Buying Teams

o manage the largest procurement in Coast Guard history, Greg Giddens knew he needed a full squad of professionals. The players on the team would have their own areas of expertise, but they would have to learn to work together and form a cohesive unit.

Giddens, the deputy program executive officer for the Coast Guard's Deepwater project, is largely responsible for navigating the 20-year, $17 billion deal. Capping off six years of hard work, the Coast Guard on June 25 awarded the project to a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

The acquisition represents a major shift in the way the Coast Guard buys ships and aircraft. Rather than specifying the exact mix of assets for the revamped fleet, the agency took an innovative approach, allowing three competing private sector bidders unprecedented freedom to design an entire system of ships, small boats, aircraft, satellites and robotic unmanned aerial vehicles. The competitors were told that all the crafts should be electronically linked to operate together at distances more than 50 nautical miles from shore. Contractors were given free rein to come up with the best way to perform that mission.

Much of the credit for Deepwater goes to a team of Coasties headed by Giddens and Adm. Patrick Stillman. The team, which included staff from the Coast Guard's contracting, logistics, engineering, program management and budget offices, worked feverishly to develop an innovative acquisition strategy to replace the world's third oldest fleet of ships.

Teams like the one the Coast Guard used, known as "integrated product teams," are not new to the federal government. But increasingly, they are being hailed as the way to manage large-scale acquisitions. Agencies are starting to see the limitations of procurements that fail to draw on the expertise of a wide range of employees. For example, Giddens notes, budget experts can often provide a much-needed reality check. "You can lay out the greatest process, but without budgeting you won't get lift," he says.

Cutting across wide swaths of an agency's turf, integrated product teams focus on the ultimate goal of developing the best strategy to fulfill the agency's mission. The teams also ensure that acquisition experts are in on the process of designing that strategy from the beginning.

"In many respects, procurement is viewed as a back room operation," says Angela Styles, director of the Office of Procurement Policy at the Office of Management and Budget. "They are not always at the table. Some will say, 'Oh yeah, bring in Joe,' once the procurement decision is made. If you want to buy something, whether it is information technology or a strike fighter, you need the procurement people in on the front end so you can describe the statement of work and get their expertise from the beginning."

Integrated product teams in large part owe their rise to reforms enacted during the mid-1990s. The 1994 Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, for example, requires program managers to come up with cost, performance and schedule goals for every major acquisition. On top of that, the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act requires capital planning and investment reviews of information technology purchases. And, under the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act, agencies must make sure their major procurement decisions mesh with their overall strategic plans.

As a result, performance and results have replaced process as the main drivers in the acquisition system, says Robert Welch, vice president for government operations at Acquisition Solutions Inc., a Chantilly, Va., consulting firm. So, it's important to involve key players as early as possible in an acquisition strategy, he says. In most cases, that means forming a team as soon as the need for a product or service arises. As program managers spell out their needs, other experts can identify potential problems and propose solutions before things spiral out of control. Contracting officers, for example, can identify specific contract vehicles that could be used.

Successful integrated teams typically have a common set of key features, according to an Acquisition Solutions' white paper on the subject:

• Shared leadership.
• Individual as well as mutual accountability.
• Collective work products.
• Performance measures.

"Integrated product teams are largely driven by personality," she says. "You need someone who can bring all the elements together. That may not necessarily be the most senior person. You look for someone who can produce results."

One of the first tricks is getting people to leave their functional baggage at the door. Team members must learn to think in terms of the project and not solely serve as a representative of their functional office. At the same time, they must maintain links to their functional office so the team does not become isolated from the rest of the agency. It's a delicate balance, but when it works, the team becomes bigger than the sum of its parts.

"In the past, people would put up roadblocks to someone else's ideas," says Giddens. "With the integrated team, you work closely together and see it through good times and bad. It's about building consensus." The real gut check, he adds, comes when a part of the project experiences a hiccup or two. "Are you going to kick a team member when they fall down or extend a helping hand and get them back in the running?"

For many agencies, the biggest challenge might be simply finding the bodies to put together a team. The federal downsizing effort of the 1990s depleted the ranks of the acquisition workforce. The Defense Department, for instance, cut its procurement staff in half, from 460,000 to 230,000, between 1990 and 1999. Yet during the same period, annual Defense procurement spending dropped just 3 percent, from $144 billion to $139 billion. And, the number of procurement actions increased from 13 million to 14 million, according to a February 2000 report by Defense's inspector general.

