Evaluation Plan of First Task Order of IDIQ

[WWF904]

I just started in my new contracting job and I have been working with my KO about a proper evaluation plan for the first TO of one of our IDIQs contracts. The customer included the Business Approach and Technical/Management Approach in the TO Eval. Plan but my KO believes that they should only evaluate Past Performance and Price because the Tech and Business Approach evaluation should have been already done during the IDIQ selection. I have researched the FAR and found FAR 16.505 Ordering stating that "Formal evaluation plans or scoring of quotes or offers are not required". My KO believes that if the tech and business approach are included this will probably bring back all of the protests that were filed during the IDIQ contract award. I have been trying to look for a template of a proper TO Evaluation Plan to have an idea of how it should be done. I know each contracting organization have their own procedures and templates but I am not even sure if the idea of taking the tech and business approach out of the eval. plan is correct. Can you please post your advice?? I appreciate your time.

[kitty]

I,m not sure why a Contracting Officer would provide you with this guidance, especially as a new specialist. If you do not include an evaluation of the technical approach (moreso than staffing), how can you reasonably determine "how" the Offerors are going to accomplish the work or determine what innovative approaches they may bring to the job? Where would the discriminators be in a best-value, trade-off analysis? If you want the most competent contractor to perform the work, I would suggest you create factors and criteria that will provide you value at the end of the day. Doing nothing should not be an option, even if the FAR does not speak to it specifically. Ensure that you do what you say you are going to do in your evaluation plan, and a protest will not be invited. If your task order is performance based, then, I would suggest -- if the contractor does not perform in accordance with your PWS and standards in your PRS and QASP, then the KO should act to ensure remedy is immediate. As I look at it, I don't care if they bring Mickey Mouse to the table as long as the work is performed in a Satisfactory manner or better. Staffing factors do not provide any guarantee that the people they bring to the table are competent. What matters is what happens on site.

[Don Mansfield]

I,m not sure why a Contracting Officer would provide you with this guidance, especially as a new specialist. If you do not include an evaluation of the technical approach (moreso than staffing), how can you reasonably determine "how" the Offerors are going to accomplish the work or determine what innovative approaches they may bring to the job? Where would the discriminators be in a best-value, trade-off analysis?

kitty,

Assuming that offerors are not contractually bound to their proposed technical approach, how strong of a relationship do you think there is between what an offeror says their technical approach is going to be when competing for a contract and what their technical approach actually is when performing the contract?