Nontraditional Procurement Methods in Defense with Stephanie Wilson

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[00:00:19] Bonnie: All right, guys and gals, Bonnie here with another bonus episode for you this week, featuring none other than miss Stephanie Wilson, contracting officer at army contracting command rock Island. Also known as the best contracting officer in the Department of Defense, in Bonnie's opinion, and one of our top guests on the show.

[00:00:37] Bonnie: She was recently interviewed on the Doing Tech Better in Government podcast about the intricate world of government procurement, our favorite topic, where she shared her insights on navigating non traditional procurements, combating legacy tech, and the importance of making people quote, familiar with the unfamiliar.

[00:00:53] Bonnie: I wanted to share this with you all because Stephanie is a wealth of knowledge and one of the most badass procurement officers I know. If you haven't already, make sure you go back and listen to our first two episodes with her so you can soak in all the contracting goodness. I hope you enjoy this one. 

[00:01:07] Brian: Hello, thank you all for joining us in today's doing tech better in government podcast. I'm Brian Fox with Omni Federal. I'm so glad to be partnered with ATAR today for this podcast. And today we have Stephanie Wilson joining us. She's coming in from ACC or Army Contracting Command. I've known her for a little bit.

[00:01:26] Brian: She's participated in my Army DSO community as well. And. Just a pleasure having her on as an Innovative Procurement Specialist within the Army space joining us. But Stephanie, you mind telling us a little bit about yourself, your organization, and your role there? Yes, absolutely. Hi, Brian. How are you? 

[00:01:44] Brian: I'm doing really well.

[00:01:46] Brian: Thank you. 

[00:01:46] Brian: So 

[00:01:47] Stephanie: my name is Stephanie Wilson. I am a Procurement Officer, Agreements Officer, and Grants and Agreements Officer with ACC Rock Island, which is the Army Contracting Command, Rock Island. My organization is solely a contracting command. We support many various customers, all within Army and also DoD.

[00:02:07] Stephanie: And again my role there is I am the person that signs the contracts. I help out with acquisitions and negotiations. 

[00:02:14] Brian: Do you have any recent examples of innovative procurement practices that are creating an impact in the Army? Anything you're excited that's happened recently? 

[00:02:23] Stephanie: So I think anything to do with AI is very exciting.

[00:02:26] Stephanie: And I think one of the reasons why I'm personally excited about it is because as I introduced myself, I said that I was part of ACC Rock Island. I am part of an army contracting command work for the army, but I have an unusual relationship, a very good relationship, but an unusual relationship with my customer who is actually a DOD entity.

[00:02:49] Stephanie: So I don't necessarily support the army directly as of right now, but I do so in a way that is being shuttered through the D. O. D. down to the service branches and part of the C. D. A. O. S. mission is to be able to push down a I in a consumptible way down to the service branches. And so I think one of the things that I'm most excited about is how we are going to utilize AI and just even saying the term AI is incredibly broad, because you have so many disciplines that are underneath AI.

[00:03:26] Stephanie: For example, most people listening to this podcast will have probably heard about AI ML. AI, excuse me, artificial intelligence, machine learning is just one of the disciplines of AI. So knowing that as there is with everything in life, you have that kind of top overarching topic, and then you really delve into the component pieces that are going to work the best for you.

[00:03:50] Stephanie: And I think that for me, the excitement comes in with the army utilizing what bits and pieces and components. Of AI that are going to work for the army. We have a lot of systems in the army. We have a lot of our warfighters using tech. And when we talk about tech, we have to be realistic with the fact that a lot of our warfighters are using old tech.

[00:04:15] Stephanie: It's legacy tech. We need to get them into bleeding edge tech, new tech. We need to get them into things that they can be part of a true user community and be able to say, yes, I had a hand in developing this software, this platform, this wire harness, this chat bot to be able to say, not only were they part of that as the user community, but also to be part of something that helps solve a real life problem.

[00:04:43] Brian: And so with all of that, how are you helping folks that you're engaged with? Whether it's users, maybe it's the folks that are trying to solve those problems and help those users. How are you getting them? more comfortable with new procurement methods that are really necessary to drive all of this? 

[00:04:59] Stephanie: So I think that's a very interesting question because the procurement methods that I'm using are not new.

[00:05:05] Stephanie: They've been around for decades. So for example, I work mostly in the non traditional Types of contracts. When I say non traditional, not FAR based. FAR is the Federal Acquisition Regulations. It's a huge book filled with thousands of rice paper thin pages telling you that thou shalt do this or thou shalt not do this.