"The scope of the problem is staggering," says Steven Schooner, associate law professor at The George Washington University Law School. "I like [the idea of] integrated product teams. I think it is a good solution. But I think it is the exception, not the rule. What's the solution for some other program office if you take a contracting person and put them on an integrated team?"

Devoting resources to the team approach takes commitment from top leadership, says Giddens. That is what happened with Deepwater. Coast Guard brass supported the concept from the beginning. They allowed team members to move from their offices to a common area, thus creating a more conducive work environment.

Program managers aren't the only ones who benefit from a more integrated acquisition strategy. Vendors also find the approach useful. Contractors first come in contact with the integrated teams during the market research phase of an acquisition. Before agencies issue a request for proposals, they are allowed to sit down with vendors and probe them for ideas on how to address a specific problem. The research generally leads to more informed statements of work and requests for proposals.

Talking with integrated product teams gives vendors a more complete picture of what to expect when they actually bid on a project.

"In most cases, contracting officers won't have [enough] technical knowledge or experience," says Joe Guirrei, director for information insurance development at Computer Sciences Corp. In dealing with product teams, "we get a better sense of the problems they are facing," he says. "We are trying to find out as much about the agency and the problem being solved. Turning that around, it clarifies the requirements for them. They can see what is in the realm of possibility."

But what happens if a team finds itself going in the wrong direction or bogged down in cost overruns and delays? In the Navy, program managers have the option of calling in a strike team from Stelloh-Garner's Acquisition Reform Office when projects go off course. For the past two years, the office has been operating a "program assist visit" (PAV) project. The concept is to send a team of outside experts to a troubled procurement and help design-or redesign-the strategy.

PAVs are strictly voluntary. When program managers ask for help, members of the Acquisition Reform Office meet with them to get a sense of the problem and the desired outcome. Then they pull together a team of experts. While Stelloh-Garner has only five people on her staff, she's able to tap a pool of nearly 50 Navy personnel and contractors to assemble a strike team. When such a team is called into action varies from project to project. In some cases, program managers are lost from the beginning and need help launching the entire procurement. In other instances, an acquisition effort is running into delays and cost overruns. And, in some cases, managers are simply looking for confirmation that they're on the right track.

Such was the case when Capt. Steve Morrow called the Acquisition Reform Office for a visit. Morrow, who retired in July, was program manager for the Tomahawk cruise missile program. His team had awarded a design contract to Raytheon in June 1998. As they close in on putting together a production contract, Navy leaders want to make sure a wide range of innovative procurement strategies are explored. Morrow thought his team was on the right course, but decided to ask the Acquisition Reform Office for an assessment. As part of the visit, Morrow requested that specialists from a Navy and Air Force project to buy medium range air-to-air missiles join the strike team.

The PAV team gave Morrow input on how to better assign contractor responsibility, develop long-term warranties, establish performance-based payments and come up with accurate cost models. "We were doing a lot of those things, but we didn't know if we were on the right course," Morrow says. "What the PAV did was confirm that we were on the right track, and it allowed us to further fine-tune what we were doing."

Consultation with the PAV team didn't stop after a single visit. The team and Morrow's group established a Web site where they could communicate and share best practices. The Tomahawk group plans to ask for a second visit as they get closer to awarding a production contract in the next couple of years.

While Morrow is open about his experience with the reform office, most visits are kept confidential. Stelloh-Garner doesn't even tell her bosses which programs have requested a visit. The idea is that anonymity will lead to more open and honest discussions. Product teams are under no obligation to implement the recommendations they receive, although Stelloh-Garner is unaware of a case where a product team did not accept most of the suggestions. Since 2001, the Acquisition Reform Office has conducted 27 visits, all to Navy and Marine Corps programs. The other military services have not come calling. Stelloh-Garner isn't sure that her office is capable of working with civilian agencies given the cultural differences. Nonetheless, she says the practice is something that can be copied.

"Any program team member who is unwilling to look at the way others do business and is not open-minded has the wrong mind-set," says Morrow. "My guys wanted to talk and find out how these things work."