Mentoring Technology
TO ENCOURAGE INNOVATION, NGA BACKS PROGRAM LINKING MAJOR COMPANIES AND ASPIRING SMALL FIRMS.
As part of their ongoing efforts to promote development of innovative technologies for intelligence and defense, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), National Security Agency/ Central Security Service (NSA) and other defense and intelligence agencies are providing strong support to a mentor-protégé program linking major corporations and aspiring small companies.
The Department of Defense Mentor-Protégé Program (MPP) is important to both agencies because it gives them access to innovative and creative small firms that may not have been as available in the past.
The DoD MPP, which was established in 1991, is designed to help small businesses (protégés) successfully compete for prime contract and subcontract awards by partnering with large companies (mentors) under individual, project-based agreements. It is regarded as one of the most dynamic programs available to assist small disadvantaged business (SDB), women-owned, HubZone and service-disabled veteran-owned (SDVO) firms in expanding the overall base of their marketplace participation. The reason is the depth and intensity at which mentors work with protégés to transform them.
NGA says it is looking for industry support in areas such as GEOINT, visualization, all forms in the electromagnetic spectrum; tasking, processing, exploitation and dissemination (TPED); persistent surveillance; compressing timelines; horizontal integration; robust forward deployment and multi-INT. Major programs include information technology, information assurance/ information security, GIS/remote sensing and imagery training, high-end systems and hardware development, and GIS support.
NGA is interested in MPP agreements that are creative, unique and provide a 50 percent technology transfer component, explained agency program manager Sandra Broadnax.
“MPP is important in that it supervises DoD contractors, especially SDBs and SDVOs that are developing up-and-coming creative technologies,” stated Broadnax. “It’s important that we enhance these companies’ skills so that five years from now they become viable prime and subcontractors. These businesses can come back and help DoD agencies in their core mission areas.”
Under the program, NGA provides a list of interested mentors on its Website so that potential protégés that are eligible for the program can find the mentors with whom they can match up. “It is imperative that the mentor and protégé align with the same goals and value systems,” Broadnax emphasized. “After all, this is a long relationship that they are going to build.”
For the relationship to work, participants say, mentors, protégés and government officials must enter the MPP agreement with a positive outlook and a need to succeed in a documented way by improving revenues, employment levels, and other key indicators of success such as technology enhancement or technology transfer.
“For those reasons, protégés don’t want to pick just any mentor,” Broadnax stressed. “They have to find a mentor that can really help them grow and strengthen their capabilities.”
While a mentor firm may have many protégés, a protégé firm may have only one active DoD mentor-protégé agreement. For this reason, Broadnax advises that protégé firms take their time and do extensive interviews in selecting their mentor.
“Pick a mentor that is closest to what you are looking for in your core mission,” she said. “It is very important to find someone with whom you can build a relationship. Both parties have to be committed on their own.”
The DoD MPP is not merely a process of teaming and building acumen in the use of improved business systems and strengthening infrastructure. Its ultimate purpose is to help government contractors meet their small business goals and make a protégé a valued business partner and, especially, an innovator in a relationship that fosters technical progress.
GOOD FIT
The various government agencies participating in the MP program have different criteria for the selection of protégés, based on size, revenue, years in business or business case. In some instances, mentors have their own requirements for protégé selection that exceed that of the DoD.
EDS, for example, selects its protégé partners by not only applying the required agency-specific criteria, but also those that need assistance in areas where EDS is considered a leader. It considers only protégés that are a “good fit.”
“The ‘good fit’ justification is critical,” said Deborah Jackson- Hamilton, EDS MPP manager. “There must be an advantage in doing business with the EDS MPP partner. The MPP mission is to foster small businesses to become viable companies that can better position themselves to becoming primary subcontractors.”
The ultimate goal is for the protégé to develop technologies that will be provided to DoD to help the warfighter. “This is more critical now than ever,” she emphasized.
To do this, EDS helps protégés improve their ability to compete equitably in the marketplace. This involves helping them develop business, marketing and/or strategic plans; improve their infrastructure; participate in proposal and program management training; learn to do Website creation; and broaden their marketing collateral.
“We also provide them contract, legal and human resources training,” Jackson-Hamilton added. “Believe it or not, training in human resources is one of most requested areas that we get from our protégé firms. We find a lot of these companies are looking for assistance, support and advice in the interviewing process, how to set up a 401K plan and other issues of that nature. Some of that training is specifically designed based on the request of the protégés themselves.”
