NOVEMBER 10, 2021

Sign-In 11:45 AM to 12 NOON EST
Presentation 12 NOON to 1:00 PM EST

PRESENTER

Rick “A to Z” AGOPSOWICZ, Executive Vice President, Business Capture & Public Sector Execution, Cortac Group

DESCRIPTION

DoD’s acquisition framework has been a constantly changing approach over the last decades. The most recent major change was in January 2020 with the changeover to the Adaptive Acquisition Framework – beginning the process to address changes in technology complexity and the laws passed by Congress which exist to “keep the playing field level.”

This new enabling approach accomplishes its objectives by modifying the previous singular “one size fits all” acquisition approach into 6 acquisition “pathways” better recognizing sets of unique program needs. It also goes one step further, moving to a mindset of “tailoring in” requirements for the acquisition strategy, rather than the previous “tailoring out” approaches from the “one size fits all” model. This new approach starts with a baseline set of rules that apply for the applicable pathway, and the program manager “tailors-in” those additional requirements needed for the program. The approach cannot tailor out statutory requirements, but it can tailor the regulatory requirements to a smaller list of things needed to manage risk in a particular program. The pathways are not intended to be the 6 “be all and end all” answers, as the pathways can be tailored for a particular program such that a complex program may require features from multiple pathways. The existing 17 FAR based, and 7 non-FAR based contracting/agreements approaches support this strategy well, but it puts additional onus on both the Government Team and Contractor Team to understand the approaches and the risks associated with these new adaptations.

This 60-minute presentation is a single session survey of why the DoD made the changes, introduces the 6 acquisition “pathways, as well as how the existing 17 FAR based, and 7 Non-FAR based contract / agreement strategies apply to these new acquisition approaches.

The presentation outline is:

  • A very brief history of DoD Acquisition Policy
  • Why the change to the Adaptive Acquisition Framework (AAF)?
  • Survey of the 6 DoD AAF Pathways
  • Using the 17 FAR based, and 7 Non-FAR based contract / agreement strategies to support these pathways