USAF Bending the Cost Curve Plug Fest Plus Workshops

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Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) 101

Long time lines, overly prescriptive solicitations, and bureaucratic red tape associated with traditional government contracting are anathemas to rapid, evolutionary, information system acquisition. 

The “Other Transaction Agreement” (OTA) procurement vehicle was created by the US Government in the late 1950s to address precisely these issues.  OTA’s are literally and deliberately orthogonal to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).   OTA’s are legal and have been very effectively employed by the likes of DARPA and others.  The hands on exercises in this workshop are aligned with BTCC PFP methods and requirements. 

Come learn how to leverage OTA flexibility while managing risks that necessarily attend rapid evolutionary development. 

Lesson Plan:

  1. OTA background

  2. Not-for-profit consortium as OTA performer

  3. Exercise:
      - Government OTA solicitation preparation
      - Industrial OTA solicitation response
      - Plug Test source selection
 
Instructors: Terry Simpson

References:

OUSD AT&L “Other Transactions” (OT) Guide for Prototype Projects

Another Option in a Tightening Budget: A Primer on Department of Defense “Other Transactions” Agreements, 
by Susan B. Cassidy, Jennifer Plitsch, and Stephanie H. Barclay

Consortium for Command, Control, Communications and Computer Technologies web site

Open System Engineering/Acquisition 101

Defense acquisition policy makers have embraced the concept of “Open Systems Approaches” (OSA) as the paradigm that will allow rapid evolutionary development of Joint and Coalition information sharing capabilities.  Theoretically OSA will allow the US Government to efficiently and effectively harvest rapidly evolving COTS information technology.  However, progress to date has been less than compelling.  Why is that?  This workshop generalizes lessons learned from case studies of successful and failed OSA efforts into a “Value Assurance Framework” (VAF.)  VAF explains how to modify solicitations, risk management tools, schedules, work breakdowns, earned value, test and certification plans as appropriate for OSA.  The hands on exercises in this workshop are aligned with BTCC PFP methods and requirements.  Come learn how to apply VAF to manage the risks that necessarily attend rapid evolutionary development. 

Lesson Plan:

  1. Lessons learned from OSA failure cases

  2. Lessons learned from OSA success cases

  3. Exercise:
      - OSA requirements, thresholds & objectives
      - OSA risk management including T&E/V&V/C&A
      - OSA parallel activity scheduling
      - OSA capability transition/lifecycle support
 
Instructors: Chris Gunderson, Naval Post Graduate School

References:

Defense Science Board (DSB) report: DoD Policy and Procedures for the Acquisition of Information Technology, March 2009. 

USD AT&L Open Systems Architecture Contract Guidebook, Jun 2013.

NPS Tech Report: Summary of Value Assurance Framework (VAF), Gunderson, 2014

OSD Report pursuant to Sect 804 of 2010 NDAA: A New Approach for Delivering Information Technology, Nov 2010.

AFEI Task Force Report: Industry Perspectives on the Future of DoD IT Acquisition, June 2010