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Past Performance Evaluation


Prosperity

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Good Afternoon.

I have just been tasked with conduction my first Past Performance Evaluation. For those that are more seasoned, are they tips that are recommended for going through a Past Performance Volume and determining Recency and Relevancy? In regards to Relevancy would you look at references and determine if they line up with the SOW? And, as far as Recency goes, how far going back would a contract reference be considered recent or not?

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30 minutes ago, Prosperity said:

And, as far as Recency goes, how far going back would a contract reference be considered recent or not?

I’ll let some others provide the detailed guidance, sources and advice for evaluating past performance.  

However, if you are only conducting the evaluation of proposals and are not writing the evaluation criteria for the PP evaluation, there should already be criteria written for this acquisition. There should also be some criteria in the solicitation that you are evaluating proposals for.

The solicitation should define or otherwise explain what is considered to be “recent”. 

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Prosperity are you asking about an existing solicitation or what the evaluation criteria should be?

Another question- are you with DoD? DoD has standardized evaluation criteria and methodology for evaluating past performance and developing a confidence assessment. 

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8 hours ago, Prosperity said:

For those that are more seasoned, are they tips that are recommended for going through a Past Performance Volume and determining Recency and Relevancy?

I’ve found that creating a matrix or crosswalk is very useful in tracking and displaying the past performance information (recency, relevancy, quality) for each offeror. If you send me a private message we can exchange info and I can share a visual example and talk you through it.

8 hours ago, Prosperity said:

In regards to Relevancy would you look at references and determine if they line up with the SOW?

I’m not sure what you are asking. Let’s first identify your definition of relevancy.

8 hours ago, Prosperity said:

And, as far as Recency goes, how far going back would a contract reference be considered recent or not?

It depends on your acquisition and what you determine is appropriate; however, three years seems to be the standard

NOTE: FAR 42.1503 states the following: “Agencies shall use the past performance information in CPARS. that is within three years (six for construction and architect-engineer contracts) of the completion of performance of the evaluated contract or order, and information contained in the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS), e.g., terminations for default or cause.”

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm wondering why a 2003 DoD "A Guide to Collection and Use of Past Performance" Version 3 page 8 says that past performance relevancy should not be a subfactor of a past performance confidence assessment while a 2016 DoD "Source Selection Procedures" document clearly says on page 27 that relevancy can and should be a past performance confidence assessment's subfactor if past performance is a major discriminator... is the 2003 document (that is still referenced on the FAI website by the way) just out of date or was it just talking about situations where past performance is not a major discriminator?

I mean for the more complex acquisitions doesn't it make a lot more sense to actually do in fact have the "degree of relevancy" as a "subfactor" of the past performance evaluation factor? For example, if I ask for past performance questionnaires (PPQ) and they all come back rated "substantial confidence" by the past customers while some offerors' past contracts are super relevant while other offerors' are somewhat relevant, I'd rather have in my RFP that "even if your past customer speaks really highly of your past performance the only way you will get a substantial confidence rating for the past performance factor is if that past performance is very relevant"... and so if most or all of the the past projects are somewhat relevant the offeror will still be rated as "satisfactory confidence" by the evaluation team even though all of their PPQs came back as "substantial confidence" from their past customers.

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6 minutes ago, Sam101 said:

I'm wondering why a 2003 DoD "A Guide to Collection and Use of Past Performance" Version 3 page 8 says that past performance relevancy should not be a subfactor of a past performance confidence assessment while a 2016 DoD "Source Selection Procedures" document clearly says on page 27 that relevancy can and should be a past performance confidence assessment's subfactor if past performance is a major discriminator... is the 2003 document (that is still referenced on the FAI website by the way) just out of date or was it just talking about situations where past performance is not a major discriminator?

Does the 2003 guide use an integrated recency, relevancy, and confidence assessment? Recency and relevancy (assessment of scope and magnitude of effort and complexities) are used in making current confidence assessments under the DoD SSP. If you have a link to the 2003 guide, I’d like to compare the two documents.

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The DoD overhauled and updated their past performance methodology with an integrated performance confidence assessment back in 2011 or so.

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It may have been earlier than 2011... I have old files but they are in storage. 

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10 hours ago, Jamaal Valentine said:

If you have a link to the 2003 guide, I’d like to compare the two documents.

