Understand Progressive Acquisition, but Work with Experts
In this five-part series on progressive acquisition, we have given you a lot to digest, but
do not be intimidated. If you have a knowledgeable and sympathetic procurement and legal staff,
they will take care of most of it. Your job is, first, to be aware of the advantages that progressive
acquisition offers and how it works so that you can advocate for this approach, whether you
are on the supply or the acquisition side. In addition, if you are aware of the various contractual
requirements and issues that we have identified, you can ensure that your solicitation and contract
documentation are complete and provide maximum risk protection for you, whether you are acting
as an acquirer or a supplier. On the acquisition side, that includes specifying how you want
the workflow to unfold and how you want it administered.
The basic concept to get across to your procurement and legal staff is the idea of establishing
a Head Contract that encompasses the essence of the project venture and then creating a series
of CWOs. If you issue the first CWO along with the Head Contract, it can lay a foundation with
detailed requirements and possibly business modeling. Then, based on the results of this work,
you can issue subsequent CWOs for Elaboration, Construction, and Transition with a much higher
degree of certainty. This will be true for both technical content -- that is, functionality
-- as well as cost and schedule parameters. In short, this approach yields a higher degree of
control, certainty of outcome, and likelihood of product success.
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Terminating the Contract
