The Far Bootcamp®

Course Description

The FAR Bootcamp is a four-and-one half day course that teaches attendees how to research, read, interpret, and apply the Federal Acquisition Regulation. There are no prerequisites. New hires have attended the course on their very first day on the job and done well. Course hours are 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and 9:00 a.m. until Noon on Friday. There are no lectures or slide shows. Attendees learn the FAR by working through exercises and problems, which become more complex and difficult as the week progresses. Each attendee receives a copy of the FAR.

There are four kinds of exercises and problems:

Familiarization, Search-and-Find, and Search-and-Answer exercises are worked by the attendees individually. Search-and-Solve problems are worked both individually and in groups of four to five persons. All but Familiarization exercises have multiple levels of difficulty.

Familiarization exercises are designed to accustom the attendee to working with the FAR in a systematic way. They familiarize the attendee with the organization and general content of the FAR and with course tools for doing research.

In Search-and-Find exercises the attendee is given a list of topics and told to find them using the FAR index, and the FAR tables of contents. The purpose of these exercises is to deepen the attendee’s familiarity with the organization and topical content of the FAR and to help the attendee develop a personal FAR research strategy. There are two levels of difficulty for Search and Find exercises. The first level requires attendees to find topics that are more or less clearly marked in FAR. The second requires them to find topics that are difficult to find.

Search-and-Answer exercises are more difficult than Familiarization and Search-and-Find exercises. They require the attendee to search the FAR in order to find answers to specific questions. For example: When determining whether a prospective contract exceeds the dollar threshold for obtaining cost or pricing data, must you include the dollar value of prospective contract options? Yes or No? Provide a FAR citation that expressly supports your answer. The student must find an express answer to that question in the FAR and write down a citation for it. There are two levels of difficulty for Search-and-Answer exercises. The first involves finding answers that are stated in one place. The second involves finding answers that require analysis of two or more parts of the FAR.

Search-and-Solve problems are the most difficult. Each confronts the attendee with a set of facts and a problem, which the attendee must solve by reference to the FAR. There are two levels of difficulty. The first includes problems that do not require case law knowledge. The second includes problems that usually require some case law knowledge in order to find the solution. At each level, attendees must be aware of special terminology.

Each exercise and problem are timed and is followed by a review under the guidance of the Bootcamp Leader. Class size is limited to 25 persons. The limited class size allows the Leader to watch over the attendees and to assist them in the development of their research and interpretation techniques.

The first day of class is devoted to Familiarization and Search-and-Find exercises. The second day is devoted to Search-and-Answer exercises. The next two days are devoted to Search-and-Solve problems. During the third and fourth days the attendees work on more increasingly difficult cases, and sharing their findings with the class, arguing syllogistically. The final day consists of a three-hour graduation exercise, which enables each attendee to assess the amount of progress that he or she has made and to identify the need for further study. The class is Pass or Fail based on participation during the week.

The course is intense and very demanding and should be attended only by persons with a strong desire to learn about the FAR and to attend the course. Attendees should be freed of other office obligations and must make arrangements to arrive every morning on time and to stay in the classroom until the end of the day. Our standards will not permit anyone to receive a course certificate who does not attend all sessions and work all exercises and problems.

Critical Thinking for Acquisition Professionals

Acquisition professionals program managers, project officers, contracting officers, contract specialists, contracting officer representatives, and their contractor counterparts must make many decisions and plans. They must analyze often complex issues, considering many factors and weighing arguments from many sides. So the ability to think critically is an essential professional skill.

Increasingly, senior acquisition officials, contractors, industry associations, and others have called for more and better critical thinking by the Acquisition Workforce. At The FAR Bootcamp^® we demand critical thinking and argumentation by our students in a variety of problem solving scenarios. Based on the observations that we have made over the course of more than 15 years of teaching, we decided to launch a course devoted to critical thinking that is designed especially for those who work in Government acquisition.

Critical thinking is the mental process of evaluating, questioning, and judging your own thinking and the thinking of others based on established principles of sound reasoning. Critical thinking entails being conscious of, inquisitive about, and judgmental toward assertions and arguments—the ones that we plan to make, the ones that we have made, and the ones that others have made. It entails reading closely and listening attentively; recognizing assertions and arguments; seeking definitions; asking pertinent questions of ourselves and others; recognizing and eliminating ambiguity and vagueness; and being on the lookout for unsupported and false premises, logical fallacies, inconsistencies, and conclusions that do not follow from the premises on which they are assertedly based. The goal is to learn the truth about beliefs and assertions, if possible.

