Podcast Show Notes

2025-09-30 Federal Market Insights Episode 26 — Session Overview

WPI Podcast Episode 26 Summary 

Given the recent news concerning the federal budget, we started with a basic overview of related issues should a new budget not be agreed to.
Companies should review their contracts and pay particular attention to any email received from their contracting officer; either the PCO – Procurement Contracting Officer and/or the ACO – Administrative Contractive Officer. Document all communications and actions both requested and taken. Don’t skimp with your documentation; the government will not. Keep detailed notes. Don’t forget dates and times. Identify participants involved in the call and/or email chain. All information can be important – think of who said what when and to whom. Don’t assume. Ask for clarification. Keeping communications open with phone calls is good. Having an email or other written documentation is better. If multiple staff are involved and this is especially important if there are staff in the field at the project site, take time to share information and have the most complete picture of the situation.
Federal primes, remember the Christian Doctrine. This is especially true if your federal contract does not to contain FAR clause – 52.249-X (1 – 7) Termination for Convenience of the Government … The Christian Doctrine states that there are clauses so fundamental to government contracting that they should be read as being in the contract whether omitted or not. Accordingly, suppliers and subcontractors should also take note as the prime will relay actions to take. It’s unfortunate but companies should be prepared to receive – stop work orders or in some extreme cases a termination for convenience notification.
Only the government has the authority to issue a Termination for Convenience. Businesses cannot. Businesses must include such language in their terms and conditions.
Companies should stay in communication with their supply chain. It is important to review contracts and hold appropriate discussions. Primes need to stay in communication with their subcontractors and suppliers. Subcontractors who have issued orders to suppliers need to keep them up to date and also share information with their subcontractors.
If there are questions, please contact the Wisconsin Procurement Institute at our main phone number – 414-270-3600.
From here our conversation shifted to the topic of how to begin using AI.
One use of AI would be to create a Plan of Action should a Budget Agreement not be passed. Naturally, the AI’s response should not be taken as being authoritative. However, the response should be reviewed and as with any AI responses evaluated for correctness. Using AI in this way can accelerate the planning process, especially for less experienced companies.
After conducting the review, push back. Asked for the AI to revisit the question or reframe the question to focus on the area of concern. Ask the AI to provide references. Define what is and what is not an acceptable reference. In government contracting, acceptable references normally would cite the FAR and or FAR supplement.
Companies should be keenly aware of “AI Hallucinations.” An AI Hallucination is a AI response that appears to be factual and authoritative. All AI responses cannot be trusted. Some responses are made up – fabricated.
Prompts (queries) are the key element to effectively using AI. Well formed prompts generally create more usable output.
Break big requests into smaller requests.
Generally, an AI will provide better responses if asked to write specific parts of a proposal rather than expecting it to craft the entire proposal.
Practice. AI is a tool. Unlike other tools, AI can assist with learning AI. A user can request that the AI provide a process to learn some topic – maybe AI. The AI will responds with a process.
Users can ask the AI to write a prompt about some issue or topic or even how to write a prompt.
Using these processes a user can start to gain familiarity with using AI. Of course, there are a variety of courses both free and for a fee that can be considered.
Lastly, all AI is not the same. There are a variety of AI systems to consider – ChatGPT, MS Copilot, Perplexity, Claude and other packages for creating images. Many of these AI’s have free features but the free features will not provide access to all capabilities.
Explore and grow with these new technologies.