The government's solicitation is its best attempt to define a problem. A contractor's proposal is its best attempt to define a solution. When faithfully executed, both should combine to meet a mission requirement. But can they? Contracts of even moderate complexity can obligate contractors to meet scores of requirements performed in dozens of activities over a 1 to 5 year period. Issues, priorities, budgets, personnel and conditions will change. So how can executing a statement of work written 12-18 months before work even began, meet a mission requirement?

Greg Giddens says the answer is performance management. Not in the HR sense but as a broad framework for conversation about how contract acquisition, program management and change management work together - or don't - to meet the intent of a statement of work. To meet the business objective or, in government terms, the mission requirement of the contract.

Greg and his business partner at Potomac Ridge Consulting, Dave Grant, should know. After careers in project and program management, change management and procurement in multiple Federal government cabinet departments, they know what works and what doesn't to get government and contracting officials on the same page. Greg joins me for this episode, and here are some of my favorite aah-ha! moments:

7:36 - Federal contracting is conceived as a partnership with the private sector

10:50 - Federal contracts, marriage contracts, and the meaning of relationship

11:45 - Using performance management from Step One - the contract kickoff

21:29 - When buying a microwave isn't what you think, or how changing the conversation changed a contracting officer's understanding of the problem

29:17 - Performance management creates transparency

40:05 - Performance management lines up means and ends to the desired outcome

47:43 - How changing the conversation creates a same page from multiple "own pages"

54:00 - But what if it doesn't work? What do we do if we can't get on the same page?