IT Contracting in the 21st Century

The Veterans Administration has issued an RFP for a computer system to screen claims under the new GI Bill. The problem is they seem to know very little about they want or need; they are expecting the bidders to specify the system. They have gone to such an extremer that the bidders are defining the penalties they would incur if their system does not work.

One Congressman said, “This is incredible. You don’t know what you get. You don’t know what it costs. You don’t know what happens if it fails. What are you getting us into here?”