It's https://www.fai.gov/topics/past-performance#:~:text=Information regarding a contractor's actions,consider in awarding a contract.

At the bottom of that page under Agency Resources and Best Practices... it's on page 8 of that pdf and actually on page 8 it contradicts it self by saying "PPI with applicable but limited relevance may be used for evaluation but should be given less weight"... but the main message in that part of the document says that relevancy is a threshold question, which for complex acquisitions is not appropriate.

Further, does the integration of degree of relevancy in the past performance evaluation factor mean that I shouldn't have Corporate Experience as a stand-alone factor? I usually have Corporate Experience and Past Performance each being stand alone factors and I do the "threshold" relevancy way and I did the integration way just once but when I did that I still had the Corporate Experience and Past Performance as separate factors but in the Past Performance section M I stated that the degree of relevancy from the Corporate Experience will be taken into account when evaluating Past Performance, and this is because I asked offerors to only send past performance questionnaires to the past customers identified in the Corporate Experience factor. So these are two stand alone factors but still the Past Performance factor rating is influenced by the rating of the Corporate Experience factor.

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1 hour ago, Sam101 said:

It's https://www.fai.gov/topics/past-performance#:~:text=Information regarding a contractor's actions,consider in awarding a contract.

At the bottom of that page under Agency Resources and Best Practices... it's on page 8 of that pdf and actually on page 8 it contradicts it self by saying "PPI with applicable but limited relevance may be used for evaluation but should be given less weight"... but the main message in that part of the document says that relevancy is a threshold question, which for complex acquisitions is not appropriate.

Further, does the integration of degree of relevancy in the past performance evaluation factor mean that I shouldn't have Corporate Experience as a stand-alone factor? I usually have Corporate Experience and Past Performance each being stand alone factors and I do the "threshold" relevancy way and I did the integration way just once but when I did that I still had the Corporate Experience and Past Performance as separate factors but in the Past Performance section M I stated that the degree of relevancy from the Corporate Experience will be taken into account when evaluating Past Performance, and this is because I asked offerors to only send past performance questionnaires to the past customers identified in the Corporate Experience factor. So these are two stand alone factors but still the Past Performance factor rating is influenced by the rating of the Corporate Experience factor.

Sam, I think that there was a lot of Air Force methodology influence in the integrated method reflected in the DoD source selection instructions.

I have seen where the Air Force uses “Past Performance” as a catch all factor, such as in their PPP (past performance/Price) method.

However, there can still be a separate corporate experience factor, can’t there?

The integrated method uses experience to establish relevancy of the past performance information in development of a confidence assessment for predicting successful performance.

I believe that the DoD source selection manual still allows a separate factor for evaluating the amount of relevant experience in the scope and type of effort involved in the instant contract or task.

Per the FAR coverage of Past performance, past performance concerns how well a firm has performed.  Corporate experience focuses on the extent of a firm or an entity’s relevant experience.

I* too limited the proposers past performance submission input to those projects they submitted to establish recent, relevant experience. Successful completion of those type projects was of more value than mediocre experience.

Then we used the DoD integrated confidence assessment method, and considered a variety of PP sources, in addition to the PP of the projects submitted for experience.

*When I say “I”, I’m referring to a Model RFP for design-build that I was on the USACE Program Management Team for. The model RFP was used for tens of billion dollars of Army design-build Construction projects.  We taught the methodology in the USACE Design-Build Construction Course,  which wasn’t limited to MILCON or for Army MILCON. 

 

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6 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

However, there can still be a separate corporate experience factor, can’t there?

Thanks Joel, I suppose there can still be a separate corporate experience factor, and I actually prefer it to be separate. 

Just out of curiosity, is it better to have that separate corporate experience factor have its rating scale defined as Outstanding, Good, Acceptable, Marginal, Unacceptable (with strengths and weaknesses making those up, basically the same way technical approach and key personnel is typically done)? Or should the corporate experience evaluation factor's rating scale be Very Relevant, Relevant, Somewhat Relevant, and Not Relevant?

For example in section M:

Factor 1 - Technical Approach

Factor 2 - Key Personnel

Factor 3 - Corporate Experience

Factor 4 - Past Performance

Factors 1 and 2 will use the following scale: Outstanding, Good, Acceptable, Marginal, Unacceptable. (this scale will have a definition of these, of course, like Outstanding is when you don't have any weaknesses but have significant strengths. etc.)

