The Clinger-Cohen Act (CCA) of 1996 is designed to improve how the federal government acquires, uses, and disposes of Information Technology (IT). It encompasses the (1) Information Technology Management Reform Act (ITMRA) (Division E) and the (2) Federal Acquisition Reform Act (FARA) (Division D), which were signed into law as part of the National […]
A Configuration Baseline is the performance documentation and standards that comprise a product at a certain moment during its development. It is a set of documented specifications for a configuration item within a system that has been formally examined and agreed upon at a given time and can only be amended via change control procedures.
Configuration Management (CM) is the application of sound program practices to establish and maintain consistency of a product’s or system’s attributes with its requirements and evolving technical baseline over its life. It involves interaction among government and contractor program functions such as systems engineering, hardware/software engineering, specialty engineering, logistics, contracting, and production in an Integrated
A Blanket Purchase Order (BPO) is a long-term agreement that includes a description of the items needed, unit price, and contractual provisions. Although a single blanket purchase order number is only set up one time, it can allow multiple releases against it at different times throughout a set time period. A “release” occurs each time
Brainstorming is a technique used to generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem. It can be used to identify risks, ideas, and solutions to issues by using a group o team members or subject matter experts. Typically, a brainstorming session is structured so that each participant’s ideas are recorded for
The Berry Amendment (USC, Title 10, Section 2533a), requires the Department of Defense (DoD) to give preference in procurement to domestically produced, manufactured, or homegrown products, most notably food, clothing, fabrics, and specialty metals. Congress originally passed domestic source restrictions as part of the Fifth Supplemental DoD Appropriations Act of 1941 in order to protect
Note: The CPD has been eliminated from the JCIDS process. The Capability Production Document (CPD) captures the information necessary to support the production, testing, and deployment of an affordable and supportable increment within an acquisition strategy. The CPD identifies, in threshold/objective format, the specific attributes that contribute most significantly to the desired operational capability. The
Benchmarking is the process of comparing one’s business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and/or best practices from other industries. It’s a valuable tool for any Program Manager (PM) to determine if there are any areas or processes in their program that can be improved upon by understanding how they compare with other organizations.
A Concept of Operations (CONOPS) is a document that describes a proposed system concept and how that concept would be operated in an intended environment. The user community develops the CONOPS to communicate the vision for the operational system to the acquisition and developer community with quantitative and qualitative system metrics. A CONOPS can also
Award Fee Contracts (FAR Part 16.4) are a type of Incentive Contract to incentivize the contractor to achieve cost efficiency. These can be a written contract or special incentives. These are appropriate when elements of performance cannot be objectively or quantitatively measured and areas of management interest or concern, which the Government wants to incentivize,
