In its strategy for improving Federal IT management, the Administration emphasizes the need for government and industry to communicate effectively throughout the acquisition process. As the CIO's plan notes: inadequate communication between government and industry “…affect the full breadth of the acquisition process, including needs identification, requirements definition, strategy formulation the proposal process and contract execution.” This lack of communication creates contractual challenges that “… produce waste, delay program delivery and erode the value of IT investments.” Item 24 of the OMB plan directs the OMB Office of Federal Procurement Policy to launch a "myth-busters" education campaign to identify common misconceptions or myths about vendor engagement and improve overall communication.
On February 2, 2011, the OFPP Administrator released a memo entitled "Myth-Busting: Addressing Misconceptions to Improve Communication with Industry during the Acquisition Process." Recognizing that this is an ongoing activity, OMB is interested in engaging the entire government IT community in this initiative. Towards that end, ACT-IAC is hosting an online moderated dialoguewhich ran February 7, 2011 through February 28, 2011. Participants were able to submit, comment on, and rank ideas. The ideas and comments were submitted to OMB for review.
To view the dialogue please go to http://www.bettergovernmentit.org.
For further information on this project please send an email to bettergovernmentIT@actgov.org.