COVID-19 Impact on Acquisition Across the IC

A review of the impact of COVID-19 on acquisition across the federal government finds the Intelligence Community’s (IC) acquisition processes lag behind its Department of Defense (DOD) and civil agency counterparts, resulting in a significant slowdown for new and current acquisition projects. This “Intelligence Insights” paper developed by INSA’s Acquisition Management Council (AMC) examines the COVID-19 challenges to government acquisition, including the extent of the slowdowns on IC acquisition processes. The paper goes on to find several notable successes from across government to emulate and suggests recommended best practices to implement.

Across the IC, acquisition processes have slowed significantly due to contracting officers working from home, split shifts where contracting officers and mission owners are not working at the same time, and a lack of a virtual system to execute the acquisition lifecycle.