Task order
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Task order includes work statements with expected performance that it should deliver. It is defined as separate contract, may indicate contract modification however it is smaller, quicker and easier than whole contract agreement - task orders would be part of contact agreement. Task order can be claimed, reported and evaluated. It should include[1][2]:
- objective terms,
- specific deliverables,
- measurable outcomes,
- quality metrics,
- clear definitions,
- schedule.
Task order contract
Task order contract (TOCs) is one of the type of contract authorized by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). Duration of such contract is usually five years, but might be also ten or in some cases less than five. Task orders are set in specific timelines. Examples of such hypothetic scenarios of scheduling are included in below table[3]:
- Sponsor 1 had one year of break after task 1, as there was difficulty to gain specialised employees,
- Sponsor 2 had half of year break between task 2 and task 6, it was necessary to wait for some governmental approvals,
- Sponsor 3 had just task 3 but much smaller revenue was observed, therefore work was stopped to investigate reasons,
- Sponsor 4 had back to back task orders, then gap until task 7, it was impossible to schedule it differently cause task 6 needed to be finished firstly.
- Each gaps in task orders cause lower or none revenue such as in quarter 3 and 4 of second year and in general should be avoided.
| Year | 1. year | 1. year | 1. year | 1. year | 2. year | 2. year | 2. year | 2. year | 3. year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tasks & details / Quarter | O1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q1 |
| Sponsor 1 | Task order 1 | Task order 1 | Task order 1 | Task order 1 | - | - | - | - | Task order 8 |
| Sponsor 2 | Task order 2 | Task order 2 | - | - | Task order 6 | Task order 6 | Task order 6 | - | - |
| Sponsor 3 | - | Task order 3 | Task order 3 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Sponsor 4 | - | Task order 4 | Task order 4 | Task order 4 | Task order 5 | Task order 5 | - | - | Task order 7 |
| Number of projects | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Revenue | mid | high | mid | mid | mid | mid | low | none | mid |
Footnotes
References
- Ammar H. B., Eaton E., Ruvolo P., Taylor M. E., (2014), Online Multi-Task Learning for Policy Gradient Methods, in "Proceedings of the 31 st International Conference on Machine Learning 2014. JMLR: W&CP volume 32", Beijing, China
- Deck C., Schlesinger H., (2010), Exploring Higher Order Risk Effects in "The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 77, Issue 4, October 2010, Pages 1403–1420"
- Deck C., Schlesinger H., (2014), Consistency of Higher Order Risk Preferences in "Econometrica. Journal of economic society Volume82, Issue5"
- Ruvolo P., Eaton E., (2013), Active Task Selection for Lifelong Machine Learning in "Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
- Salesky M. E., (2016), The Project Managers Guide to IDIQ Task Order Service Contracts: How to Win and Perform on Task Order Contracts, Springer
- U.S. Congress, (1994), House Reports, Government Printing Office
Author: Weronika Burzawa