Factor 3 will use the following scale: Very Relevant, Relevant, Somewhat Relevant, Not Relevant. (this scale will have a definition for each of these also, like Very Relevant means the past projects are 100% the same).

Factor 4 will use the following scale: Substantial Confidence, Satisfactory Confidence, No Confidence, Neutral. (this scale will have a definition of each of these, like Substantial Confidence means all projects were rated as very relevant for Factor 3 and all past customers gave you a good review). 

This makes the most sense to me.

Edited by Sam101
Typo, why changed to way in first paragraph
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5 hours ago, Sam101 said:

Thanks Joel, I suppose there can still be a separate corporate experience factor, and I actually prefer it to be separate. 

Just out of curiosity, is it better to have that separate corporate experience factor have its rating scale defined as Outstanding, Good, Acceptable, Marginal, Unacceptable (with strengths and weaknesses making those up, basically the same way technical approach and key personnel is typically done)? Or should the corporate experience evaluation factor's rating scale be Very Relevant, Relevant, Somewhat Relevant, and Not Relevant?

For example in section M:

Factor 1 - Technical Approach

Factor 2 - Key Personnel

Factor 3 - Corporate Experience

Factor 4 - Past Performance

Factors 1 and 2 will use the following scale: Outstanding, Good, Acceptable, Marginal, Unacceptable. (this scale will have a definition of these, of course, like Outstanding is when you don't have any weaknesses but have significant strengths. etc.)

Factor 3 will use the following scale: Very Relevant, Relevant, Somewhat Relevant, Not Relevant. (this scale will have a definition for each of these also, like Very Relevant means the past projects are 100% the same).

Factor 4 will use the following scale: Substantial Confidence, Satisfactory Confidence, No Confidence, Neutral. (this scale will have a definition of each of these, like Substantial Confidence means all projects were rated as very relevant for Factor 3 and all past customers gave you a good review). 

This makes the most sense to me.

Sam, I think that you are conflating the corporate experience factor rating with evaluation criteria for extent and relevancy of that experience. I suppose that it could work.  However, the rating seems to duplicate a step or consideration in the in the performance confidence assessment.  One reason why corporate experience, as a separate factor from past performance, works as a discriminator between proposers is that you can downgrade the rating for little or no recent, relevant experience but you must treat lack of past performance as neutral. If you have a requirement which requires successful previous experience, you’d want to use a separate experience factor, so you could weed out those firms that can’t show successful recent, relevant experience.

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19 hours ago, Sam101 said:

Just out of curiosity, is it better to have that separate corporate experience factor have its rating scale defined as Outstanding, Good, Acceptable, Marginal, Unacceptable (with strengths and weaknesses making those up, basically the same way technical approach and key personnel is typically done)? Or should the corporate experience evaluation factor's rating scale be Very Relevant, Relevant, Somewhat Relevant, and Not Relevant?

Sam, Sorry if I wasn’t clear above. This is my recommendation if recent, relevant experience is important to you as a discriminator for the acquisition. Use a separate factor for corporate experience.

Use the rating scale ranging from outstanding to unacceptable, not the degree of relevancy rating scale.

Do consider the degree of relevancy as part of the evaluation criteria for the separate corporate experience factor and state that in the solicitation. 

You can directly downgrade the “experience” rating of a firm with little or no recent, relative experience. They can be rated as “marginal” or “unacceptable” under a separate experience factor. 

However, in the case of a firm without a record of relative past performance, you can’t rate past performance favorably or unfavorably, per 15.305(a)(2)(iv) and per statute.

“(iv) In the case of an offeror without a record of relevant past performance or for whom information on past performance is not available, the offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance.”

DoD says to rate it as an unknown degree of risk of successful performance.

The Catchall method of combining experience with past performance doesn’t allow one to rate a firm with little or no recent, relevant experience as marginal or unacceptable.

EDIT: To further clarify, I don’t object to considering the relevancy of experience in the evaluation criteria for the past performance/confidence factor.

But use a separate factor for corporate experience.

 

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On 3/24/2021 at 7:31 PM, joel hoffman said:

Sam, I think that you are conflating the corporate experience factor rating with evaluation criteria for extent and relevancy of that experience.

