Chapter 1 PREFACE

This guide was written to help you prepare and process Justification and Approvals (J&A) for the use of other than full and open competition.  The guide will help you answer questions such as: Do I need a J&A? What is the basis for the justification? What goes in the J&A? Who approves the J&A? How is the J&A processed?  The aim is to consolidate multiple levels of regulatory requirements into an easy to use guide.  In addition, this guide provides practical lessons learned, and contains references to the statutory and regulatory documents whenever possible.  While this guide includes templates to help ensure all salient points are addressed, J&As must not be prepared in boilerplate style without careful attention to substantiating information specific to the acquisition.  The requirement for preparing J&As is statutory. The 1984 legislation that established the J&A requirement is known as the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA). The law was codified in 10 USC 2304 and is implemented in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 6 and its associated supplements. This guide is not intended to serve as a substitute for these regulations.  Therefore, as each topic is discussed, specific regulatory citations are provided.