professionals of the future: https://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2020/

Bring back the civil service exam, or rely more heavily on SAT, ACT, GRE, etc. All this talk about English versus economics is a red herring and a polite avoidance of the real issue. Government and industry alike use grades and schools as proxies for the real thing they want_,_ which is demonstrated intelligence, or the ability to think, reason, and solve problems. There's a reason the military still uses the ASVAB-- it's a strong predictor of future success. Contracting needs smart, dedicated, motivated, and interested people, not business majors. 

On 8/16/2016 at 11:16 AM, Vern Edwards said:

What is needed more than anything is the ability to think and communicate.

PepeTheFrog agrees, and adds that the ability to think is a lot like the ability to be X inches tall. You can easily stunt individual growth, but you can't create giants from pygmies in one generation (without hormones or genetic engineering). Nor can you teach people to be tall!

You can teach people to stand tall.