Contracting Officer Podcast Slides Knowledge & Insights From Contracting Officers

What Kevin and Paul Wish They Had Known Then… Episode 052 What Kevin and Paul Wish They Had Known Then… Original Air Date: November 8, 2015 Hosts: Kevin Jans & Paul Schauer

Formatting notes Hyperlinks: Blue font indicates hyperlinks – presentation must be in ‘Slide Show’ mode to activate the link Red bold font indicates a point of emphasis Green bold font indicates CO’s personal comment or perspective

Introduction This is the 52nd episode – one year of Contracting Officer podcasts! And it has been a very interesting year: We’ve put out 20 hours of content Met awesome people (even got to do a TEDx Talk) And based on listener feedback, we’ve helped some people

The history so far… We birthed the idea at NCMA’s World Congress in 2014 Took a few months to figure it out – first episode in November 2014 One year later = 52 episodes (including a couple cheater holiday repeats) Full Disclosure: It was ‘Crickets’ for the first few months The goal was 50 episodes

The Rest of the Story Why we did this: To help people A Podcast that talks about Government contracting? Who is going to listen to that? We recognize that Government and Industry don't always understand each other We hope to be a bridge between the sides to help make things easier for everyone.

The Rest of the Story We’ve put out 20 hours of content (and the topic list keeps growing!) Your feedback is motivating Where we’re going

What does the FAR say? There are lots of classes that teach the FAR. Or you can just read it. But the contracts profession is a thinking job. Anyone can blindly follow policy and procedures (recognizing that there are some good reasons why we have policies...) The real challenge is figuring out how to get things done efficiently (and legally) despite policy and procedures.

Paul – What I Wish I Knew Then… Early Government career: Entering straight from college and working major system acquisitions, wish I had more understanding of how big business works. Good news: I didn't know how Big Government worked either, so I didn't know what wasn't "possible" Mentors: Bob Marx – How to take advantage of FAR Part 12 John Meyer – Carried the FAR to meetings Jeff Mellott – Thinking job

Paul – What I Wish I Knew Then… Mid Career I didn't talk to my contractors enough (because I knew what I was doing....) Actually annoyed by calls and visitors trying to shape the acquisition Which is a good thing to keep me from making it more complicated than it needed to be Not always a bad thing even though they are trying to shape for them Industry How little many industry contracting people understand about how hard it can be to get things done as a Government Contracting Officer

Kevin – What I Wish I Knew Then… Early Government career: Started in Research & Development Aircraft, training simulators, space launch systems, software development Learned the ropes by doing What I wish knew: Learned there was always more to know US Air Force, Wright Patterson AFB, Patrick AFB, Peterson AFB Mentors: Jeff Mellott Shelley Hall

Kevin – What I Wish I Knew Then… Mid Career Got great training from experience Learned by doing: Ran more source selections for services, products, commercial products and services What I wish I knew: The value of communication between acquisition team members

Kevin – What I Wish I Knew Then… Industry Started Skyway to help people. We focus helping people Know More, Do More and Win More in the Federal market. We take the complex and make it simple(er). What we offer: Free Stuff (like this podcast) The Skyway Community (which starts at $15/month) Our coaching and consulting services for a very competitive hourly rate

Where Are We Going? More guests with in-depth experiences that we don't have Contracting is a HUGE field: it’s very difficult to be an expert in everything Other Contracting Officers as Subject Matter Experts in their specialties More series about specific niches (while maintaining general topics) More organization Episodes sorted better so you can find them more easily Three ‘levels’: Novice, Journeyman, and Advanced (Need your feedback) Different metrics

Where Are We Going? More feedback from you More engagement with our listeners We want to know who you are so we can help you Survey

Why Is This Important? Government Acquisition is hard. Fixing policy from the top down is hard (if not impossible) Lots of people are talking about the top of the cycle (budget, etc.) and we are talking about the ground level We want to make Government contracts better, one contract at a time.

Summary Thanks for making it a great year! We appreciate your interest and support, and are excited to make this podcast even better in the year to come.

Contact us We are on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook We also started the Government Contracting Network Group on Facebook. Join us there! Send your topics to paul@Contractingofficerpodcast.com For Community support, contact Shelley Hall at shelley.hall@skywayacquisition.com