I read this sustained protest decision before I posted it on the Home page.  Now, you try and read AT&T Corporation, B-421195, B-421195.2, Jan 17, 2023.  What do you think?

I think that

1) it appears that the Technical Evaluation Team (TET) may not have been consistent in their comments between proposals, according the the Source Selection Authority (SSA).

2) when the SSA independently read, reviewed and apparently rated the proposals, he didn’t document his basis for adjusting AT&T’s proposal rating and disagreeing with or disregarding 33 strengths that the TET had identified..

3) In my experience, the significant differences between between the evaluation and ratings between the TET and the SSA should have warranted a face to face meeting and point by point discussion for this large task order. It should have been obvious that such a radical difference between 42 strengths (TET) and (9) SSA would need to be well documented or resolved/adjusted to survive possible protest.

4) I didn’t notice whether the 4 additional strengths that the SSA assigned to the winners proposal were documented (think so without rereading the Decision) but that should have also warranted some discussion between the TET and SSA.

5) Even though the SSA can independently review and make his own evaluation, if the SSA took the time to perform an evaluation, I think he could spend a hour or so with the TET to resolve the differences.   We would have done that in my experience.

6) Consistent with 2) above, if the SSA and TET did or didn’t meet, the SSA didn’t document the details of the trade off and selection decision very well. 

4 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

the significant differences between between the evaluation and ratings between the TET and the SSA should have warranted a face to face meeting and point by point discussion for this large task order. It should have been obvious that such a radical difference between 42 strengths (TET) and (9) SSA would need to be well documented or resolved/adjusted to survive possible protest.

What it indicates to me is a broken FAR 16.505 fair opportunity planning process.

It also shows that the ill-defined and troublesome FAR terminology of "strengths" and "weaknesses" should be reconsidered and either clarified or discarded.

I think this is probably a devastating outcome for the contracting officer, whose decision to discard the TET's evaluation findings and make his own must have been controversial. I probably would not have done something like that in such an acquisition. If I had, and if I had suffered this outcome, I like to think that I would have left the agency.

This does not speak well of the Department of Homeland Security's acquisition process in this matter. Maybe too much procurement innovation and not enough attention to rules and details.

 

I think I am intrigued about the footnote reference to another procurement protest where DHS (Secret Service) procured under the same GSA FSS contract.   I know large procurement dollars, and yes I know agencies might have their own rule when estimated Task Order procurements exceed a certain dollar threshold yet large or small I always wonder why an agency complicates the essence of FAR 8.4 regarding Fair Opportunity, Request for Quotes, etc?    I am probably a dunce but I think that a RFP process complicates GSA-FSS procurements.