[00:05:26] Stephanie: basically gives you a guide path, a pathway to award. The non traditional side of the house that I work into is Again, it's not new, but it's new to us. The procurement strategies that I use and the particular different types of procurement vehicles that I use are new to us and therefore are scary.

[00:05:46] Stephanie: And so I think a lot of times when people are uncomfortable with something that is new to them, it's because. Of their own comfort level, they're being faced with something that is new to them and something that they have not utilized before, so they can't see the end of it. understand what you're trying to say, understand what you're trying to do at the very beginning, but because they're not familiar with it, the fear factor comes in because they don't know how it's going to end.

[00:06:13] Stephanie: So a lot of what I am attempting to do within the army, within With my counterparts at CDIO, when we talk to potential new customers, new stakeholders, people that are going to come in and utilize the things that we have set up already. A lot of this is just getting people familiar with the unfamiliar.

[00:06:33] Stephanie: And really, it's just a fear factor that everybody needs to. Recognize understand within themselves and then say, Okay, how do I get over this fear factor so that I could try something new and understanding that there's risk in everything that we do anytime the government makes a move, whether it be something as simple as an RFI all the way out to some type of award.

[00:06:57] Stephanie: Everything that we do is scrutinized. Everything that we do is looked at from many different angles. And so because of that, everything that we do is inherently risky. It just depends when I'm talking to people about these types of procurement methods, where their comfort factor lies how they want to Basically attempt to mitigate some of those risks and where they're willing to take on some of the risks, not knowing what the end result is going to be.

[00:07:24] Stephanie: So I would say getting people comfortable with what I am doing with the types of things that I am doing. It's really all about them understanding it and getting comfortable with that understanding. 

[00:07:36] Brian: That's really interesting. Stephanie described new to us. That's a wonderful, really phrase for it all, not just on the procurement, but also on the.

[00:07:45] Brian: Process and technology side of things that within DoD, but even broadly in government agencies and program areas that need to move forward and do things differently and have better outcomes. They can be scared because it is new to them, but oftentimes it can be helpful to highlight what's happening in industry that back on the tech side of things, like a lot of the DevOps tooling or cloud capabilities have been around for over a decade, in some cases, like a decade and a half.

[00:08:12] Brian: So it's not, it's. Just new to them, but are you able to connect folks with examples or other. Other examples really elsewhere in government or elsewhere at DOD or maybe the army to help reduce that fear factor, that rightful fear factor on there because it is new to them. 

[00:08:30] Bonnie: Yes, exactly. Everyone has that right to be, and again, I don't want to say fearful in the sense that, it's a bad thing, but fearful in the sense of, what are we signing ourselves up to?

[00:08:40] Bonnie: Am I doing the right thing for the army? Am I doing the right thing for my customer? It's that healthy, critical thinking starts to step in to say, is this the right pathway that I should be going down? And so what I have found is a lot of folks want to understand. what these types of procurements are going to look like from start to finish.

[00:09:00] Bonnie: And where did we stumble? And with those stumbles, how did we fix it? How did we pivot? How are we able to turn out something successful? And if we don't turn out something successful, at least in my world, that's okay because. That's a lesson learned and you can take that lessons learned and then pivot into something that could potentially be successful.

[00:09:24] Bonnie: So a lot of times when I am sharing this information to somebody new to this, whether they be new to non traditional or maybe they are new to And I'm going to say our way of doing it, because again, there's so many ways that you can do that, do what I'm doing. It's just, that's a beautiful thing about it is you could look at it one way I could look at it another way.

[00:09:46] Bonnie: And we're both right. It's just two different sides of the coin. So what I do to get folks, really comfortable with it And that I can teach others how I've done it is I first and foremost, encourage them to take what I've done and make it their own. What I am doing is just my opinion.

[00:10:03] Bonnie: It is just the way that I thought it would be best to best serve my customer. That does not mean that it is the only way to do it. And a lot of times when I'm talking to folks that are new to this, that kind of gives them that first incline of that comfort level, because maybe they like what I did, but they.

[00:10:20] Bonnie: They can see a better way of doing it, or something that they would like to add to it. And when they understand that they can make these processes and these procurement methods theirs, That kind of starts them on that road of that comfort level. And another thing that I tell folks when I'm talking to them about, what it is that I do or what they could do with their requirement.

[00:10:42] Bonnie: I tell them to take what we've done, take our models, take everything that we've done and make it their own. We do not, Copyright anything. We do not lay claim to any anything that we've done is just ours. So we want people to understand that this could be a good starting off point for them and that they could take the lessons learned that we've had.

