It is a common issue.

An organization has a need.  It is a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal) whose product is obvious but whose pathway is fraught with complex pitfalls and executional details.  To further confound the issue, the organization lacks the specific expertise to generate the RFQ and solicitation of an RFI necessitates significant human resources and implies existing in-house expertise to evaluate, parse and reassemble the data into an effective RFQ…

So, how do you specifically instruct some one on what you want built when you don’t know how to build it or what you should even be considering in the construction?

The US Government came up with a quite elegant answer.  Ask the experts and Web 2.0 it…

For quite a while, the US Government has be leveraging FedBizOps.gov to post government contract opportunities and to procure everything from pretty pictures to F-16 parts.  Even with a great tool like this, the RFI process is still difficult and the RFQ process requires expertise that may not exist internally.  To solve this problem, they piloted http://betterbuy.fas.gsa.gov.  Better Buy is a MediaWiki site where vendors essentially create the RFQ solicitation collaboratively which is then priced by each of the individual participants.

Imagine this post to the Better Buy wiki:

“Create a multi-channel awareness campaign that communicates  Federal Government and BP Oil efforts to resolve the current leak and spill-related damage to the Louisiana shore line within a budget of 2 million dollars, monthly.”

While see issues with this methodology, I think it is a beautiful way to get your vendors to create a best-in-breed solution that they all understand and can bid on with minimal confusion or doubt as to the desired executions and program plans…

Hats off to you, GSA!  This is a very interesting pilot that I hope proves successful and moves into other areas of the GSA acquisition (like the AIMS Schedule 541 work). I think it will both streamline acquisitions and level the playing field for all vendors involved in the pursuit.