OFPP Official: Better RFPs Needed Federal program managers and contracting officers need to improve their RFPs to ensure effective contractor performance, said Robert Burton, who recently retired as deputy administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. In an interview with Federal Computer Week, Burton said he believes program managers are coming to understand that they play a critical role in acquisitions. “Most of the problems that we have, with respect to our acquisitions, occur early on in the acquisition planning. We are not clear with respect to what our contract requirements are, and we don’t explain to the contractor well enough what we’re trying to buy. “If you had to say, ‘what is the one thing where we really need to improve’ — if you have to just pick one thing — it would be writing our requirements in a clear and a more concise fashion. If we can do that well, that will alleviate so many problems in the contract administration phase.” Burton said he believes Congress sometimes overreacts to headlines about procurement problems, and causes problems with “too much oversight.”