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NGA Advisory Working Group (NAWG)

Kickoff Meeting September 24, 2015

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Welcome & Introduction

! Welcome to USGIF Headquarters

! Facility Logistics and Meeting Classification

! Co-Chair Introductions & “Big Picture”

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Agenda

! Welcome & Introductions ! Background: What is an the NAWG? What it isn’t…

! Charter, Goals and Objectives

! Guiding Principles and Deliverables

! Participant Expectations & Ground Rules

! Operating Model & Business Rhythm

! NAWG Action Team Initial Topics list

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Background

! Acquisition ! #1 Challenge: “Industry AND government buy in”

! Why an NAWG? –  Government cannot act unilaterally and expect a positive outcome –  Industry cannot wait for government guidance and expect a positive outcome –  Breadth, depth and number of issues: too many to address at one time –  Industry partners approaching government one at a time is unproductive –  RFI’s and Industry Day meetings serve a different purpose

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Industry must self-organize around specific issues and provide rational, pragmatic perspectives on viable procurement culture

and acquisition methods and landscape

What is the NAWG?

The NAWG is… ! Self organized

! Strategic

! Objective (pros & cons)

! Open to participation

! Company-agnostic

! Problem-centric

! Focused on outcomes

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Future Business Models are of Strategic Importance to the Industry Base

An NAWG is not… ! Sponsored by the government

! Restricted in participation

! Proprietary

! A pursuit/capture venue

! A shaping & positioning opportunity

! A venue to recommend products

Charter

! USGIF establishes its NGA Advisory Action Working Group (NAWG) to bring together professionals from the government and industry, to foster procurement culture through bilateral discussions that advise, recommend and promote actionable ideas for improving the contract procurement process and consequences. This includes improving procurement practices (issuance and evaluation of contract), assessing and mitigating impacts on Industry Health (e.g. loss of industry staff), and driving efficient (timely, relevant, accurate, fair) procurement culture, acquisition landscape, and behaviors between NGA and Industry.

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Goals & Objectives Overarching Goals ! Through direct government engagement, promote our national security mission through sound contracting that reduces risk, cost, unnecessary award protest, and improves procurement timeliness. ! Promote cooperation between industry and government with respect betterment of the acquisition process.

! Promote a viable industrial base to accomplish the mission

! Achieve competitive fairness for all business sizes including small, large, as well as newly emerging midsize businesses. ! Ameliorate intended and unintended consequences impacting the industry base, and

! Limitations and viability as a reasonable course of action.

Objectives ! Provide strategic, supplier/service provider agnostic input and alternatives within contracting

! Provide an objective and neutral venue for discussing approaches to business models

! Promote objective forum to discuss alternative models for business/acquisition, programmatic, technical, and mission operations.

! Engage openly and as a unified industry with government (NGA/ NSG) – provide positive, proactive, actionable feedback to the government and document, evaluate and assimilate government feedback ! Provide the government with clear and well-founded recommendations for procurement process from cradle to grave; ultimately improving the shaping, scoping, and structuring of RFP, RFI, RFQ acquisition regulation and wording.

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Guiding Principles & Deliverables

! Options not answers –  Emphasize trade space and alternatives, not defining or recommending “the answer”: –  Provide feedback (sometimes confidential) and socialize concepts in a trusted-partner

venue

! Constrain the problem set –  Emphasize speed and pragmatism over exhaustive research and perfect world scenarios –  Quick hitting analyses, “Magic-Quadrant”-like outputs, roundtable –  Timely enough to make the dialog relevant in the issue du jour

! Remain credible –  Discussions must be vendor, supplier, and integrator agnostic, not just by product/

company, but by architecture as well. Must self-police to ensure objectivity. –  Recommendations must be realistic –  Sweet spot is the bridge between policy and execution

! Establish a functioning & robust Industry – NGA leadership interface –  Know when to defer to other groups or venues –  Be responsive and objective above all –  Open and collaborative (not duplicative of other efforts, involve as necessary)

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Expectations & Ground Rules

! Issues need “360” view (big/small, HW/SW, Integrator/Developer ! Active participation vs Passive attendance

! Not going to solve the problem here

! Provide actionable guidance – education - awareness ! As appropriate – work issues through NAWG – remember, we would like to

minimize traffic through NGA, unify message, optimize the relationship

! Try not to “cross the streams” between topics; recognize when doing so

! Focus on business aspects, defer technical aspects to parking lot ! Maintain vendor neutrality, no proprietary discussion

! Exercise fact-based assessment; assertions without data create confusion ! Others from the group… *********

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Operating Model & Business Rhythm

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NAWG Process ! Information/Interaction flow

