Raise your Hand, Engage Early and other Tips for Industry on Communicating with Government

Earlier this Spring we announced the 2023 Engage FedGov Honorees, a list of exceptional individuals, who were nominated, evaluated, and selected by a panel of their peers, and represent leaders from across government and industry who stand out from the crowd for their willingness to drive BOLD approaches and innovative engagement strategies while supporting a culture shift across the Federal sector which values collaboration, open communication, transparency, and partnership between and across the Federal government and industry partner ecosystems. 

We caught up with Traci Walker, Executive Director with the Digital Services Coalition, former Director of Digital Service Procurement with USDS, and longtime Sr. Contract Specialist with the EOP, who shares advice for industry on getting engaged and why it is important to ask questions.

Moving Toward Change

Realizing early in her career as a contracting professional that while policy and regulations existed in abundance, real-world applications and practical guidance were often lacking, Traci has always focused on looking for better and repeatable ways to move government forward. Working within the White House, as government and industry were moving towards agile development, one challenge was in how to create something new, and ensure it was repeatable for others down the road.

“It took a lot of time to come up with those new methods for understanding agile software delivery, for understanding iterative processes and modular contracting development and methods like that. And then additional time educating people and getting them to really sit down and think about their processes and systems, to see the underlying areas that could be changed and still work for government.”

This was the basis of why she, along with Joanie Newhart of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, created the FAC-C-DS or “DITAP” training and development program for procurement officials buying digital services. By distilling down what took her three years to learn through trial and error into a four to six month training program, buyers can specialize in this field to achieve greater acquisition and programmatic outcomes for end users of digital service solutions.

The Broader Lens of Commercial – and the DSC

One opportunity government often misses is seeing how comparable industries are seeing success within digital services. “Of course, there are different levels of regulatory hurdles and high security demands, but industry can and should bring commercial work more to the front of the conversation with government to expose what is possible and the how and why.”

“Government is still facing that barrier between ‘are we too invasive’ or ‘do we need to be a little bit more adoptive of these standard technologies that everybody’s using’? We don’t need to recreate and reinvent what is already being done in the commercial world, it just needs to be adapted to fit government standards.”

“Saying that part of education is looking at the wall of ‘no’ that may instinctively be thrown up, challenging it to understand where it comes from and whether it is possible to maneuver around that, the Digital Services Coalition (DSC) was formed in 2019 with an aim of not just talking about, but acting to move the needle.

Evolution

Starting with a member body of 16, the DSC has been working to formalize its strategic plan and objectives in an iterative way, moving through the organizational maturity of its champions phase towards a long-term future path.

Growing to a mix of companies, DSC members now encompass small companies and those who have or are about to graduate, including some very smalls focused solely on subcontracting. “We have our set of values that we are all trying to prescribe to and the companies that come to us all have their own values and their own set of like-minded things at their core.”

New companies interested in the DSC are considered based on whether they uphold the organization’s values and the work they are doing related to digital services. “Together what we have here is a volunteer army of people that help out with all the activities with all of the different things we’re doing.”

“We’re not trying to change all of tech. We’re just really focused on this niche space of what makes good digital service, what makes good delivery, how are users impacted, what is accessibility look like, and how do we improve that?”

A Trusted Partner

Looking to support and influence future contracts to ensure they encompass the needed language and direction to support digital efforts, the group serves as both a trusted partner, and educator.

Traci considers part of her role within the DSC as helping the small to mid-sized companies, SDVOSBs, the 8(a)s, or the WOSBs get good contracts. “Coming out of government, the ability to help more than one company be able to succeed was important to me. Here, we represent what the digital space should look like moving forward, which hopefully will benefit government, and everyone within industry in that space.”

“We now have more agencies coming to use seeking support as they look to release new BPAs or IDIQs, wanting to ensure they are positioning things in the right way to get what they need. Digital services is really a specialized function. Whether it be carved out of a contract, rather than being bundled together with a lot of things is just one of the big questions.”

