Tracking Stimulus Spending

[finknottle]

It is amazing how many people stop thinking critically the minute technology is introduced.

 

Consider this small passage tucked away in the recent stories about the postponment of the promised website tracking the spending:

 

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpoli...-stimulus_N.htm

 

Devaney told a House subcommittee Tuesday that it will be a challenge to have the site ready to present spending data in five months. He said after the hearing that the board doesn't have enough data storage capacity, for example.

 

Uh-huh. Right. They can't find a large enough hard-drive to store text data.

[/dev/null]

It is amazing how many people stop thinking critically the minute technology is introduced.

 

It's amazing how many people keep thinking the government thinks critically

 

Before they can set anything up

1-they need to define what they want

2-then they need to set up a contract

3-then they need to request bids

4-then they need to negotiate with contractors (which may in turn alter the original contract and previous bidding, return to step 2)

5-then they need to award the contract

6-then they need to wait for any legal challenges to the awarding of the contract. This may result in returning to steps 2, 3, 4, or 5

7-then work can begin

8-then it will become delayed

9-then the contractor will ask for more money (which the gov't will of course pay)

10-rinse/repeat steps 7-9 as necessary

11-project will not meet original requirement

12-government will try to fix by starting from step 1

 

Note this is a rough draft. Anyone else who has dealt with gov't contracting feel free to add any missing steps

[DC Tom]

Before they can set anything up

1-they need to define what they want

2-then they need to set up a contract

3-then they need to request bids

4-then they need to negotiate with contractors (which may in turn alter the original contract and previous bidding, return to step 2)

5-then they need to award the contract

6-then they need to wait for any legal challenges to the awarding of the contract. This may result in returning to steps 2, 3, 4, or 5

7-then work can begin

8-then it will become delayed

9-then the contractor will ask for more money (which the gov't will of course pay)

10-rinse/repeat steps 7-9 as necessary

11-project will not meet original requirement

12-government will try to fix by starting from step 1

 

Oh, you have NO idea... First of all, move #1 after #7.

 

And the contracting process is more like:

Someone has an idea

Government issues an RFI (request for information, usually developed as a preceeding project).

Everyone on the planet responds.

Government uses responses to generate an RFP (request for proposals - and keep in mind, this proposal has to specify what the requirements are of the probably undefined project, which aren't just technical but include governance, management, and lifecycle requirements; and the structure of the contract including small- and minority-owned business set-asides, and a whole bunch of other bull sh-- that I've never been directly involved in).

Everyone submits questions about RFP.

Government answers questions. These two steps are unbelievably restricted and structured, to ensure than no one can gain an unfair advantage in the Q and A.

Half the people on the planet generate proposals.

Government reads proposals.

Government "downselects" a subset of the proposals (on the proposal my company just finished, six of thirty were downselected). At this point, four to six months have passed.

Everyone NOT downselected protests, because their proposals were "better".

Protests, one way or another, are resolved. If not, go back to "government generates RFP".

Government then asks for clarification of points on the proposals...which basically amounts to:

Downselected proposals are rewritten and resubmitted.

Government then chooses one (or, often, more) of the rewritten proposals to award a contract.

Everyone downselected but NOT awarded protests the award.

Protests are resolved. If not, go back to "government asks for clarification".

 

At this point, if everything's gone well, probably nine months have passed. If things haven't gone well...longest my company's seen so far is two and a half years (and still waiting).

 

And that is the simplified version of how the government turns an idea into an award. Usually they don't get to the "define what they want" stage until after all that, particularly for IT projects. And I guarantee you, a TARP website project would be an unmitigated nightmare to work on, given how much of a political football that program is.