Small business owners often are missing the boat when they write their Capabilities Statements, according to Mark Oliver, OSDBU director for the Interior Department.

Out of about 15 capabilities statements sent to his office each work day, several have “quality problems,” Oliver said at a recent American Express Open Forum industry event.

“About 4-5 a day need serious work; they get a form email saying to do a quality check, or I might email and say we need more information,” Oliver told Set-Aside Alert.

The vendors whose statements were acceptable receive an email saying, essentially, thank you for your capabilities statement, he added.

“We are finding so many individuals are not ready to deal with the federal government,” Oliver said.

He offered the following tips:

• Tailor your capabilities statement to agency/program.
• Write NAICS codes, certifications near the top.
• Company name, address, contact, telephone, email and website; fax and DUNS must be near top.
• No landscape layouts, and no complicated graphics.
• If you are active in two unrelated areas, do a capabilities statement for each.

The Navy is looking for research and development projects for innovative warfighting.

The projects need to be completed within 24 months, but 12-month projects are preferred.

Up to $3 million will be set aside for small businesses under the Defense Department’s Rapid Innovation Fund.

Areas of interest include energy security and independence, developing advanced materials, improving manufacturing technology and advancing microelectronics.

Others are cybersecurity, ambush and sniper detection, information dominance, network security, and human social and cultural behavior training.

The Navy issued a pre-solicitation notice with white papers due Jan. 10:
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=13049683c0135713272c948edd6630d4&tab=core&cview=1

The House approved legislation to improve controls over how federal employees use government charge cards.

The Government Charge Card Abuse Prevention Act (S. 300) would initiate more requirements for record-keeping for the cards.

Agencies would need to keep track of all their card holders and their spending limits. Furthermore, payments would need to be approved, and transactions would need to be reconciled.

Agencies would take “appropriate adverse personnel actions” against employees who commit fraud, but the bill does not specify what such actions would be. Agencies also would report on compliance to the Office of Management and Budget.

The bill must still be reconciled with a similar Senate bill that had been approved earlier this year.

The Government Accountability Office identified 32 practices and approaches for effective agile software development.

Ten of the practices were used and found effective by officials from five separate federal agencies.