I think this kind of thing is very exciting! As it points out, “The government benefits when companies demonstrate how capable they are during contract competitions, rather than writing about their capabilities in a traditional, written proposal.”
Some things that it makes me wonder:
1. Could a single tech challenge be leveraged to select contractors for multiple similar projects (e.g. multiple departments have a need for similar things)—decreasing the burden on companies by offering a chance to do one instead of multiple, and increasing the incentive for companies to participate?
2. Is it mostly just testing engineering chops, or does it include design, UX, and product elements too? It would be great if there's a way to test abilities in the latter competencies too.
3. How might this kind of thing be used in more domains beyond digital tech?
I think 2 challenges to this are a) outlining challenge scope in a way that conveys actual needs, and when doing so potentially reveals procurement sensitive information, having a good fake alternative problem that can map closely to the actual needs or b) ( in trying to accomplish what Greg suggests) having a good idea of what projects are truly similar in or across agencies. There is a lot of not actually knowing what other similar projects might exist, and there is no resource to make sure people could identify one at the right time. Although there probably is a department that has enough information to do so, GSA ( id think).
Good points! I agree it's probably difficult to find the right thing to focus a challenge on. That said, the tech challenges that are already happening are presumably much smaller in scope than the relevant contracts/projects for which they're being used to evaluate potential vendors, so they are already using this sample as a demonstration of abilities for a wider scope. In a way, it's analogous to how many companies hiring new staff will use a take-home assignment to gauge the candidates' abilities, even though the actual scope of the job will of course be larger.
One thing that might help is having a multi-part challenge in which candidate firms can demonstrate their abilities across several different example challenges.
It certainly is a specialized skill set to apply and win government contracts! What do you think about new practices like this: https://techfarhub.usds.gov/resources/learning-center/field-guides/tech-challenge-playbook/
I think this kind of thing is very exciting! As it points out, “The government benefits when companies demonstrate how capable they are during contract competitions, rather than writing about their capabilities in a traditional, written proposal.”
Some things that it makes me wonder:
1. Could a single tech challenge be leveraged to select contractors for multiple similar projects (e.g. multiple departments have a need for similar things)—decreasing the burden on companies by offering a chance to do one instead of multiple, and increasing the incentive for companies to participate?
2. Is it mostly just testing engineering chops, or does it include design, UX, and product elements too? It would be great if there's a way to test abilities in the latter competencies too.
3. How might this kind of thing be used in more domains beyond digital tech?
I think 2 challenges to this are a) outlining challenge scope in a way that conveys actual needs, and when doing so potentially reveals procurement sensitive information, having a good fake alternative problem that can map closely to the actual needs or b) ( in trying to accomplish what Greg suggests) having a good idea of what projects are truly similar in or across agencies. There is a lot of not actually knowing what other similar projects might exist, and there is no resource to make sure people could identify one at the right time. Although there probably is a department that has enough information to do so, GSA ( id think).
Good points! I agree it's probably difficult to find the right thing to focus a challenge on. That said, the tech challenges that are already happening are presumably much smaller in scope than the relevant contracts/projects for which they're being used to evaluate potential vendors, so they are already using this sample as a demonstration of abilities for a wider scope. In a way, it's analogous to how many companies hiring new staff will use a take-home assignment to gauge the candidates' abilities, even though the actual scope of the job will of course be larger.
One thing that might help is having a multi-part challenge in which candidate firms can demonstrate their abilities across several different example challenges.