CO-gooder

I recently posted the following question on LinkedIn: "For the BD folks, I’d love to hear your thoughts on which evaluation criteria that USAID generally uses, you think enable TECs to actually meaninflgfully discern between offerors (technical approach, mgmt and staffing, corporate capabilities). What about “non-traditional” ones, technical capability, approach to sustainability/adaptability? Others you’ve seen in RFPs? Do you have any ideas for evaluation criteria that you think would be actually useful that you haven’t seen in an RFP? Please share!" I got some interesting responses, one of which was "RFP w/SOW: Need To Know If They Can Do It And Why They Are The Best To Do It (have they done it? successfully? again and again? do they have the capacity and capability to do it for you while doing all the other work?), so do a Best Value Performance Price Trade-Off (BVPT), but also include the availability of relevant personnel, the existence of sound business systems + the usual (responsibility/risk)." "So in a cost-type contract, which by definition is a "best effort" in the first place ( no completion is necessary to get paid), we are not just buying technical expertise in a specific area, but the ability to obtain qualified experts, and engage local actors and international best in class expertise to aggregate solutions towards completion objectives (in CPFF Completion or CPAF) - all while being compliant with an ever-increasing myriad of regulations and fair business practices. " "Existing global recruitment systems (rosters, state-of-the-art databases, continuous engagement with the best experts, participation in global best practice events, associations etc in that technical area), competitively thought-through compensation systems, robust, tested compliance and financial systems that aim at minimizing costs (like in the conduct of competitive business), and not just creating more opportunities to recover overheads. I think financial performance under cost-type contracts over the last 10 years and showing that as the company evolved and invested in systems, it then started making sound decisions in keeping indirects low - that shows responsible cost type contract management. Indication of low employee rotation = happy committed employees." (see here for full responses (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sascha-kemper-6648764/recent-activity/all/) Has anyone developed an eval criterion like this? If yes, can you please share a link to your RFP? Thanks!

Thanks, Vern!

Hello esteemed Contracting Community, I have 3 BPAs (done under FAR Part 13) for audit services. They were awarded together and have the same period of performance (5 years, 2019 to 2024). The PoP is ending this summer and the original requiring office would like to extend the PoP of all 3 BPAs by 5 years. I've looked in Wifcon, read FAR 13.104 and 13.106 and 13.303-2 and 13.303-7 trying to figure out if a J&A is needed to non-competitively extend all 3 BPAs. FAR part 6.001 states that it is not applicable to Part 13. Additionally, my agency guidance states that competition happens at the order level, not the BPA level. As such, I think that I can extend the PoP by 5 years without having to do a J&A? Am I wrong? Please let me know if I need to provide additional details to assist with this question. Thanks!

Got it. Thanks, Jamaal! No, we don't incorporate elements of the successful offeror's proposal into the contract. The other factors are suggested by FAR part 15 and are what lends itself to evaluating the proposals we receive to discern between the offerors.

Evaluation factors would be technical excellence, management capability (might need to leave that one out), and personnel qualifications. Past performance is being reviewed by the contracting office on a pass/fail basis. Your second point is our concern - we have a small number of established partners that make up the offeror pool, but technical approaches (due to what we buy) are not necessarily giveaways for the the evaluators. My CO was looking for best practices' tips for the entire process, e.g. does it work better if we ask offerors to withhold all identifying info, redact certain parts, if we ask offerors to register and then we assign names to use in the proposal. If we use this approach, what's the cleanest way to do it (also for offerors who haven't been asked to do this before). References would be checked by the CO's office, not by the evaluation committee. The problem is we have a small pool of offerors that our CORs know well, so we're trying to remove favoritism or preferences for certain offerors.

My agency procures technical assistance services (development assistance) usually through CPFF contracts (sometimes award fee or firm fixed price). It's largely personnel based assistance (if that makes sense), e.g. helping a host country gain WTO membership, developing Customs systems/offices, agriculture development, banking sector, etc. It could include some hard- and software, but the majority of what we pay for is labor. We have a couple of procurements coming up, but the program descriptions are still being developed.

My supervisory CO has asked me to research how to do a "blind competition," which I understand is a process whereby companies interested in submitting offers do not use their own identity in their technical (and cost?) proposals. The purpose of the blind competition is to establish a true(r) objectivity on behalf of the technical evaluation committee. I have searched the wifcon pages and done a general online search, but have not found any guidance on how to set up a blind competition. I am looking for best ways to set-up/structure a blind competition, e.g. does it work better if offerors are instructed to write their technical proposals in such a way so as to not identify themselves or we ask them to register and then assign a number or other name to them? What are other lessons learned, best practices, guidance, pitfalls, etc.? Thanks in advance for any inputs!