formerfed

We don’t know what any offerer said or didn’t say nor any real history. So any opinion is purely speculative. LH contracts can be grossly inefficient or very efficient depending upon individual circumstances. Offerors can come up with innovative ways to improve efficiencies. What if an offeror proposed a way to reduce prices by 30%? We just don’t know here.

I don’t think you’ll ever find out what’s behind this evaluation. But one possibility alluded to earlier in the thread is none of the offers really stood out. That may be why all the offerors got similar ratings of Acceptable. Often what differentiates one offer from another is simply what is said and how facts are presented. For example two offerors may have similar past performance. One states what their experience was in an engagement. Another does the same and then highlights accomplishments and positive outcomes for the agency because of their work. The implication is selection of them will provide benefits that competitors won’t. Or with a factor involving technical approach, an offeror distinguishes themself by stating uniqueness of what they do. They come up with a combination of tools and techniques that will help in performance instead of just simple compliance with the tasks. Then for icing on the cake, state how that helps the agency. An example is proactively monitoring and forecasting risks and mitigating early on. This allows your company to perform and consistently meet or exceed customer requirements all the time. Another example is you have an internal quality control system that utilizes subject matter experts and reviews all reports and deliverables before submission to clients. For contracts that essentially buy contract labor, there are possibilities to demonstrate advantages over competition. You could say you have a deep bench that you will train on the clients needs at no cost to the agency. That means if an employee is gone for any reason, a replacement will be virtually seamless. Or you cross train employees so they know the work of others. In event of a surge, others can help out. This may eliminate the need for overtime. From what you said it seems like the agency may be looking to reduce costs and minimizing overtime. Focusing on creative approaches on this might go a long way on winning. Just some thoughts for the future.

All I can say about this and the other two threads is “wow.” In just about every office I know, people are overworked and understaffed. COs are swamped. Why get into this issue when there are so many higher priorities? If a CO feels a contractor is in violation, just notify DOL. That’s their job. At best, this is a real stretch if it’s even the COs concern. I’m sure there are lots more pressing issues for COs to devote their time - like assisting program offices in preparing documents, quit taking shortcuts such as forcing LPTA and avoiding discussions, and self education.

Hard to tell in this instance what the issues are from the government side. Somethings evaluators get drafted to do that job. They might be inexperienced and just follow the process laid out to them. Often without some help and people looking over their shoulder, all offers look similar. They don’t see differentiators because they don’t know the program. So all offerors get similar ratings. Two things I learned about proposals. One is if you don’t have some information and background about the requirement and what the government is looking for before the RFP is released, your chances of winning are slim. What program offices really want versus the RFP wording literally says can be different. Second, and this is what Vern mentioned, a professional proposal writer can turn responses into hard hitting and impressive messages that catch evaluators attention.

@DCDOD2020 Thanks for the explanation and background. We can see where you are coming from now. Contracting in future using labor rates will be challenging. Who knows what the long term outcome will be but many experts forecast higher amounts from possible inflation and more leveraged positions by labor.

OMB issued an RFI seeking ways to implement. The third section is on procurement. I included the link below as well as copied the part of procurement. My initial thought this is all commendable but how much further than the government push the practice of buying to other areas? At some point supporting all these policy areas like trade, labor, socioeconomic, competition, employment, etc. as well as extensive performance reporting before agency programs/missions suffer? https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/05/05/2021-09109/methods-and-leading-practices-for-advancing-equity-and-support-for-underserved-communities-through

Why restrict the range of possible approach’s? What’s the benefit? You conceivably exclude a better or lowered priced offer. What I said is there’s no requirement to specify a SIN. But if you do, offerors must be compliant.

It doesn’t matter what anyone here says. It’s the agency CO that matters. Ask them. I agree it doesn’t make sense to restrict competition to a specific SIN. But if that’s what the agency CO says, you are fighting an uphill battle. Also see this https://www.gao.gov/products/b-409888

Carl brings up some points to consider also. I personally feel five years is the longest most contracts for general support services should run. The OP never responded to my question about whether the services are covered by GSA Schedule. If they are, it’s crazy to do a new contract. Also agencies have to do is identify a group of companies they want to solicit and involve enough to ensure at least three responses. Quick and easy for both initial award and recompetition later. Occasionally there is an advantage engaging in a long term agreement with quality suppliers. If that’s the case, use of an award term provision can provide benefits. If the contractor does things like maintain/improve quality, timeliness, performance, etc. for things that are important to program needs, an award term provision where the contractor earns additional periods of performance might be good. The downside is it’s tough to identify and measure key elements that clearly benefit the government as well as the time and effort involved in assessment. I’m suggesting something like this instead of a 5 year base + a 5 year option.

To that I’ll add the practice of adding new contractors and eliminating others is time consuming and resource intensive. It takes a lot of thought to devise the approach and implement. An “open season” is really a new solicitation with evaluation of offers, perhaps conducting discussions, and making source selection decisions. Removing nonperforming contractors can also be challenging.

I stopped short of responding to all your questions. I never used it because I saw no benefits. I did mention someone I knew that successfully used it because he was very concerned about technical transfusion. His project had a very high degree of visibility and needed a prompt award. So he used the process and arrived at specific contract language with the selected source on a one-on-one basis. I used to follow NASA very close back then. They tried a number of innovative, streamlined concepts. The Four-Step really didn’t do anything along the lines of streamlining, so I lost interest. But I did know DoD picked it up and saw the end as already mentioned. From a self-centered perspective, if it wasn’t helpful to my office, I moved on. The one really innovative thing NASA did that never caught on much was their MidRange Procurement Procedure. It was designed as a streamlined method for actions above the SAT up to mid-size valued contracts ($2 million with $10 million with Options). The part that really interested me is use of value characteristics instead of traditional evaluation factors and formal source selection plans. The entire acquisition was usually done by a two person team - CO and PM. Proposal responses were brief. The evaluation consisted of documenting how each offeror met each value characteristic. The general rule was a paragraph and no more than a half page for each value attribute. The selection process documentation should be no more than one page. The evaluation referred back to the offerors response as much as possible so the reason for the evaluation and selection should evident from reading pertinent parts of offeror responses. We used it once for a major project and several times for lessor valued actions. The reason it wasn’t used more is our headquarters was very conservative and disliked anything out of the ordinary. They claimed the major one slipped by and that wouldn’t happen again.

