Best Practices

[rakii]

I am in the planning stages of a multiple award IDIQ recompete for a travel management service and am interested in learning about source selection downselect best practices while I wait for Amazon to deliver my newly purchased copy of the Source Selection Answer Book (thanks Vern!). The service is complex and can interface with variety of agency systems as defined and needed by the agency--ERP, financial systems, email, etc. The government's travel market is finite--only so many travel dollars are available each year--but the government's travel rules are many that the service will have to account for (and to make it more complex, agencies have the ability to further tailor some of the rules to suit their needs and service providers will have to meet FISMA requirements). Agencies are interested in choice among service providers, but there isn't enough business to make the effort financially viable among industry providers if several awards are made. Everything I've been able to find on the topic of downselect approaches centers around R&D or construction and I'm hoping to be able to use some best practices around this on my effort. I want to be able to use a phased evaluation approach to get to meet both agency needs for choice and industry needs for ROI (and my needs for an efficient procurement). Any best practices out there?

[napolik]

I am in the planning stages of a multiple award IDIQ recompete for a travel management service and am interested in learning about source selection downselect best practices while I wait for Amazon to deliver my newly purchased copy of the Source Selection Answer Book (thanks Vern!). The service is complex and can interface with variety of agency systems as defined and needed by the agency--ERP, financial systems, email, etc. The government's travel market is finite--only so many travel dollars are available each year--but the government's travel rules are many that the service will have to account for (and to make it more complex, agencies have the ability to further tailor some of the rules to suit their needs and service providers will have to meet FISMA requirements). Agencies are interested in choice among service providers, but there isn't enough business to make the effort financially viable among industry providers if several awards are made. Everything I've been able to find on the topic of downselect approaches centers around R&D or construction and I'm hoping to be able to use some best practices around this on my effort. I want to be able to use a phased evaluation approach to get to meet both agency needs for choice and industry needs for ROI (and my needs for an efficient procurement). Any best practices out there?

In the absence of more detail on the prior competition and the SOW, I have two recommendations. First, practice KISS. Think about using very few evaluation factors (e.g. price, experience and past performance). Second, do market research. Call the competitors for the current contract. Ask them what they thought about the types and number of evaluation factors, the basis of the award and any other aspect of the competition (e.g. the SOW and Ts and Cs).

[formerfed]

In the absence of more detail on the prior competition and the SOW, I have two recommendations. First, practice KISS. Think about using very few evaluation factors (e.g. price, experience and past performance). Second, do market research. Call the competitors for the current contract. Ask them what they thought about the types and number of evaluation factors, the basis of the award and any other aspect of the competition (e.g. the SOW and Ts and Cs).

I totally agree. An excellent way of finding out what's going on in the marketplace, including best practices and what has worked and what hasn't, is ask industry first. It's almost impossible to start with agencies and try to find this out. Instead go to the companies that do this work and ask them. A great question to also ask is "If you were in our position, how would you go about to develop this procurement?"

[Guest Vern Edwards]

I am in the planning stages of a multiple award IDIQ recompete for a travel management service and am interested in learning about source selection downselect best practices... . Any best practices out there?

Downselect is a special source selection procedure. When conducting a source selection an agency usually (1) receives proposals, (2) evaluates them, and then (3) selects a winner or (4) establishes a competitive range, (5) conducts discussions, (6) receives final proposal revisions, (7) evaluates them, and then (8) selects a winner. Downselect can mean one of two things.

In R&D and major systems acquisition, downselect is sometimes used in large, multiphase projects. It means conducting a source selection in either of the ways described above and selecting two or three contractors to execute the first phase of a project. When that phase of the project is complete the agency then "downselects" to choose one of the contractors to execute the second phase of the project. The downselection can be done either by exercising an option in the contract for the first phase or by conducting a second competition that is limited to the two contractors that participated in the first phase.

Downselect also refers to a phased evaluation of proposals in which an agency solicits proposals, evaluates them using one set of criteria and eliminating some, then evaluating the survivors against a second set of criteria and eliminating some more, etc. The agency then either chooses the contractor or conducts discussions and solicits final proposal revisions before choosing the winner. This form of downselect is used when an agency expects a very large number of proposals and does not want to evaluate all of them all against all of the criteria. It is a labor saving device. I suspect that this is the form of downselect that you are asking about.

As for best practices: (1) think through why you want to do it, (2) plan carefully how you're going to do it, (3) explain what you're going to do and how you're going to do it in the RFP in the clearest possible terms, and (4) execute the process flawlessly. Set up the downselect so that you consider the easiest factors first. The easiest in order are: (a) price, ( experience, and ( c) past performance. Consider price in every step.

Downselect requires knowhow and expertise. My questions for you are: (a) Why do you want to use a downselect procedure? ( Are you sure your office has the knowhow to pull it off successfully?

[rakii]

I'd like to use a downselect process because we are expecting a number of proposals and need a way to winnow the field down to the firms that can truly do the work. While my office hasn't employed this specific phased downselect process, we do have good source selection experience that we can draw from. Thanks to all for the advice and tips--if anyone has any examples they can share, I'd really appreciate it! My market research continues!