–  1st NAWG assembly meets/vets issues and feeds back to NGA: “what we’ve heard from initial meeting”

•  Vetting of issues in NAWG forum à drives potential “topic action committee” from issues

–  NAWG Leadership provides questions or problem statements to NAWG via Survey Monkey

–  2nd (Next) NAWG general assembly meeting to finalize topic action committees composition/sub-charter

–  Action committees meet monthly (or frequency TBD) –  NAWG Steering Group (TBR) forwards working group analysis to NGA with

perspectives, endorsements, and additional considerations –  NAWG briefs NGA leadership on action committee findings –  Repeat flow as necessary

! Identifying topics for assessment and assigning to Action Teams –  Government or industry identifies a question or problem statement –  Determination: is it appropriate for NAWG? Is another group already addressing? –  For each topic: OCI considerations, policy constraints, external considerations –  Form ad hoc team based on industry sector, business size, functional discipline 12

EXAMPLES: “Teaser” Topics List ! Consequence of NGA actions/decisions on industry ! Recommendations to improve NGA procurement approach and response

! Recommendations that help businesses by size (e.g. mids are under-represented)

! Procurement award debrief process

! Transparency of procurement process (not just Transparency of what you want, but also HOW you PICK.)

! Working with Industry: Business 101

! Direct communication between subs and NGA is often restricted by primes; how can NGA discourage this? ! Contract proposal/team composition / performance: examine effect of pre-locking in rates (and composition) on winning teams (ACES case study,

etc.)

! Protest avoidance (accelerate procurement) –  “NGA is only agency where the real competition doesn’t happen until after award” –  Can a “federation of midsize businesses” FEDMID ameliorate

! Plight of Midsize Businesses – Federation of MidSize Businesses (FEDMID)

! Exodus of IC/DoD industry developers and businesses to commercial ! Risk adversity (impacts on procurement and source selection)

–  Case: industry may be more out front (e.g. we recommend a cloud development platform, you lose because we are not ready for cloud). –  What is risk on industry sides – Relevant because it impacts what industry submits

! What you say and what you do… case studies (use of the ACE highside ARC, yet you want unclassified – and higher small business participation)

! Drive toward unclassified – impacts wrt engagement with industry ! NGA staff morale – Contract officers vs PM, Agile vs Non-Agile

! Leveraging marketplaces (ISM)

! Impacts of security on procurement BOEs by hours (even without price) in the Tech volume are counter to “best value” because it is biases reviewers, it’s also not for Agile FFP

! Multiple FPRs seem to be excessive, normalizing proposals to “blue green” and then running it like LPTA after that.

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Initial Topics List & Next Steps

! Around the Room…Vetting ! Assisted by Visioneer

! Sept – Oct 2015: Socialize and collect initial feedback from participants

! The NAWG leadership team and USGIF will socialize potential areas of interest between industry (NAWG members) and the NGA Industry Innovation Advocacy and ratify NAWG topics and issues.

! Working team approach

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! Let’s go

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Action Team Expectations & Ground Rules

! Issues need “360” view (big/small, HW/SW, Integrator/Developer)

! Active participation vs Passive attendance

! Try not to “cross the streams” between issues; recognize when doing so

! Focus on business aspects, defer technical aspects to parking lot

! Maintain vendor neutrality, no proprietary discussion

! Exercise fact-based assessment; assertions without data create confusion

! Results will be published

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Status & To Do List ü Secure government concurrence and commitment to participate ü  Identify not-for-profit or trade association in-kind sponsors, e.g.:

–  USGIF will be “convening authority”; has assigned POC

ü Solicit industry for committed participants (initial call)

ü Re-validate government concurrence and participation q Refine structure and government engagement model

–  Ongoing “lightning rounds” –  Monthly/Quarterly business model exchanges –  Action team mechanics & participation

q Data call for priority topics (must be specific enough to solve) q Next Meetings and government debriefs

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Schedule ! Late October : Define schedule by this meeting. Break up into

groups on top priorities. Divide into groups… Number of people determines the number of groups.

! Late Nov : General Assembly Peer review ! Late Dec: General Assembly Peer review

! Late January pre-outbrief by action teams to the NAWG ! Final Round outbrief to NGA in Mid/Late February

! Action teams will meet during interim periods –  Hours expectations and logistics / support from USGIF

! Groups Self-governing cadence based on procurement climate

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Contact Info

•  Skip Maselli: Skip.Maselli@Raytheon.com (301) 524-6889 •  Jim Kwolek: Jim.Kwolek@ntconcepts.com (636) 484-2657

•  Jordan Fuhr (USGIF): Jordan.Fuhr@usgif.org (571) 392-7201

! Websites: http://usgif.org/community/Committees/NAWG

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