Save Money and Time with the Modular Contracting Approach

Government agencies squander for years completing their gargantuan IT projects with their contractors, but often they take such extensive amounts of time to arrive on the scene that when they do the need for them is minimal or even nonexistent. During this inefficient and exhaustive process, billions of dollars are wasted and the government does not get the full benefit of their IT innovation. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) developed a guide book, released June 14, 2012, about module contracting that maps out methods of more efficacious project planning in a variety of aspects from investment manageability to responsiveness of the contracts in Contracting Guidance to Support Modular IT Development.

This guide book purposes the disposal of the antiquated method of devoting years to creating colossal new systems and instead utilizing an incremental approach towards contracts that will lead government agencies to saving an abundance of time and money. The Department of Agriculture put this method into use when developing new software to monitor grantee performance. It divided its venture into pieces and started with the development of a management evaluation tool for their Women, Infants, and Children Program. Additionally, it broke that project up into activities, and structured it so customers could give feedback during further development of the software by contractors. This method led them to launching their management tool within a year after the contract was awarded. Furthermore, the USDA is fully capable of rapidly implementing additions to its management tool in response to arising needs and concerns.

OMB is striving to have more successful examples of the modular approach in the upcoming years. They even say by splitting up these investments that there is a high probability of an increase in competition for the contracts. This competition would include smaller businesses that would not have previously been able to undertake large multi-year contracts such as these. According to them, the American people would receive a better value because of this rise in competition. OMB makes this concluding statement about the benefits outweighing the intensive labor required for the new approach, “Changing agency culture to regularly take advantage of modular principles will take work, but the payback – in the form of improved investment manageability and budget feasibility, lower risk, more responsive contracts and reduced time to value – is well worth the effort.”