ACQUIRE 2016 / CONFERENCE & EXPO
Not Just an Acquisition Show
Make no mistake about it: Acquisition is a vital factor in determining the success of government programs. But it would be a mistake to assume it’s the only factor. It’s a common mistake, which is understandable. The financial risks associated with a given program are most visible during the acquisition process. It is easy to focus on how much a program is projected to cost, how much it is over budget, or how much
WA S H I N G T O N , D C
JUNE
8-9
WA LT E R E WA S H I N G T O N
CONVENTION CENTER
ACQUIREshow.com Founding Partner
money will be saved. Money has a way of getting our attention. Acquisition also entails a tangible process that invites constant revision. As we have seen over the last two decades, each change to procurement rules or processes creates new opportunities for further change. Acquisition experts are always discovering new ways to make the process more cost-effective or efficient. It’s like a smartphone,
An
Event
with a new model out on the street before you learn to use the old one.
ACQUIRE 2016 / CONFERENCE & EXPO
The opening keynote on June 9 features two of America’s most recognized heroes, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Capt. Mark Kelly, a combat pilot in Iraq and an astronaut on four space shuttle missions.
But even if the federal government could develop a perfect acquisition process, it could not guarantee the success of government programs. That is because there are so many other factors involved. The ACQUIRE Conference & EXPO, being held June 8 and 9 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., reflects this reality. Yes, acquisition is an important component of the event, as the title suggests. But the content—from keynote speeches and C-level plenary panels to the break-out training sessions— addresses the entire program lifecycle, from developing program requirements and managing procurements to deploying, managing, and using systems. ACQUIRE offers a unique opportunity to bring together everyone involved in making a program a success. During the morning keynotes and plenary panels, thought-leaders from around the community will offer insights into some of the toughest challenges agencies face (p. 3). During the afternoon, attendees can choose sessions from among six tracks: Information technology, professional services, office management, project management, talent management and, yes, acquisition management (see pp. 4-5). Attendees will
receive Continuing Professional Educational credits for participating in ACQUIRE training courses. Still, that is only part of the story. As any leader can attest, a program has a much better chance of succeeding when employees not only are well-trained but also motivated, or even inspired. ACQUIRE provides numerous opportunities for employees to focus on their personal well-being and professional development. The opening keynote on June 9 features two of America’s most recognized heroes, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Capt. Mark Kelly, a combat pilot in Iraq and an astronaut on four space shuttle missions. Their lives changed on January 8, 2011, when an assassination attempt was made on Giffords’ life. Together, they will discuss what it takes to transform a tragedy into an endeavor to succeed. Those looking to jumpstart their creativity and problemsolving abilities should check out FCW Bookshelf LIVE!, featuring presentations and book-signings by renowned authors of bestselling books on management, leadership and the broader implications of emerging tech (see p. 6). Finally, educational clinics in the Happy Fed Pavilion will offer insights on issues related to career, pay, benefits, financial planning and retirement. The Happy Fed Pavilion, part of the show floor, also will feature numerous guestspeakers, including Pamela Meyer, PhD, author of “The Agility Shift: Creating Agile and Effective Leaders, Teams and Organizations.”
ACQUIRE Gets Down to Business The ACQUIRE show recognizes the importance of industry vendors in making government programs a success. The Professional Services Council, which represents the government technology and professional services industry, is a founding partner of ACQUIRE. During the two-day event, PSC will host a number of key plenary sessions, including a presentation on its annual survey on acquisition policy. This special report draws on personal memberconducted interviews of federal CIOs and other senior government officials throughout the federal government to get an understanding of their concerns and priorities. Also look for the Washington Technology Industry Days at ACQUIRE. These sessions will provide small businesses with an inside edge on the evolving business prospects at major civilian and defense agencies. In each small business intensive session, leading agency officials will describe their priorities, buying habits and specific contracts. Finally, the Small Business Administration will offer sessions focused on helping government and industry alike to navigate the federal small business landscape.
ACQUIREshow.com | June 8-9 | Register Now!