In Critical Thinking for Acquisition Professionals, students will learn the fundamentals of critical thinking and put them into practice through analysis and discussion of acquisition related case studies. Topics include:

Critical Thinking for Acquisition Professionals is designed for all who are or will be actively engaged in acquisition policy making, and contract planning, formation, and administration.

Prerequisites: The course is designed for those who have successfully completed either The FAR Bootcamp^®, the Defense Acquisition University's CON 90, "Federal Acquisition Regulation Fundamentals," or the Federal Acquisition Institute's CON 120, "Mission-Focused Contracting." Ideally, applicants will have achieved at least a DAWIA/FAC-C Level I certification or its equivalent.

The course is three days, and course hours are from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.

THE SOURCE SELECTION BOOTCAMP^®

A Path to Innovation, Efficiency, and Sound Decisions
through Concepts, Principles, and Critical Thinking

The Federal Acquisition Regulation requires that agencies plan acquisitions, including the conduct of source selections. We know that source selection planners tend to be practical people. They want to design a process that will produce a good decision within a reasonable time, that will pass any review, that will withstand any protest, and that will ultimately lead to the achievement of the acquisition objective. So we have designed a course to explain how to do that.

There are two basic ways to plan a source selection, (1) by cutting and pasting from previous plans and solicitations and (2) by critically thinking things through from scratch.

While cutting and pasting avoids “reinventing the wheel” and can save time up front, it also impedes critical thinking and spreads the use of inefficient processes that produce poor outcomes. After proposals arrive and evaluation begins, planners who cut and paste may find that they did not receive the information they need about offerers and their offers and are confronted with questions that they cannot answer because they did not think critically and from scratch. They may find that they have used terms and evaluation factors that they did not fully define and cannot clearly explain, and which must be worked out by evaluators while in the middle of things. That situation can lead to internal disagreements and to inconsistent, unreasonable, and indefensible findings and decisions.

The Source Selection Bootcamp^® is designed to prepare acquisition personnel to plan source selections through critical thinking. It covers the selection and development of evaluation factors for award, evaluation process design, and solicitation preparation.

The course is not another review of regulations and protest decisions. The emphasis is on explication of the fundamental concepts and principles of sound source selection decision-making. It is designed to help planners facilitate and expedite the work of evaluators and decision makers. Attendees will be shown how to design a process that is simple, efficient, and fast, stripping from it all unnecessary and unproductive steps, and using innovative labor-saving and time-saving techniques.

The course is suitable for all personnel who will participate in any competitive acquisition process other than sealed bidding, including processes conducted pursuant to FAR Parts 12, 13, 15, or 35, and FAR Subparts 8.4, 16.5, 36.3, or 36.6. It is taught on site, through presentations, case studies, exercises, and guided discussions. Attendance is limited to 25 persons. The instructors are subject matter experts who are experienced in the conduct of source selections.

There are no prerequisites. However, prospective students should have a basic familiarity with the various methods of contracting other than sealed bidding and of the general processes of solicitation, offer (or quotation), and award.

Course length: Three full days, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, with a one hour open discussion/study hall at the end of each day.

From The Creators of The FAR Bootcamp^®

Statements of Work (SOWs) and Performance Work Statements (PWSs) are those parts of service contracts that specify the services to be rendered. SOWs and PWSs are notoriously difficult to organize and write, in large measure (1) because services results are often intangible and difficult to describe and (2) requirements and contracting personnel receive little in the way of formal instruction in their nature and preparation.

In this 3-day course attendees are introduced to (a) the nature and the elements of services and the various forms they take, (b) the nature of a service “requirement”, (c) how to analyze service requirements, (d) when to use a SOW and when to use a PWS, and (d) how to write and modify SOWs and PWSs.

Attendees will be provided with templates and samples and given practice writing assignments.

Course Content

And more:

Regulations and official guidance ● Unofficial sources of guidance ● Who writes the SOW or PWS? ● Guidelines for legal interpretation of SOWs and PWSs ● Guidelines for writing definitions in SOWs and PWSs ● Guidelines for incorporating regulations and standards into SOWs and PWSs ● How to write modifications of SOWs and PWSs ● Using Statements of Objectives

The course is three days long, from 9:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., each day.