The concept has gone wild. Much is the work covered in these vehicles is on GSA Schedule. All someone has to do is pick a few promising companies (need to plan on getting at least three responses for most actions) and send an RFQ. Evaluate and select. If prices seem high, negotiate. That’s it. Compare that to vehicles like Navy SeaPort with 2,000 contractors for 23 functional areas. I see see dozens of responses with fair opportunity.

Are the services you are considering available under GSA Schedule? It seems you are talking about on ramp/off ramp provisions, which are used in several current contract vehicles.

I remember it mostly from seeing what NASA did. I also watched the boldest CO I ever knew do it at a civilian agency (Secret Service) without having the process authorized or even publicized outside NASA and DoD. He carefully detailed the process on a cover letter to the RFP as well as in sections of the solicitation. He made the award without any issues or protests.

Somewhat off topic, but I’m wondering how much of the recent “prize” and OTA competitions are done to avoid Full and Open procedures?

I’m unclear why you posted that Joel. That’s just standard HR stuff. HR always has to clear hiring though Career Transition Plans, Veterans Opportunity Act, etc. lists first. Announcing jobs for a short term is standard stuff. So a manager wants to bring back a former employee. The manager looks at the list of applicants, associated resumes, and says nope, none are what I need. He/she just has to go through these steps first. I can see lots of potential disgruntled employees that will scream

Here it is https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-06-08/pdf/2021-11894.pdf https://www.govexec.com/management/2021/06/opm-finalizes-rule-easing-rehiring-ex-feds/174555/

OPM announced a new process to rehire former employees. It goes into effect July 8. The big change is former employees get credit for their private sector experience and can be rehired for higher grades and more money than when they left. In effect the new policy is saying private sector experience is beneficial. One thing I’ve always felt is people in our field need a variety of experience. Moving to other agencies every few years is good. You learn new things and hopefully unlearn some bad things. I know I learned a lot after leaving the government and got into a consultant role working with lots of offices. It’s amazing how much there is to learn and see so many good practices across agencies that the rest of government may not be aware aware of. So this OPM change is likely good. The one thing I surprised about is no protests by unions. I wonder how many employees will be upset when they see a former colleague come back at a higher grade?

@lawyergirl, Wendy, ji20874’s advice is solid. Ask that question to the CO. I quickly scanned the RFP and see your question pertains to self-scoring. (It may also be elsewhere but I only spent a couple minutes looking). From my reading, I think an offeror or CTA member must have an approved system at time of offer submission. Since orders can be cost-reimbursable, I don’t think the government wants to chance an awardee is capable of being approved after award. If I were the CO, I would want an offeror to have a currently approved system with submission of offers.

Yes, great suggestion Vern. Too often we are so involved preparing solicitations, evaluating responses, making source selections, worrying about protests, etc., we overlook post-award details and potential issues. This is one of things that gets slighted until it comes up and then we say “if only we ....”

Sure. You can do it. But you really should have a good reason such as promoting competition or attracting interest and just a notice without dollar amounts won’t do. Most sources sought notices contain enough information for potential sources to gauge overall value without needs to state dollar amounts.

The more revenue these contract programs bring in, the greater benefits accrue to the executive agency. That means more people to manage the program, higher grades for the individuals, bigger operating budgets, and more recognition to include on their resumes. The chief reason for including a category as “emerging large business” is revenue. Those companies are doing the right things as small businesses and are in demand. If they get excluded from a new contract program, agencies will find other programs/vehicles to reach them. So the executive agency for the GWAC finds creative ways to keep these sources.

I will go so far to say that has a lot to do with it. Our respect seemed to start going downhill many years ago. It’s like a snowball that picks up size and speed rolling downhill. I largely blame the long standing and widespread need for 1102s. Quick promotions without having to demonstrate competence is one culprit. Another is the large demand among agencies competing for reasonably sharp individuals.

I’m not criticizing this or any contracting officer for long award times. I know as individuals they can only do so much. But we hear all the time agency senior management say “this procurement is really critical to our mission. It’s of upmost importance and the highest priority.” So the CO and usually PM a work fast and hard to get the solicitation ready. Then policy and legal reviews take weeks to be done. Proposals end up received later. Then the CO tries and gets a TEP going. But many of the needed technical people can’t meet right away for various reasons. When they are finally assembled no one wants to be sequestered because of other work conflicts. Proposals get evaluated individually in their own work areas. A few weeks later after all the other meetings, travel, and other priorities are over, trying to get everyone together for consensus again takes a very long time. If there are orals or discussions, that adds more time. Finally an award for this high priority contract gets awarded many months later. My criticism is about agency culture concerning acquisitions. If senior management claims a project is a high priority, show it. Make things happen accordingly.

This is a great example of why different processes are needed for the government. Seven months using a “streamlined approach” for just placing an order! We don’t know if this example is what the PIL had in mind or whether it’s the way the CO decided to apply the concept in the way he/she wanted. It’s no wonder many of the small, innovative high tech companies pass on doing business with the government. Vern’s approach and similar type thinking is what our country needs. But even then, we need people and organizations that can take these concepts and implement them.