[00:11:04] Bonnie: They could learn from our mistakes, because we're all human. We all make mistakes. And so, because of that, they can take it and really make it their own. And that really helps facilitate My ability to share what I've learned and what I've been through within because I've been doing contracting for about close to 18 years now, and I've been doing kind of this weird and wild non traditional contracting for close to eight.

[00:11:28] Bonnie: So I just want people to understand that there's just a lot of space the realm that I'm in for them to learn to make mistakes. And to not really be punished for them. Again, we're not talking, egregious or, the big no's like bribery or kickbacks or anything like that. But to say, I tried something, tried a pilot and it just didn't work out the way that I thought that it would, but I learned A, B and C and I'm going to take those lessons learned.

[00:11:54] Bonnie: I'm going to try that pilot again and I'm going to do it with the lessons that I've learned and I'm going to make it better this next time around. 

[00:12:00] Brian: Yeah, that's wonderful, Stephanie. The concept of failing forward, right? And there are some areas within contracting and I think within it security where there's a opportunities for learning, but there can be a culture of perfection, perfectionism, and that can slow down innovation or prevent it altogether.

[00:12:20] Brian: So I love what you're describing there. You're really leaning in a culture change. So how are you facilitating culture change and maybe upskilling really related to the procurement of the 

[00:12:31] Army? 

[00:12:31] Stephanie: Absolutely. So everything that we've been talking about so far is just part of the picture. It's part of that aggregate picture.

[00:12:38] Stephanie: What I am doing is something that will naturally facilitate a culture change. Now, knowing anyone within the D O T culture change is hard to come by, right? Because we have set ways of doing things. We have certain policies. We have ways that we were taught bringing, being quote unquote, raised in the contracting field by your people.

[00:13:02] Stephanie: And, air force does it different than Navy and army does it different than coast guard. So we understand that. There are a lot of factors that have helped mold us into the contracting people that we are today. So breaking out of that mold is a natural occurrence that will happen with culture change.

[00:13:22] Stephanie: Now, are there barriers to culture change? Absolutely. And it goes back to what we were just talking about. A lot of times the barriers against culture change is that fear factor. There is. Being very uncomfortable in the new. And so to be able to enact culture change, you really need to find your champions.

[00:13:40] Stephanie: You need to find the people who are like, I don't quite understand what you're doing. Cause I'm not there yet, but I like what you're doing. You're going to do something that is good for the army. You are going to do something that is going to get, leading edge tech, new tech into the hands of the warfighter, better, faster, cheaper.

[00:13:59] Stephanie: So I'm on board with that. I may not understand it all, but I'm on board with it. And you just need to find a couple of those champions. And I tell this to folks all the time. Build your army of champions. You need to have those people that you can use as mentors. You need to have those people as your sounding boards.

[00:14:18] Stephanie: You need to have those people to just basically be your cheerleading squad. You need to have those people telling you don't give up. You are doing the right thing. Make the change, be the change. If you fix the process, you fix the problem. And I think that also the second part of your question about upscaling or excuse me, upscaling that is imperative.

[00:14:40] Stephanie: So I'm going to take the. Arena that I work in, which is AI. So in my arena, AI is here to stay, right? We are either going to have to go with the current or we're going to be drowned. So knowing that AI is still insanely new for a majority of the people. And not only are you dealing with a fear factor of, Hey, this is new to me procurement methodology, but then on top of.

[00:15:04] Stephanie: You're tacking on something that within a day, I think I read a study recently. It was about three, four months ago that said that AI is putting out into the environment, a hundred new pieces of tech a day. And tech could be something as simple as, an upgrade to a software, For example, an upgrade from chat GPT, they went from 0.

[00:15:27] Stephanie: So, but a hundred new pieces of AI tech are entering the environment in the marketplace a day. So now you have these contracting folks that are learning new procurement methods, new to them procurement methods. They're dealing with their own, fear factors of am I doing the right thing?

[00:15:46] Stephanie: Is this going to be the best route for me to go? Is this the best for the army? And then on top of it. You have to upskill your people to understand what it is that they're buying. Now, are we asking, all of our contracting folks to be churned out as data scientists or, a cloud architect or, somebody who has, years and years of years experience.

[00:16:06] Stephanie: No, we're not saying that, but you do need to upskill your people so that they understand the environment that they're in. AI is so new and fortunately, and unfortunately for me, I learned as I went. And so I'm at a place right now in my own career that I'm comfortable with what I do, but I see my fellow brethren going into this environment and not knowing anything.

[00:16:31] Stephanie: So investing in our people, investing in their skills, their knowledge is going to be paramount for us to be, for us to really enable. our workforce to be able to use the best procurement methods and to enhance their critical thinking skills. 