I see, the non-conflating way would look like this:

Factor 1 - Technical Approach

Factor 2 - Key Personnel

Factor 3 - Corporate Experience

Factor 4 - Past Performance

Factors 1, 2, and 3 will use the following scale: Outstanding, Good, Acceptable, Marginal, Unacceptable. (this scale will have a definition of these, of course, like Outstanding is when you don't have any weaknesses but have significant strengths. etc.)

Factor 4 will use the following scale: Substantial Confidence, Satisfactory Confidence, No Confidence, Neutral. (this scale will have a definition of each of these, like Substantial Confidence means all projects were very relevant for Factor 3 (because you're submitting only Factor 3's customer's PPQs) and all past customers gave you a good review, however if all past customers gave you a good review but all of the projects were somewhat relevant then you'll get Satisfactory Confidence.)... the definitions of very relevant, relevant, and somewhat relevant will be defined here as well.

But I can see how someone can make an argument that Outstanding, Good, and Acceptable for Corporate Experience essentially means Very Relevant, Relevant, and Somewhat Relevant, respectively... and Marginal and Unacceptable means Not Relevant, unless when evaluating Corporate Experience the Government is looking for things other than relevancy... like when Outstanding for Corporate Experience can mean something other than all past projects just being Very Relevant... because if not you might as well call "Outstanding" "Very Relevant"... now that I think about it I'm not sure that I can think of anything in Corporate Experience that the Government wants to evaluate other than relevancy. 

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I’ll dig up some evaluation criteria for experience but it’s late this evening. 🤠

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Oh, from my recollections, your rating scale criteria for past performance are somewhat over simplified. We didn’t limit the scope of the past performance evaluation to the limited number of projects submitted for the experience factor. I’ll review my material for that too.   

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11 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

We didn’t limit the scope of the past performance evaluation to the limited number of projects submitted for the experience factor.

I don't limit it to only corporate experience PPQs (I just forgot to mention that in  my post), I also say "CAPRS may be looked at"... but it's time consuming to contact the CPARS Government POC to get the scope because it's often difficult to determine the scope and therefore relevancy just by looking at the CPARS report... they should attach the SOW to all CPARS to make it easier for us!

Edited by Sam101
Adding "(I just forgot to mention that in  my post)"
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Sam101, I sent you some PM's with copies of sample submission requirements and evaluation criteria for both experience and past performance plus evaluation procedures with definitions and rating scales, etc.

The Sample is for a  Phase 1 of a 2 Phase Single Award Design-Build Phase RFP Solicitation. Phase 1 is a Request for Qualifications to short-list firms to compete in Phase 2 for a DB contract award.

We call it "performance capability" submission so not to confuse "Request for Qualifications" (the construction industry term), abbreviated as "RFQ" with government speak RFQ, which is "Request for Quotations".   

Phase 2 involves technical concept design submission, some more performance capability info and pricing.

There are also samples for a 2 Phase D-B MATOC Basic contract award. But I didnt have time to search for them. The Experience and past performance factors, definitions and rating systems are the same anyway.

It is an exhibit in the USACE Design-Build Construction PROSPECT Course 425,  FY16 Student Course Manual.  It's not for a specific project.  Just samples of one way to do it.

I'm not teaching the course anymore, so don't even know if it is up to date or what they are currently teaching. I think the current course is an abbreviated, on-line version. 

Edited by joel hoffman
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Prosperity, 

You want an evaluation approach that will help you select the contractor who is most likely to provide success, or in other words, the best value considering all factors.  Let your approach be designed to achieve the best outcome, rather than slavishly over-focusing on processes, documentation, and so forth.  

FAR subpart 15.3 points to four broad evaluations approaches:  (1) cost or price evaluation; (2) past performance evaluation; (3) technical evaluation; and (4) small business subcontracting evaluation.  We know from case law that an offeror's experience may be part of a technical evaluation or part of a past performance evaluation.  Sometimes, I like to evaluate experience as part of the technical evaluation separate from any past performance evaluation.

How about this?