ACQUIRE 2016 / CONFERENCE & EXPO
MODERNIZATION, ACQUISITION:
New Ideas Needed Familiar ideas tend to have familiar results. When it comes to improving the quality and costeffectiveness of federal programs, incremental changes to existing policies and procedures will only get us so far. That is why thought-leadership is so essential to this community. Thought-leadership is difficult to define but easy to recognize. It is not about providing answers but about helping people to see a question in a new way—or asking a new question altogether. It is about facilitating conversation that explores potentially fruitful lines of inquiry and creates a space in which new ideas might emerge. Each day, the ACQUIRE show features plenary sessions with thought-leaders from across the federal community tackling some of the community’s toughest problems. These sessions will not provide pat answers but they will spark those conversations that need to happen for progress to be made.
Legacy IT certainly has proven to be a tough problem. During the last ten years, technology has evolved rapidly, providing agencies with a dizzying array of new solutions for managing IT operations, delivering IT services and meeting mission requirements. Cloud, virtualization, mobility, big data and other technologies represent big changes in how agencies do business. In theory, at least. Unfortunately, many agencies have been slow to modernize their underlying infrastructure, which makes it difficult to get the full benefit of these newer technologies. The perplexing question is: What’s the hold up? Clearly, budget constraints are a factor. With that in mind, the Obama administration, as part of its fiscal 2017 budget request, proposed a $3.1 billion modernization fund to facilitate the replacement of legacy IT systems. House lawmakers did not include the proposal in its budget resolution. In any case, Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) sees a deeper issue. In an e-mail to FCW, Hurd wrote, “A working capital fund focusing on IT modernization could be an important tool in making federal agencies more efficient and ultimately more secure, but in order to ensure robust system hygiene, CIOs and agency heads need to be planning for continuous modernization within their existing budget process.” In short, modernization must become part of the culture at federal agencies. How will that happen? In “Legacy IT: Keep It or Kick It?” a panel of C-level federal executives will tackle the question of how agencies
ACQUIREshow.com | June 8-9 | Register Now!
balance the need to maintain legacy IT systems with their goal to move into the future.
Acquisition is a related area of concern. Despite several waves of acquisition reform over the last two decades, the federal government is still struggling to develop a more cost-effective and agile procurement system—one that fosters a culture of innovation, rather than a culture of processes and paperwork. Numerous initiatives are underway to bring about change. For example, the General Services Administration is spearheading the Category Management program, which is a cross-government effort to consolidate spending in key categories. Meanwhile, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) has introduced the Acquisition Agility Act, which looks to help the armed services speed technology to the field. In a panel titled “Innovations in Acquisition,” a group of CIOs and senior acquisition executives will discuss the on-going initiatives and emerging opportunities that could make the procurement system work for agencies, rather than make agencies work for the procurement system.
Plenary Sessions and Keynotes Wednesday, June 8 | 8:30 am – 10:00 am
Keynote Address: The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks Joshua Cooper Ramo Wednesday, June 8 | 11:15 am – 12:15 pm
Innovations in Acquisition Department of Defense and General Services Administration Wednesday, June 8 | 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Legacy IT: Keep It or Kick It? Office of Management and Budget and Social Security Administration Thursday, June 9 | 8:30 am – 10:00 am
Keynote Address: Endeavour to Succeed Gabby Giffords & Mark Kelly Thursday, June 9 | 11:15 am – 12:15 pm
Senior Leader Panel Professional Services Council Thursday, June 9 | 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
The PSC Acquisition Policy Survey: A Report on Federal Acquisition Professional Services Council
Visit ACQUIREshow.com for the most up-to-date information.
ACQUIRE 2016 / CONFERENCE & EXPO
ACQUIRE Conference Program With 100+ training opportunities for government, military and contractor professionals including keynotes, panel discussions and in-depth sessions, ACQUIRE’s two-day conference will address the most pressing priorities and issues across several tracks.
