Government IT contracts are much less insidious than it seems.
The reason you have the same companies has very little to do with "insider" status and much more to do with the fact that these companies have made it their business to be able to operate in the federal environment.
Bureaucracy, far from being a conscious, malevolent tool, is simply the accumulated barriers and obstacles erected over time for every instance there was an anomaly or problem. Accountability was demanded, and new guidelines put in place. These stack up over time, long after the original incidence has ceased to be a major issue. Unlike the private sector where companies and organizations can simply be wiped out and start with a clean slate, government doesn't (and for various reasons, can't) do that.
There's still money to be made however, for those who are familar with the process. Simply being eligable to bid for government work means getting approved on a contract vehicle, complying with various laws on accountability and record keeping, and ticking off various checkboxes for equal representation of genders and minority groups. These regulations are removed and unfeeling of special circumstances or facts on the ground; they are the accumulated "good intentions" of laws passed that now stack up like strata.
People who know this system well are intimidated by all of this, which is why you see many government and defense retirees move on to the private sector to steer these small companies into this kind of work. They know how it works, and just knowing that is a skillset in and of itself.
It's not evil. And there's far less cronyism than one might suspect. (I'm not claiming for a moment that it doesn't happen, but somewhat surprisingly, it's minimal.) Improvements are not consciously forbidden, and making things better is not discouraged. But like an enormous traffic jam, no single person has room to do much of anything. Coordinating a number of people to try and move in a better direction can improve things a little, until they are stopped by another group who has no room to move.
It's a mistake to think of government IT as insidious. It's a problem we have built over time that we have created ourselves. To fix it will require enormous bravery to do away with volumes of regulations that, by themselves, probably did some good. And it will require tolerance of practices done in private that would never have seen the light of day, but in government, has the spotlight of oversight shining on. It will be a challenge to solve.
You did not succeed in convincing me that the system you describe is not insidious. I think you probably describe it accurately, and it sounds quite insidious to me.
Yes, of course the companies that get government contracts need to be experts at getting government contracts -- the problem is that they do not need to be experts at what they actually _do_, what they're getting paid for. There's in fact very little room left to be experts at what they do, after all the expertise they need to develop (and resources spent on same) in getting and keeping contracts.
If you're a company and your motive is making a profit, then of course there's plenty of money to be made, exactly.
The system you describe sounds pretty insidious to me. "Insidious. adj. proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects."
The harmful effects are exactly the privileging of expertise at government contracting over expertise at doing a good job. That's harmful only if you prioritize doing a good job, if you prioritize making a profit I suppose it's just fine.
> But like an enormous traffic jam, no single person has room to do much of anything. Coordinating a number of people to try and move in a better direction can improve things a little, until they are stopped by another group who has no room to move.
Yes, quite, that's quite insidious, exactly. It has some unique features to government, but also some commonalities with any large bureaucracy.
My misunderstanding of the word then. I assumed it meant something more akin to "evil, malicious" but your definition says it does not. I'd agree then that your word is correct.
You're right in that expertise in getting contracts often has a tendency to displace expertise in IT. This has been a persistent problem in hiring. Contractors need to fill billets that come with mandatory requirements dictated by the government. Skilled individuals are often bypassed because they lack a certain certification (often unrelated to their work) or a certain parameter. In defense, security clearances can be an enormous barrier by limiting only those who possess a clearance as eligible. (There's an "insidious" effect whereby you must be on or joining a project that requires a clearance to get a clearance, and you cannot join a cleared project without a clearance.) Pay is often much lower than compared to the private sector when compared to the industry as a whole, but since the layout of the federal government is separate than what drives the private IT industry, it creates opportunities for many where a grassroots IT industry wouldn't otherwise exist.
There are good people who enter the environment and make positive change, but they are few. There are many more who work at a perfectly capable level and do the best they can, but would be considered underqualified for their role. This is an area where the Digital Service seems to me trying to make a difference, as government IT rarely attracts the IT elite.
Your meaning is correct too: "treacherous; crafty" and synonyms include "stealthy, shifty, underhanded, sneaky." I think you did a fine job separating the machinery of bureacracy from the malice (or lack of).
"Improvements are not consciously forbidden, and making things better is not discouraged. But like an enormous traffic jam, no single person has room to do much of anything. Coordinating a number of people to try and move in a better direction can improve things a little, until they are stopped by another group who has no room to move."
That is a great metaphor. Anybody who's considering joining USDS, I think ckozlowski's comment gets the situation exactly right. You are unblocking a traffic jam.
The reason you have the same companies has very little to do with "insider" status and much more to do with the fact that these companies have made it their business to be able to operate in the federal environment.
Bureaucracy, far from being a conscious, malevolent tool, is simply the accumulated barriers and obstacles erected over time for every instance there was an anomaly or problem. Accountability was demanded, and new guidelines put in place. These stack up over time, long after the original incidence has ceased to be a major issue. Unlike the private sector where companies and organizations can simply be wiped out and start with a clean slate, government doesn't (and for various reasons, can't) do that.
There's still money to be made however, for those who are familar with the process. Simply being eligable to bid for government work means getting approved on a contract vehicle, complying with various laws on accountability and record keeping, and ticking off various checkboxes for equal representation of genders and minority groups. These regulations are removed and unfeeling of special circumstances or facts on the ground; they are the accumulated "good intentions" of laws passed that now stack up like strata.
People who know this system well are intimidated by all of this, which is why you see many government and defense retirees move on to the private sector to steer these small companies into this kind of work. They know how it works, and just knowing that is a skillset in and of itself.
It's not evil. And there's far less cronyism than one might suspect. (I'm not claiming for a moment that it doesn't happen, but somewhat surprisingly, it's minimal.) Improvements are not consciously forbidden, and making things better is not discouraged. But like an enormous traffic jam, no single person has room to do much of anything. Coordinating a number of people to try and move in a better direction can improve things a little, until they are stopped by another group who has no room to move.
It's a mistake to think of government IT as insidious. It's a problem we have built over time that we have created ourselves. To fix it will require enormous bravery to do away with volumes of regulations that, by themselves, probably did some good. And it will require tolerance of practices done in private that would never have seen the light of day, but in government, has the spotlight of oversight shining on. It will be a challenge to solve.