All on the Same Team

In the case of the Secure Border Initiative, the size and open-ended nature of the deal have pulled much of the Northern Virginia contracting community into a fight that is being viewed as a bellwether for future Homeland Security work. The agency hasn't asked for a product as much as ideas, encouraging companies to not just bid on a service but also to define what the service should be. A winner is to be chosen this fall.

Five main players have emerged, with dozens of subcontractors filling out the roster. Northrop Grumman's group, for example, includes Falls Church-based weapons-maker General Dynamics Corp. and its recently acquired Anteon International, SRA International Inc., the consulting firm BearingPoint Inc., and satellite services provider Hughes Network Systems LLC.

Negotiations to form such a group begin long before the government releases a request for proposals on a given contract, as companies that think they might have an interest in the work analyze their resources and size up potential competitors.

When the Navy began looking for a team in 2002 that could build combat ships, executives at Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin immediately started calculating their chances.

"It didn't take us more than 30 minutes to figure out that okay, we're going to need partners for that," said Jeff Napoliello, a Lockheed business development manager.

Why? Lockheed doesn't make ships. But it figured that it could organize or join teams that included companies that did. So Lockheed put together a group. Different divisions of the company joined others. Before long, various parts of Lockheed Martin were involved with seven distinct teams, all going after the same work -- with firewalls popping up everywhere inside a company that was, in essence, competing with itself.

"We wanted to make sure we had chips down on a lot of different options," Napoliello said.

That's not typical, but it happens, especially in cases where the government's needs are changing rapidly, leaving companies unsure whether they will have the right solution.

For SBInet, the solution is far from clear. Homeland Security officials want better control of nearly 7,000 miles of border with Mexico and Canada, much of it stubbornly porous. And they want a contractor to organize the technology, infrastructure and personnel needed to make that happen. "We're asking you to come back and tell us how to do our business," Jackson told industry leaders.

That pronouncement raised eyebrows at the Homeland Security Department's inspector general's office, where auditors have warned that SBInet is a risk to the government because it gives contractors so much latitude. But for the companies bidding on the contract, the open-ended instructions have given them unusual flexibility in putting together their teams.

Do they bring on board the firm that will send drones hovering above the Arizona desert, or the one that specializes in high-tech motion sensors? Or both?

It's not always just a question of who does what. It's also who knows who.