Expo Floor Keynotes/Plenary Sessions Keynote Address: The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks — Joshua Cooper Ramo Wednesday, June 8 Innovations in Acquisition Panel — Department of Defense and General Services Administration Wednesday, June 8 Legacy IT: Keep It or Kick It? — Office of Management and Budget and Social Security Administration Wednesday, une 8 Keynote Address: Endeavour to Succeed — Gabby Giffords & Mark Kelly Thursday, June 9 Senior Leader Panel — Professional Services Council Thursday, June 9 The PSC Acquisition Policy Survey: A Report on Federal Acquisition — Professional Services Council Thursday, June 9
Information Technology Contracting for Modular Development in IT — Management Concepts Wednesday, June 8 Dangers of Social Media (Instructional Course Module from BPIA 101, IA for ISSOs) — Department of State Wednesday, June 8 How to Procure Hardware Utilizing ITES-3H — Army CHESS Wednesday, June 8 Improving Services Acquisition — Department of Defense Wednesday, June 8 Information Assurance for System Owners — Department of State Thursday, June 9
Professional Services Doing Business with the Federal Government — Small Business Administration Wednesday, June 8 The Complete Guide to the Contract Lifecycle: Part 1 — Professional Services Council Wednesday, June 8 Human Capital and Training Solutions (HCaTS) Overview — GSA Wednesday, June 8 Next Generation — FedRAMP Government Cloud — Adobe Thursday, June 9 How to Process 8a Contracting Issues Through SB — Small Business Administration Thursday, June 9 Understanding OASIS and OASIS Small Business — GSA Thursday, June 9 The Complete Guide to the Contract Lifecycle: Part 2 — Professional Services Council Thursday, June 9
ACQUIREshow.com | June 8-9 | Register Now!
ACQUIRE 2016 / CONFERENCE & EXPO
Acquisition Management DHS Acquisition Innovations in Motion & Procurement Innovation Lab — Department of Homeland Security Wednesday, June 8 GSA Alliant GWAC Program — Past, Present and Future — GSA Wednesday, June 8 NASA SEWP Overview and Tool Demo — NASA SEWP Wednesday, June 8 Solving IT and Acquisition Challenges with NITAAC — NITAAC Wednesday, June 8 Category Management and the Acquisition Gateway — GSA Thursday, June 9 GSA’s Enterprise Infrastructure — GSA Thursday, June 9 Innovative Acquisitions — Department of Health and Human Services Thursday, June 9 NASA SEWP Overview and Tool Demo — NASA SEWP Thursday, June 9
Office Management FSSI OS3: How to Purchase Office Supplies off of GSA Advantage — GSA Wednesday, June 8 FSSI OS3: Savings and Spend Dashboard Demo — GSA Wednesday, June 8 FIT: GSA Investing in the Future Workplace Today — GSA Wednesday, June 8 Furniture Ordering Guide and Pricing Tool Demo — GSA/FAS/Integrated Workplace Acquisition Center Thursday, June 9 Managing Your Documents and Maximizing Your Data — Xerox Federal Thursday, June 9
Project Management Agile Project Management — UMBC Training Center Wednesday, June 8 Aligning Your Organization to Execute its Strategy — TwentyEighty Strategy Execution Wednesday, June 8 The Work Breakdown Structure — VA Acquisition Academy Thursday June 9 Twenty Questions to Assess Your Program Chances of Success — Software Engineering Institute/ Carnegie Mellon Institute Thursday, June 9
Talent Management Learning & Development’s Role in Federal Succession Planning — Xerox Federal Wednesday, June 8
For an updated list of sessions, visit ACQUIREshow.com/Training.
ACQUIREshow.com | June 8-9 | Register Now!
ACQUIRE 2016 / CONFERENCE & EXPO
Produced by
Happy Employees = Productive Employees It’s no secret that federal agencies are better able to achieve their missions when their employees are happy and productive—when employees find their work fulfilling and feel a vested interest in seeing programs succeed. That is the focus of Happy Fed at ACQUIRE. Produced by Federal Soup, the Happy Fed Pavilion features companies dedicated to helping federal employees improve the quality of their work life and their capacity to build and manage productive and resilient teams that can deliver on their agency’s mission. A theater, located in the pavilion, will host inspirational speakers and professional clinics to help us all recalibrate our work practices so we feel more productive and fulfilled.
Pamela Meyer, Ph.D.
ACQUIREshow.com | June 8-9 | Register Now!
ACQUIRE 2016 / CONFERENCE & EXPO
FCW covers the business of federal technology, and frequently digs into the best books on management, leadership and the broader implications of emerging tech. FCW Bookshelf LIVE! provides a free, special opportunity to explore these insights in person.
Bill Eggers
David L. Hall
John H. Johnson, Ph.D.
Pagan Kennedy
Led by FCW Editor-in-Chief Troy K. Schneider, Bookshelf LIVE! will feature several renowned authors to discuss their work—and how it can be applied by innovators and change agents in government. Plus, you’ll get a chance to meet your favorites and take home a signed copy of their book! ACQUIREshow.com/Bookshelf
ACQUIREshow.com | June 8-9 | Register Now!