Quote

 

FACTOR 2 PAST PERFORMANCE. 
Section LPart A.  Page limit:  One page per past performance example; 3 pages total.  The offeror will identify its three work efforts that are most similar to the work of this solicitation as its three past performance examples.  For each of these examples, the offeror will describe:
- the work of the example and how that work is similar and dissimilar to the work of this solicitation,
- the scope of the work in terms of dollar value, complexity, number of employees, number of locations, and so forth,
- the amount and complexity of subcontracting, and the offeror's role as (1) a manager of subcontractors or (2) a subcontractor,
- any problems the offeror encountered and the corrective actions it took,
- the dates of performance,
- its CPARS ratings and supporting narrative (or other customer past performance assessments), and
- the customer or client's POC information. 
Part B.  No page limit.  The offeror will provide a copy of its most recent CPARS assessment, if any, for each of the three examples.  Only one CPARS assessment (the most recent) shall be provided. 

Section M.  The Government will assess its confidence in the likelihood of the offeror's success based on its past performance.  In addition to the offeror's past performance submission, the Government may consider information from any other sources.  The Government will consider the currency and relevance of the information, source of the information, context of the data, and general trends in contractor performance.  The following adjectival ratings will be used:  HIGH, SOME, or LOW Confidence.  If an offeror's record of past performance does not exist or is not available, no rating will be assigned for this factor.

FACTOR 3 EXPERIENCE. 
Section L.  Page limit:  3 pages.  The offeror will describe its real experience with real customers producing real results.  The offeror will describe how its experience will contribute to high quality performance and outcomes for the work of this solicitation.  The offeror should include the three examples identified for its past performance submission, but this experience submission may discuss the breadth and depth of the offeror's experience.  In particular, the Government is interested in the offeror's experience with _____ and _____.

Section M.  The Government will assess its confidence in the likelihood of the offeror's success based on its experience.  The following adjectival ratings will be used:  HIGH, SOME, or LOW Confidence.

 

Of course, this will have to be adapted to fit your need.

Please note that for past performance, there are no separate ratings for recency and relevance -- rather, simply let the recency and relevance inform the bottom-line past performance rating of HIGH, SOME, or LOW Confidence.  It should go without saying that, as a general principle, the more recent or relevant an example is, the more it will affect the rating.  

An offeror without a past performance record might not receive a rating for Factor 2 Past Performance (see FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iv)), but that same offeror might reasonably receive a LOW Confidence rating for Factor 3 Experience.

For the experience evaluation, how about doing it by oral presentation with interactive dialogue (instead of a paper submission)? 

For the past performance evaluation, please do not ask for questionnaires.  Instead, simply call the POCs directly if you need information beyond what was available in the proposal and CPARS.

 

 

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30 minutes ago, ji20874 said:

For the past performance evaluation, please do not ask for questionnaires.  Instead, simply call the POCs directly if you need information beyond what was available in the proposal and CPARS.

I heartily concur, agree, promote that!

Sam101, I think that the sample I sent you used questionnaires to be returned by references. If so, I did not update it that way. I used questionnaires to telephonically interview the references ,  if we didn’t already have first hand knowledge from previous interviews or from our files I reserved the right to verify any past performance info provided in the proposal. I think HQ had decided to require contractor to ask references to return the questionnaire. Hq was going to establish a central repository for such forms, because the industry and references objected to repeated queries. As a reference myself, I objected too! 

if I can remember to do it, I will send you copies of the standardized forms the we required the proposers to submit for prime and key subcontractor recent project experience and for key personnel qualifications and experience .

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1 hour ago, ji20874 said:

It should go without saying that, as a general principle, the more recent or relevant an example is, the more it will affect the rating.  

But isn't it best practice to explicitly state in Section M for Past Performance that this is the case? Otherwise offerors might think the "relevancy is a threshold" way is being used... I'm not too convinced about the thought that the more recent the experience the better it is when the cut-off is three or five years for the definition of recency anyways, I'm not sure that a one-year-old project is better than a two-year-old project, but if somehow it is I think it's best to state that explicitly in Section M.

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In the late 1980s I wrote a description of past performance as an evaluation factor for a source selection textbook for the Defense Logistics Agency, to be used in an acquisition in which the only evaluation factors were to be price and past performance. DLA began using it in their RFPs. In 1991 a protest was filed against one of those procurements. See CORVAC, Inc., B-244766, Nov. 13, 1991. The requirement was for the handling of hazardous materials. The evaluation factors were price and past performance, with price being most important. The protest was against the evaluation of past performance. Here is some of the language about past performance that was in the RFP, as reported by the GAO:

Quote

With respect to past performance, the RFP stated:

“(1) The Government will evaluate the quality of the offeror's past performance. The assessment of the offeror's past performance will be used as a means of evaluating the relative capability of the offeror and the other competitors. Thus, an offeror with an exceptional record of past performance may receive a more favorable evaluation than another whose record is acceptable, even though both may have acceptable technical and management proposals.

