With almost 2,800 GAO contract-related protests filed in FY’16, contractors, federal acquisition officials, and the oversight community are starting to take a serious look at their impact on timely federal acquisition.  According to a recent report on Federal News Radio, acquisition officials, in particular, are increasingly frustrated with the prevalence, time and cost associated with protest actions.  The total number of protests is up by 86% over the past decade.  Congress has now directed DOD to look at ways to decrease protests and the time they take.  Similar legislation may follow for the rest of government.  Still, protests had an “effectiveness rate” of 46% in FY’16, indicating that a protestor got something that they wanted nearly half of the time.  The “sustain” rate was up, too, to 22.56%, indicating that there may be more errors in agency solicitations.  Aside from frivolous protests, of which there are more than most would think, the main frustration from feds seems to be protests filed by an incumbent when losing a re-compete.  Those protests are seen merely as a way to squeeze an extra six months out of current performance, while adding cost and delays to government projects.  Neither not protesting at all nor protesting all of the time are good business strategies.  Like any other tool, protests should be used only when they can be effective and handled well.