[00:16:48] Brian: Yeah, very exciting. Stephanie, it's making me think of a few interesting examples I've seen as far as AI's use within procurement.

[00:16:57] Brian: And as you're describing, Could very well be that AI is being used for procurement to procure yet better AI. I know that DHS has some AI capabilities to deeply examined CPARS. And then I've seen from others about. AI rapidly producing, procurement documents, and also then analyzing. As the RFIs come back and the like, so yeah, very fascinating with everything you've described, you've been very optimistic and highlighting, some of the wonderful opportunities in front of y'all.

[00:17:32] Brian: What are some of the challenges, as you, that you're facing as you continue to implement these modern procurement methods for implementing AI and NNL. 

[00:17:40] Stephanie: I think everything that we've talked about obviously are going to be challenges, the fear factor, the new to us procurement methodologies, how those function, how those work, understanding your left right boundaries.

[00:17:53] Stephanie: And I think that's going to be a big challenge for folks is that we are so accustomed and again, I'm talking about the contracting sphere. But again, that contracting sphere. Has multiple repercussions into the industry sphere. So, within the contracting sphere, understanding the left, right boundaries of what we're allowed to do with some of these non traditional type vehicles, it's going to throw people for a loop reason why I say that is because we are.

[00:18:20] Stephanie: We're raised up on the far and the far, like I said before is very prescriptive. It tells you what you shall and what you shall not do. It still leaves room for innovation. I don't want to, I don't want our viewers or excuse me, our listeners to think that I'm saying that the far has no place in procurement because the far has its place in procurement, just as I have my place.

[00:18:39] Stephanie: in procurement doing non traditionals. This is all part of a contracting professional's toolbox. It's just our critical thinking in where we need to determine where we need to put this requirement. but being raised up in the FAR, it still is pretty prescriptive. It's, we've got certain sections that tell us how we can do certain things.

[00:18:59] Stephanie: When you come over to the non traditional side of the house, it can be a challenge because you've suddenly gone from that two, three thousand rice page paper FAR book to the OTA guidebook, which is, I think, 56 pages. It's a huge shock. It's, looking for that direction. You're looking for that prescriptive measure on how I am supposed to go from requirement to award and really what the non traditional actions and Procurement types allow you to do is everybody talks about critical thinking skills.

[00:19:34] Stephanie: Everybody talks about how in contracting, that is your number one. You have to be able to critically think you will actually be able to critically think using non traditionals in the FAR. Again, I don't want to, bash the FAR and say that there's no place for it, but the FAR does give you some pretty specific left, right boundaries.

[00:19:52] Stephanie: Whereas in the non traditionals, they basically say. It is up to you to structure your particular procurement the way that you need it in this unstructured environment. So, it gives you left right boundaries of where you're allowed to use your authority. But after that, it's up to you as to how you put on your left right boundaries to get from requirement to award.

[00:20:15] Stephanie: So, I would say everything that we've been talking about, huge challenges. As we started to incorporate more of these methodologies into our everyday use, because they should not be novelties. They should be part of our everyday use. And then I would say really the understanding, which is also going to come with experience to be able to say, yes, I am comfortable structuring a procurement in an unstructured environment.

[00:20:40] Brian: Definitely. Thank you for that. You're clearly having an opportunity to create an impact help move DOD and the army. in some new directions. So you're having an opportunity really to lead, but there's others that are leading too, and trying and learning. How are you and your organization staying humble and curious?

[00:20:59] Brian: Really to ensure y'all continue to learn from other practitioners. 

[00:21:03] Stephanie: So one of the easiest things and that I can say, but one of the hardest things to do is you have to take your ego out of it. Ego has no place in this because it's truly a team sport. When I say that I do work in the non traditional realm, really it's just my opinion.

[00:21:20] Stephanie: It was my opinion on how to structure this particular procurement in the way that I did. And then let's say I did something. The next time looks totally different. Again, that was my opinion on how to best serve my customer. I think with what we're doing now in the non traditionals and everything that we've talked about, all of those challenges.

[00:21:43] Stephanie: To be able to stay humble, you have to be able to inject the humanity back into what we do. We're all humans, industry side, government side. We all make mistakes. We all look back with hindsight being 2020 saying, Oh, I should have written my proposal that way. Or I should have put this in as a factor to evaluate, including the humanity in what we do.

[00:22:07] Stephanie: I think really, truly helps you stay humble because We're not AI. We're, we're not machines. We are humans. We're just doing the best that we can at the time with the information that we have at the time. So I would say that anybody who is looking into doing something innovative, and I don't care if you're in the FAR, if you're in the Dodgers, or if you're doing OTs, it does not matter.

