When approaching the USG for the first time, it can be overwhelming to understand which organizations are responsible for what. If it makes you feel better, even people working in the DoD are constantly asking “Who is responsible for that type of work?” and “Who is in that position now?”
This post is aimed at giving small businesses a quick insight into how you can interpret DoD structures, how you can go about “finding information” and nuances that you may not otherwise be aware of or understand.
1. Internet search the DoD Organization you want to learn about.
If you’re to the point where you’re doing an internet search on your potential customer, for example “AFLCMC”, you’re on the right track. You can find out a lot of valuable information such as mission, vision, people in positions of leadership, and sometimes even the occasional organizational chart.
You’ll also typically find recent news articles about that organization including leadership changes, big operational successes, or plans for the future. This kind of information can help you stay up to date on the happenings of your customer or customer you’re pursuing.
2. What is an Org Chart?
The DoD has an organizational chart for EVERY organization. This is the pecking order of responsibility. They allow you to see who oversees what and how each organization is broken up by mission. For example, on the AFLCMC website, there is a tab at the top called “Organizations”. While this isn’t their official Org Chart (those are rarely publicly published), it is a list of AFLCMC Directorates and the offices that fall underneath each directorate.
You can use this information to discover what product or service is in each organization’s portfolio and get an understanding of what type of mission for which they’re responsible. This information helps with:
- Customer discovery
- Business development plans
- Prioritizing potential Industry Day attendance
- A list of people in the USG that you’d like to reach out too
3. My TPOC Disappeared
There is a meme floating around somewhere on LinkedIn (probably a bunch of them) about how TPOC’s can be elusive creatures. First, they can be hard to find when you originally get started with SBIR. There are a few reasons for this, but the biggest reason is that being a TPOC is an additional responsibility outside that USG employees’ daily duties. Therefore, they must have the bandwidth to manage your contract and take the required training to do so. Second, if your TPOC is active duty military, you should know that they move around. A lot. If you win a 21-month Phase II SBIR, there is a VERY good chance your active duty TPOC will move on at some point during that time. I’d say that’s normal.
For those of you new to the DoD, it is not uncommon for active-duty members to change duty stations every 2-3 years. If they don’t change duty stations, they will at a minimum likely change positions and/or offices. So, if you’ve noticed you’re going through TPOC’s like Kleenex in the springtime, it’s okay. Sometimes that happens and it’s the nature of working with the DoD. Your active-duty counterparts will move around. Hopefully you’ll have DoD civilian counterparts there for continuity but if you don’t, just be sure to ask your active duty TPOC how long they think they’ll be in their position. That way you can help remind them that you’ll need help with a new TPOC before they leave.
4. My USG POC has been slow to respond to me
Long story short, it’s summer and they’re on vacation. Seriously, DoD personnel are no different than anyone else. They have families and kids out of school. They take summer vacations like everyone else. Be patient and try to look at the calendar to get a better idea of when people are likely to be out of the office. For example, most DoD personnel take all Federal holidays off. Additionally, some DoD organizations, especially in the USAF, will get a Family Day in conjunction with a federal holiday giving them a 4-day weekend instead of a 3-day weekend. What does this mean? Lots of people will take the whole week off. Between May and September, there are 4 of these types of weekends.
So just look at the calendar and do your best to plan ahead. Just because you and your company only take July 4th off or don’t take Memorial Day off at all, does NOT mean that your DoD counterparts will be at work. Assume they won’t be.
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The nuances of working with the DoD is something a person could write a book about. But these are just a few things that I’ve received questions about and given feedback on over the past few months.
Keep moving forward!
