White House Wants to Build Digital-Savvy Contracting Corps

The Obama Administration is building a special squad of digital-savvy contracting officers to help agencies procure technology more effectively. The new team will be modeled on the US Digital Service, a similar effort to get more technologists into the ranks of government but will be staffed by existing agency contracting officers who undergo specialized training, Anne Rung, the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Agency contracting offices often write exhaustively detailed statements of work that are often hundreds of pages long -- and ask the same of companies when they submit proposals, Rung said. “What we'd like to move to through this new team is thinking about more succinct statement of objectives, thinking about having industry submit short concept papers and really trying to approach these acquisitions in a more modular manner,” she said.