[00:22:33] Stephanie: If you're looking to do something innovative, staying humble is just injecting the humanity back into it. And as humans, we are naturally curious. So staying curious, at least for me, is very easy to do because I want to know what other people like me are doing. I want to learn from them. And again, it goes back to, I think I've mentioned this numerous times now in the podcast, where I've said that all of this is just my opinion.

[00:22:59] Stephanie: The way that I go about structuring something in the unstructured environment is just one way of doing it. And so my curiosity Is part of the reason why I build my army of champions, because I want to know what others are doing because I just learned so much from others because it's another perspective.

[00:23:17] Stephanie: It's another way of looking at the way that you can do your procurements better, faster, cheaper, and be able to support your customer in the way that they truly need to be supported. So. I would say that for anyone doing anything in the innovative side of the house, whether that be far or nontraditionals to stay humble, keep the humanity and always remember that we're all human beings and to stay curious, at least very easy for me, because I want to know what others are doing, because in the end, what I'm doing is just my opinion.

[00:23:46] Brian: Yeah, I love it. That's wonderful. Stephanie. That sounds a little bit like Renee Brown, the idea of removing the ego. Seeking a little imperfection because then that's where the learning is, right? And the innovation. Yeah. There's a lot happening in your space and with what you're doing and delivering on.

[00:24:03] Brian: What are you excited about that's coming? 

[00:24:05] Stephanie: So I think it's a little slow in coming, but I'm very excited for the culture change that we have ongoing within the DOD and within the service branches. I think as people face their fears of the unknown I think as people understand more about what tools they have had and now have even more so at their disposal that I really excited to think.

[00:24:31] Stephanie: They are excited too. So again, I'm being very optimistic about it, but I really feel that as you are helping to change culture, helping to influence policy, helping your, your brethren to understand what it is that you're doing so that they can do it and do it better. I think that makes me the most excited is that.

[00:24:51] Stephanie: So much room for growth that will actually make a change, really feel like we are turning the tides from, looking at a procurement, looking at a requirement, I should say, in a very myopic way and saying I can only do it this way, but instead, I really feel that maybe not my generation of contracting professionals, but the next ones coming up behind us, that they're really going to now look at it through a full lens that, Looking through their entire toolbox and understanding what it is that they're really purchasing, what it is that it's going to do just to support their customer.

[00:25:27] Stephanie: And they're really going to look at it instead of that myopic lens. They're going to look at it through a 360. They're going to understand what it is that they need to do to get this done for their customer. So I would say that in my opinion, I just really hope that 

[00:25:42] 

[00:25:42] Stephanie: I'm helping You know, that pathway for the generations of contracting professionals that are coming up behind me so that they have it just a little bit easier than I did and that they won't be fighting so much of the culture wars and that we would have, changed some hearts and minds and that they have the ability to really, truly, critically think and decide how are they going to structure This particular procurement for their customer in the best way possible.

[00:26:11] Brian: Yeah, that is exciting. And I would agree with you, Stephanie. I think there is a lot to look forward to that way. The culture is shifting, I think, within procurement across all of government, but definitely within DoD and the Army as well. So, Absolutely. Is there anything I didn't ask that you'd like to share?

[00:26:27] Stephanie: No, I think all the questions were really great. I just hope that, our listeners understand that I have a true passion for this. Non traditional is my passion project. I want to make sure that the people, again, the generations behind me have an easier way of going about critically thinking for their customer.

[00:26:46] Stephanie: So I just hope that if any of the listeners have any questions or if they want to, be part of my army of champions that they reach out to me. I'm always happy to meet new people in the field. Just because I'm army does not mean that only want to hear from army customers or army contracting professionals.

[00:27:05] Stephanie: I want to hear from all of the service branches. So that's the only thing that I would say to, to our people is just if they have any questions, or if they just want to reach out and maybe join my army of champions, I'm happy to have 

[00:27:17] them. 

[00:27:18] Brian: And I hope they do. I definitely hope they do. And Stephanie, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

[00:27:24] Brian: Sure. Appreciate your time, your consideration, all of your thoughts as far as driving change procurement within the army at DOD for everyone listening in, thank you all for joining us today, if you'd like to be on the podcast, just feel free to reach out. Brian Fox would love to have you on and to our partner ATARC for hosting today.

[00:27:45] Brian: Many thanks, sure appreciate all of their continued support for this. So thank you all for joining. 

[00:27:50] Stephanie: Thank you.