ACQUIRE 2016 / CONFERENCE & EXPO
Top 5 Reasons to Attend ACQUIRE 2016
1
Once a year there is a big government show worth going to—in 2016, that show is ACQUIRE. More than just an acquisition show, ACQUIRE’s content program covers all stages of a program’s lifecycle, from policy and requirements all the way to the end user experience. Friends don’t let friends miss shows that count. Get registered and spread the word!
ACQUIREshow.com/Register
2
Put on some comfortable shoes and get ready to explore ACQUIRE! The packed EXPO hall will showcase the latest technologies, products and applications from 200+ leading suppliers. You can also catch multiple government agencies on the show floor and in the classroom.
ACQUIREshow.com/Expo
3
Your time at ACQUIRE will be well spent. Create your own schedule and earn CPEs for every session you attend, making it easier for you to justify time away from your desk. ACQUIRE’s two-day conference features seven educational tracks—ranging from Information Technology to Professional Services—and is designed to ensure that government employees and their partners in industry have the skills they need to deliver programs that are both effective and efficient.
ACQUIREshow.com/Training
4
D.C. is full of big names and some of the best will be at ACQUIRE. You’ll see Gabby Giffords & Mark Kelly on the keynote stage and you’ll have the chance to hear from some of your favorite business and technology authors (at FCW Bookshelf LIVE!) who will dig into management, leadership and the broader implications of emerging tech. Seriously, what a great show!
ACQUIREshow.com/Keynotes
5
We know you’re all savvy consumers, so it’s time to meet some federally-focused exhibitors in the Happy Fed pavilion! Produced by Federal Soup, Happy Fed is dedicated to the federal employee and their work-life balance. Exhibitors will include financial planners, health insurance companies, credit unions, travel organizers and more. And don’t miss the inspirational speakers that will be in a special theater on the show floor covering topics ranging from resume writing to staying healthy.
ACQUIREshow.com/HappyFed
And did we mention it’s all FREE for government & military? Register today and discover why ACQUIRE is the Next Big Thing. ACQUIREshow.com/ Register ACQUIREshow.com | June 8-9 | Register Now!
ACQUIRE 2016 / CONFERENCE & EXPO
Platinum Sponsors
Gold Plus Sponsor SM A L L BU S IN E SS
OMB Authorized GWACs for IT Acquisition
Silver Sponsors
Gold Sponsors TM
Strategy Execution FORMERLY IPS LEARNING & ESI INTERNATIONAL
“NO LIMITS, NO BOUNDARIES”
ACQUIREshow.com | June 8-9 | Register Now!
PROD
ACQUIRE 2016 / CONFERENCE & EXPO
ACQUIRE 2016 Exhibitors The 05 Group 1105 Public Sector Media Group/ ACQUIRE ABM Federal Adobe Systems Akamai Technologies American Benefits Exchange Apricorn AT&T Avnet Technology Solutions Better Direct Brother International Carahsoft Partners Carahsoft Technology Corporation Carnegie Mellon University/Software Engineering Institute CenturyLink Clothing Arts Consummate Computer Consultants Systems CTI (Cartridge Technologies) Deltek DriveSavers Data Recovery Dun and Bradstreet Dynamic Systems Enovative Technologies FedBid Federal Employee Service Center The Federal Proposal Experts Federal Schedules
Federal Soup Fortinet Four Points Technology Frameweld FSA/FEDS GC Micro GEHA General Services Administration* Gold Touch GrayHair Software George Washington University, Master of Science and Government Contracts (MSGC) Herman Miller InfoReliance Corporation immixGroup Insight Public Sector Ipswitch JBS International* KEYper Systems Kitchen Saver Knoll Logicube Long Term Care Partners Management Concepts MCR NASA SEWP National Industries for the Blind Navy Federal Credit Union NCS Technologies
Netlocity Next IT NITAAC Omnitron Systems Plantronics PrinterLogic Professional Services Council Purchasing Power Pyramid Analytics Red River Computer Co. RedSky Technologies Ridgewood Technology Partners Seidio ST Imaging Strategic Communications Swiftstack TwentyEighty Strategy Execution Unanet Unisys University of Denver University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Training Center U-Reach Data Solutions Vision Technologies WAEPA World Wide Technology Xerox Federal Services Zones * Exhibits in multiple pavilions (as of 3/31/16)