The benefits to EDS are that these small firms learn the EDS way of running a business. After all, EDS also wants to utilize these firms on future subcontract opportunities. Those protégés participating in the MPP get first preference in participating in contracts for which EDS is bidding. “When we have that opportunity, we go to our protégé firms first,” Jackson-Hamilton said.
Currently, EDS is mentoring three protégés through NGA: DEV Technology Group, Reston, Va.; E2 Solutions, Panorama, Calif., and NucoreVision, Washington, D.C.
“We are providing them a variety of training and certifications,” Jackson-Hamilton explained.
CERTIFICATION GUIDANCE
EDS is helping guide NucoreVision through CMMI-Level 2 certification and a contract implementation certification. CMMI certification attests a company’s maturity level of service.
“This certification is desired because requests are currently coming from the government,” she said.
In addition, EDS is currently taking DEV Technology Group and E2 Solutions through the process of ISO 9001-2000 ISO certification. “This is a process that will help them position their company for bidding opportunities in the future,” Jackson-Hamilton said. “By getting that certification, these companies become better positioned for these opportunities in the future.”
The DoD has specific requirements and numerous requests for proposals that ask for companies with ISO 9001-2000 ISO certification.
DEV Technology Group, which was awarded an NGA contract in September 2005, is in its second year as an EDS protégé. The company is in the process of developing a biometric capability that involves hand sensors and eye sensors for tracking purposes.
“They are coming up with a new technology for the warfighter, and we are assisting them with that,” Jackson-Hamilton said.
DEV Technology had to go through a one-year courtship period with EDS, during which potential protégés attend EDS training sessions to learn about the program, the commitment and how to make the most use of the program, explained DEV Executive Vice President Susie Sylvester. “They monitor your organization and core capabilities and determine your level of commitment.”
DEV Technology was introduced to the program via a large Department of Justice contract on which it was working with EDS. “We had an informal mentor for that contract who was supportive of our organization and referred us to the EDS MPP,” she said. “Since then our work has branched into a lot of different agencies under EDS. We expect to have even greater exposure as an EDS protégé.”
Sylvester emphasized that the MPP has provided her company with invaluable resources. “It provided us support to build our infrastructure,” she said.
EDS provided DEV Technology resources to help them with human resources training. It showed the company how to build its future potential by assisting it with rebranding, revising its logo, and creating a whole new marketing plan targeted to its market in DoD.
“They also gave us market research tools and infrastructure that includes HR contracts, pricing, project management and training to become ISO certified. This has made a huge impact on our sales,” she said. In addition, EDS provided DEV Technology with a marketing-strategies consultant, from whom DEV Technology learned it had a huge amount of knowledge about case management processes.
Prior to the MPP, DEV Technology was primarily focused on its technology and not building its business processes, Sylvester acknowledged. Now as DEV Technology enters its third year in the MPP, it will push forward with its biometrics capabilities.
OUTSIDE ASSISTANCE
A unique feature to MPP is a stipulation that the mentor can only provide assistance to the protégé by either its internal resources or subcontracting to a procurement technical assistance center, small business development center and/or a historically black college/university (HBCU).
As a HBCU, Morehouse College and its Morehouse College Entrepreneurial Center (MCEC) in Atlanta, Ga., serve as a thirdparty MPP developmental assistance provider. Over the past year, MCEC has worked with mentor and protégé teams participating in various DoD programs. More than 80 percent has been from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) program, with others coming from the Navy, Army and Air Force MPPs.
“The MPP is one of our signature programs,” stated Tiffany Bussey, program director, Entrepreneurship Center, Morehouse College Leadership Center. “We are part of the marriage. We work with the mentor to find out how we can assist the protégé.”
“One critical area in which we find small companies often fail is not having good procedures or an infrastructure in place,” she stated. “At MCEC we look at how we can best work with the protégé company to institutionalize or enhance their process improvement system.”
Consequently, MCEC is often involved in infrastructure developmental training for process improvement systems certification such as ISO-9000, CMMI and Lean Six Sigma. Over the past year, MCEC has been working with Dev Technology to become ISO certified, which is expected this summer.
“This helps protégés improve their processes and how they do business eternally so as to differentiate themselves in the market,” Bussey explained. “Once they graduate from the MPP they are a stronger company and can provide better services to the DoD and ultimately provide better services to the warfighter.”
“We are very proud of how we have seen the company grow. It has been rewarding to help them put these processes in place, define who they are, structure the company to create a good infrastructure base, and take them to the next level. It is a real success story. “
MCEC is currently working with some 12 protégé and about six mentor companies. “We have three protégés with NGA and are assisting them in numerous ways,” Bussey added. ♦
