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Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: 1-Day Crash Course
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Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: 5-Day Training Camp
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Phoenix Canyon
Phoenix Canyon
Home
Training Catalog
Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: 1-Day Crash Course
Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: 3-Day Tactical Mastery
Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: 5-Day Training Camp
Reviews
About
Resources
Contact Us
Careers
Contact Us
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Training Catalog
Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: 1-Day Crash Course
Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: 3-Day Tactical Mastery
Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: 5-Day Training Camp
Reviews
About
Resources
Contact Us
Careers
Contact Us
One Sentence Cost Him $4 Million
Articles, Professional Development, GovCon Melinda Milheim 8/6/20 Articles, Professional Development, GovCon Melinda Milheim 8/6/20

One Sentence Cost Him $4 Million

Winning contracts isn’t about being flashy — it’s about mastering the fundamentals. Here’s how to avoid the mistakes that cost contractors millions, including how one missing sentence cost a contractor $4M. Learn the proposal mistakes that can sink contracts — and how to avoid them.

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Reinventing Your Career After Government Service
Articles, Professional Development Melinda Milheim 8/5/20 Articles, Professional Development Melinda Milheim 8/5/20

Reinventing Your Career After Government Service

Many federal employees wonder if their skills will translate to industry. The truth? They do — and they open doors. Learn how to reframe your experience for the next chapter.

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Revolutionary FAR Overhaul Series

Everything you knew about the FAR just changed. Are you ready to hit the ground running?
Choose the program that fits your schedule and learning goals.

Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: 1-Day Crash Course

You can’t win the game if you don’t know the rules.

This one-day crash course delivers the essentials — fast, clear, and ready for immediate use.

Learn more
Learn more

Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: 3-Day Tactical Mastery

Everyone can read the new FAR. Few can use it to their advantage.

This three-day program delivers tactical mastery of the new FAR — giving you the clarity and control to turn complex rules into practical results.

Learn more
Learn more

Revolutionary FAR Overhaul: 5-Day Training Camp

This is where professionals become experts — confident, trusted, and ready to use the new FAR to mitigate risk and capture strategic advantage.

In five intensive days, you’ll move from understanding the FAR to commanding it — learning how to find, interpret, and apply the right rules with speed and certainty. You’ll leave as the go-to expert others trust for the right answers, every time.

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Learn more

1-Day Refresher Series

One day, one topic, full DAU-equivalent credit. The 1-Day Refresher Series is designed for professionals who need to refresh, recertify, or stay current on the topics they use most — without taking a week away from the desk.

1-Day Appropriations Law Refresher

A focused one-day review of the rules governing how appropriated funds may be obligated and spent — with an emphasis on the "why" behind the "how." The course revisits Purpose, Time, and Amount; the Anti-Deficiency Act; the bona fide needs rule; and the judgment calls that trip up even experienced practitioners — color of money, severable vs. non-severable services, and end-of-year obligations.

1-Day Acquisition Law Refresher

A focused one-day review of the legal framework that governs federal acquisition — with an emphasis on the "why" behind the "how." The course revisits the FAR's guiding principles, fiscal and ethical constraints on the contracting officer, competition requirements and their exceptions, contract types and their risk allocation, and the recurring judgment calls — responsibility determinations, unauthorized commitments, and protest-sensitive decisions — that experienced practitioners still wrestle with.

1-Day COR Refresher

A focused one-day review of the Contracting Officer's Representative role — with an emphasis on the "why" behind the "how." The course revisits the CO/COR/contractor relationship and its boundaries, the limits of COR authority, surveillance and inspection responsibilities, documentation and file requirements, and the judgment calls that get CORs in trouble — constructive changes, unauthorized direction, and recognizing when an issue belongs back with the contracting officer.

Targeted Skills Series

Sharpen the specific skills that move acquisitions forward. Each one-day workshop in the Targeted Skills Series zeroes in on a single high-impact topic — taught with the same "why behind the how" approach that defines every Phoenix Canyon course.

