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Acquisition Excellence and Small Business Excellence Awards

Submitted by admin on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 10:27

Acquisition Excellence and Small Business Excellence Awards

As part of the efforts to recognize acquisition professionals who contribute to outstanding improvements in acquisition throughout the federal government, the Chief Acquisition Officers Council (CAOC) is seeking nominations for the 2017 Acquisition Excellence and Small Business Excellence Awards. Nominations are being solicited for Federal employees engaged in team or individual activities that led to excellent results in any of the following five acquisition categories in FY 2016:

Acquisition Excellence Award

An award will be given to both an individual and a team.

Category #1 - Program Management: Demonstrated programmatic excellence and success by balancing the many factors that influence cost, schedule, and performance. Demonstrated the ability to interpret and tailor application of the FAR, and ensured that a high-quality, affordable, supportable, and effective product was delivered to the customer. The program should have utilized innovative methods for management to include the use of risk management.

Category #2 - Innovation: Developed an innovative solution for acquisition or pathway to drive innovation. The innovative solution can be in any acquisition area, such as developing a challenge to obtain an innovative solution to a requirement, developing an innovative acquisition process to get the best solution, utilizing strategies from the TechFAR handbook or the Digital Services Playbook that resulted in an innovative solution, or developing innovation in acquisition training for the workforce, among others. Acquisition labs that are helping to accelerate internal capacity to facilitate innovative solutions will also be considered.

Category #3 - Category Management: Demonstrated excellence and success in category management, including, but not limited to: increasing savings/cost avoidance, reducing unnecessary contract duplication while meeting small business goals, effective supplier engagement, and bringing additional spend under management.

Small Business Excellence Award

An award will be given either to an individual or a team.

Category #1 - Effective Collaboration: Individuals or teams engaged in collaboration between their Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU), the program management office, and the contracting office that led to awards that were successful from both a small business and an acquisition perspective in FY 2016.

Category #2 - Use of Small Business Tools to Maximize Opportunities for Small Businesses: Individuals or teams that maximized opportunities for small businesses using the authority to reserve one or more contract awards when conducting multiple-award procurements using full and open competition, or using the authority to set aside part or parts of a multiple-award contract (see FAR 19.502-4).

Nomination packages will be evaluated against the following criteria:

  • Criterion #1 - Results - the team or individual demonstrated results that exceeded original expectations.
  • Criterion #2 - Impact - The impact of the effort was substantial and provided significant value to the agency and/or other beneficiaries.

We will be using a two-step process that allows for a streamlined initial nomination. These initial nominations are being accepted through March 20, 2017. Nominations will only be accepted online at http://www.fai.gov/AE2017-Award-Submission. Individuals interested in previewing the entire award submission form may download a PDF template available at the website.

Please see the attached document for additional information. The awards will be presented at Acquisition Excellence in Washington, DC in Summer, 2017. Nominees may be asked to prepare a case study on their efforts.