Contract Administration, Part II: Managing Contract Changes

Abstract

U.S. government agencies often struggle to clearly and concisely identify, communicate, and document their contract requirements to government contractors due to numerous factors, including; evolving technologies, urgent national security issues, re-prioritization of needs, changing funding profiles, acceleration and/or delay of the program schedule, political pressures, etc. In addition, the complexity of many U.S. government contracts and related projects requires numerous parties to be involved from a variety of functional areas, resulting in frequent miscommunication, wrongful interpretations, and/or unauthorized contract changes. Thus, the task of managing contract changes post-award becomes an increasingly daunting duty.