Shaping the Acquisition Strategy

Market Research for Smarter Acquisitions

Market research is where smart acquisitions begin — and where weak ones quietly go wrong. This one-day workshop covers how to scope and conduct market research that actually informs the acquisition strategy, including identifying capable sources, testing assumptions about commerciality and competition, documenting findings for the file, and recognizing when initial research isn't enough to support the decisions ahead.

Writing an Effective Statement of Work (SOW)

A well-written Statement of Work is one of the highest-leverage documents in federal acquisition — and one of the most commonly mishandled. This one-day workshop covers how to translate program needs into clear, enforceable requirements, structure the document so contractors can price and deliver against it accurately, avoid the ambiguity that fuels disputes and modifications, and recognize when an SOW is the right vehicle versus when a PWS or SOO would serve the acquisition better.

Negotiating Federal Contracts

Negotiation federal acquisition isn't about winning — it's about reaching agreements that protect the government's interests, deliver fair pricing, and hold up under scrutiny. This one-day workshop covers preparing for negotiations with the right data and authority, structuring positions and counter-positions that move the needle without giving away leverage, navigating the dynamics that come up in sole-source, competitive, and modification negotiations, and documenting outcomes in a way that supports the file and withstands review.

Performance Based Acquisition

Performance Based Acquisition sounds simple — contract for the outcome you want — but executing it well is one of the hardest things in federal contracting. This one-day workshop covers when PBA is the right call (and when it isn't), how to structure outcome-based requirements that contractors can actually price and deliver against, building measurable performance standards and the surveillance plan to back them up, and the common traps that turn a "performance-based" contract into a level-of-effort arrangement in disguise.

Writing an Effective Performance Work Statement (PWS)

A Performance Work Statement looks deceptively similar to an SOW, but the discipline behind writing one well is fundamentally different — you're describing outcomes, not tasks. This one-day workshop covers how to articulate performance objectives that are measurable and contractually meaningful, build the performance standards and surveillance approach that make the PWS enforceable, avoid the drift back into prescriptive task-direction that quietly undermines the PWS, and align the document with the broader performance-based acquisition strategy.

Critical Thinking & Decision Making

Federal acquisition runs on judgment — and judgment is a skill that can be sharpened. This one-day workshop covers how to recognize the cognitive traps that lead good professionals to bad decisions, how to structure analysis so the relevant facts and assumptions actually surface, how to weigh risk and uncertainty without defaulting to the easiest path, and how to make decisions you can defend — to your supervisor, to the file, and to yourself a year from now.

Procurement Innovation

Procurement innovation isn't about chasing buzzwords — it's about knowing which authorities, techniques, and approaches can legitimately move an acquisition faster, smarter, or more strategically. This one-day workshop covers the modern toolkit available to today's contracting professional, including OTAs, Commercial Solutions Openings (CSOs), Procurement Technical Assistance Innovation (PTAI), Market Research as a Service (MRAS), challenge-based and prize competitions, and other emerging approaches — along with the judgment required to match the right tool to the right problem.

Building & Awarding the Contract

Source Selection Methodologies

Source selection is where the acquisition strategy meets reality — and where a poorly chosen approach can cost the government time, money, or the right contractor. This one-day workshop covers the source selection approaches recognized under the overhauled FAR — tradeoff, LPTA, highest technically rated with a fair and reasonable price, and phased acquisition — along with how to match the right approach to the acquisition's risk and complexity, build evaluation factors that drive meaningful proposal differentiation, and conduct a source selection that holds up to protest scrutiny.

Professional & Leadership Skills

Effective Leadership

Leadership in government looks different than leadership in the private sector — you're leading inside layers of policy, hierarchy, and constraint that don't reward the usual playbook. This one-day workshop covers how to lead teams under those real-world conditions: building trust and accountability without formal authority, giving feedback that actually changes behavior, navigating up the chain as effectively as you lead down it, and developing the people on your team while still delivering on the mission.

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