Advice for Industry

Leveraging two decades of experience in government contracting, the opportunity to share with others based on her experience, revealing the path of trial and error, the lessons learned along the way so mistakes do not have to be repeated, Traci offers some key advice:

1. Engage Early

“There is still a divide between industry and government and a fine line for contracting officials when it comes to that interaction with industry and knowing when it is time to engage. From what I have seen, the earlier the better.”

Noting that once an RFI or Sources Sought is released there is often an urgency to move, it is clear that engagement needs to happen sooner. “The Office of Federal Procurement Policy has sent out many myth busters to say engagement with industry is allowed. One of the things we did within USDS was to implement open contracting, taking some of the lessons from Canada and other places in Europe who are building requirements together with industry.”

“Government needs to work from the view of ‘How do we start solving this?’ That can all be covered under the guise of both market research, but also the lens of market intelligence, knowing the players in the space, and what is being done on the commercial side.”

2. Raise your Hand

Capturing and creating teaching moments is critical. “Any response you generate for government should focus, not on your capabilities, but how you are going to solve a problem. How are you going to use your knowledge, dig into the how, the art of what is possible, to solve a specific challenge?”

It is important to question, to ask the what, or the why that may not yet have been asked. “Industry sometimes holds that information back as a point of potential solution providing, but then there isn’t an opportunity to actually provide the solution because government doesn’t understand to include it in the scope of work.”

Using industry days to ask those questions is key for industry. As an example: Will there need to be any education or change management for the client to succeed on this new path and has that been factored in?

“Another example is UX which is popping up in a lot of solicitations. The opportunity may talk about user research, but it doesn’t discuss user recruitment which is a very different function and may require things like incentivizing users that is not identified. There may be a small business really experienced at that recruitment side but because it is not identified theydon’t know if they can bid, and others who are bidding may not realize they need that extra support.”

Advice for Government

For government Traci’s advice is to add buyer intelligence, the opposite of market research. “Knowing program capabilities, who will be managing a project, the breadth of their experience, whether they are adept in agile and in what ways is important. A company may say they have the skills but what can you measure? What evidence backs up the skillsets they lay claim to?”

“Opening up workshops, instead of industry days, to allow really free discussion about the challenge at hand and all of the detailed requirements can be a way to engage better. Participants seem to feel more connected, and less inclined to hold their cards close.”

Outward Education

As part of its outreach and education, DSC is launching a series of webinars, focused on bridging the gap between commercial and government, filling in knowledge between product ownership and product management, between digital transformation and digital modernization, between CX and UX.

“Really diving into these concepts we’re hoping to assist with that product and design thinking, with really understanding how we can achieve these goals together, bring teams together to train them on these things. The government too in many areas needs to upskill where they are now, especially in some of these techniques.”

Serving as SMEs, leveraging the experience of companies that can speak in depth on these topics, DSC is taking that knowledge to industry, and to government. Following the webinar series, expect to see workshops and then shared content based on those for broader consumption.

“Our goal is to create a shared language between us and government, to define some of these things for clarity. The Digital Services Playbook was a great model when it came out in 2014 but it’s been a while since it updated some of those initial concepts and terms.”

Serving as Strategic Advisor

Beyond her role within the DSC, Traci is also a strategic advisor to Fearless’ Hutch incubator program. Looking to support women-owned or socially disadvantaged companies, she provides her insights and lessons learned around interacting with government.

“Especially from the small business perspective it is important take advantage of all of the different avenues into government instead of assuming that winning a Prime award somehow will be a measure of success. There are things like Challenge.gov that companies are still winning on and gaining that foot in the door. Or micro-purchases. How do you leverage $10,000 to get a foot in the door? What are some of the other ways you can have conversations with government without seeming like you are trying to sell them something, that are more like teaching moments? There are a lot of options people may not be taking advantage of to open that door.”

About the DSC

The Digital Services Coalition, a non-profit trade association, exists to support, educate, represent, and positively influence both the government and the digital service market in their joint efforts to improve technology solutions. Our mission is to be trusted partners of the government by providing the technical knowledge and thought leadership necessary to continuously mature the delivery of digital services that are accessible, functional, and work seamlessly to support the full range of customer experiences.

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