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A weakness would indicate an aspect of the CSO that has hindered the government, industry, or both. Examples could include a more confusing process than FAR-based procedures, difficulty in securing a fair and reasonable price for the government, or uncertainty about how to award a follow-on contract to an initially innovative solution contract, etc. An observation may have attributes that result in both a strength and weakness. A best practice is defined by Merriam-Webster (n.d.) as “a procedure that has been shown by research and experience to produce optimal results and that is established or proposed as a standard suitable for widespread adoption.” Examples could include publishing an agency-specific CSO guidebook, using a gated/phased approach for CSO proposal submissions, or advertising CSOs through unconventional means. Not all observations may qualify as a strength, weakness, or best practice but still enhance or contribute to this research or areas for future research; those observations will be captured as “other observations” in the Findings section of this article. Research Methodology The DoD started holding CSO Cross Talk meetings quarterly in April 2022 as a forum for the contracting workforce to share “CSO policy changes, training, and success stories/best practices” (DoD, 2022). DoD agency points of contact who have previously conducted CSOs share a varied interpretation and implementation of the flexible solicitation technique to meet their specific program and agency goals. This is in an effort to benefit all those working to develop CSO policies/procedures at their individual agencies, whether they used them yet or not. Participants are encouraged to ask questions and suggest hot topics surrounding CSOs. SAF/AQC representatives organize and facilitate the meetings, and afterward they draft CSO Cross Talk Bulletins to summarize the meetings. These bulletins are disseminated with guidance for meeting attendees to share them among the acquisition workforce of each respective Defense Agency. For this research, we reviewed and analyzed the contents of these bulletins, which were primarily based on the feedback provided by Defense Agency points of contact who previously conducted CSOs, particularly regarding CSO strengths, weaknesses, and best practices.
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Defense ARJ , Spring 2025, Vol. 32 No. 1
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