“(3) Evaluation of past performance will be a subjective assessment based on a consideration of all relevant facts and circumstances. It will not be based on absolute standards of acceptable performance. The Government is seeking to determine whether the offeror has consistently demonstrated a commitment to customer satisfaction and timely delivery of services at fair and reasonable prices. This is a matter of judgment. Offeror's will be given an opportunity to address especially unfavorable reports of past performance, and the offeror's response—or lack thereof—will be taken into consideration....

2 “(4) Past performance will not be scored, but the Government's conclusions about overall quality of the offeror's past performance will be highly influential in determining the relative merits of the offeror's proposal and in selecting the offeror whose proposal is considered most advantageous to the Government.

“(5) By past performance, the Government means the offeror's record of conforming to specifications and to standards of good workmanship; the offeror's adherence to contract schedules, including the administrative aspects of performance; the offeror's reputation for reasonable and cooperative behavior and commitment to customer satisfaction; and generally, the offeror's business-like concern for the interest of the customer.”

As I recall, the missing paragraph (2) described the sources of information that the agency would consult. Note that the fourth paragraph stated that past performance would not be "scored." Today it would say that it will not be "rated." I do not see any point in assigning ratings to past performance. A rating is just something to argue about.

Six companies submitted proposals. The agency awarded the contract to the company with the third lowest price. The company with the second lowest price protested. The GAO denied the protest.

The COVAC decision has been cited 107 times. OFPP later adopted the language in the last paragraph, (5), as an official definition. See 58 Fed. Reg. 3573, Jan. 11, 1993. See also FAR 42.1501(a).

My reason for pointing this out is to say: Keep it simple and speak to offerors in plain English.

Official coverage of past performance has become confusing and convoluted in the years since the late 1980s. Time and bureaucracy have not been kind to contracting.

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53 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

I do not see any point in assigning ratings to past performance.

I agree that ratings are not required for past performance factor evaluations.  They also are not required for technical factor evaluations.  I have done procurements where we had no adjectival ratings at all -- we evaluated all the factors and noted our observations under each factor, and that was sufficient for the best value tradeoff and selection process. 

53 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

A rating is just something to argue about.

Ain't that the truth?

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3 hours ago, Sam101 said:

But isn't it best practice to explicitly state in Section M for Past Performance that this is the case? Otherwise offerors might think the "relevancy is a threshold" way is being used... I'm not too convinced about the thought that the more recent the experience the better it is when the cut-off is three or five years for the definition of recency anyways, I'm not sure that a one-year-old project is better than a two-year-old project, but if somehow it is I think it's best to state that explicitly in Section M.

One should indicate what is considered to be “recent” , If there is a time period to establish recent experience, state it. For construction at least - there are often a lot of key personnel turnover and there have been many mergers and acquisitions, including many of the largest construction companies. I used to use a period of completion of no more than five years prior to the date of proposals for submitting projects to establish recent, relative experience, even though the FAR says to use six. For anything longer than five years we felt that the corporate memory would be quite slim and likely could be a predecessor organization.

EDIT: in addition a project completed five years ago was likely designed up to ten years ago and construction contracts were awarded much longer ago.than five years. Design criteria, materials, means and methods, etc. have significantly changed over the past decade. Construction management systems have significantly changed, too. 

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4 hours ago, Sam101 said:

But isn't it best practice to explicitly state in Section M for Past Performance that this is the case?

No.  It might be a practice of some, even many, but that doesn't make it a best practice.  For some procurements, it could be a good practice -- but I wouldn't want to make it a rule as a best practice.  To me, speaking generally and all else equal, it is self-evident that more recent and more relevant experience will contribute more to confidence than less recent and less relevant experience.  But I wouldn't want to bar offerors from submitting older past performance -- I prefer to let them share whatever they want to share within their page limits, and then subjectively evaluate that past performance -- and to me, speaking generally, more recent and more relevant experience will contribute more to confidence than less recent and less relevant experience -- and all this without assigning any recency or relevancy ratings.

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