Source Selection Hindsight:
Lessons Learned from former Contracting Officers
Breakout Session #C02
Kevin Jans, President
Skyway Acquisition Solutions, LLC
Paul Schauer, Director of Contracts
BIT Systems, Inc.
Date: Monday, July 28
Time: 4:00 – 5:15
Why We’re Here
• Conversation at 2013 World Congress
– Why do KOs release crazy RFPs and conduct
confusing source selections?
– Uh oh...we were once those KOs
– “Why don’t you share some of these lessons
at 2014 World Congress from having worked
both sides of source selections?”
– Tah Dah!
2
Bona Fides: Kevin
@SkywayAcq
• Contracting Officer: 16 years
– with USAF and SOCOM
• Source Selection Experience
– Aircraft, launch support, IT, technical services,
operations support, weapons, tactical vehicles
• Industry: 3 years
• Target Market Assessments, then
• Capture & proposals KM services, power
systems, services (medical, IT, intel, eng, ops),
software dvlpt, Cyber, PPE, R&D
3
Bona Fides: Paul
• Contracting Officer: 15 years
– with USAF and NRO
• Source Selection Experience
– Aircraft, Satellites
• Industry: 4 years
• Lots of proposals: software engineering,
mission ops in the IC and DOD
4
Baseline Assumptions: Let’s agree
• Contracting Officers want more
– Quality competition
– Quality contractors
– More throughput
– Better communication
– Successful contracts
– More Respect
5
Baseline Assumptions: Let’s agree
• Contracting Officers want less
– “Busy-ness”
– Protesting
– Adversarial debriefs
– Sprinting
– “Conspiracy theories”
– Sour grapes
6
Today’s Concept
Accept the world as it is,
not as you wish it to be.
Then work to change it.
George Washington, 1775
7
“What we wish we did”
Think abundance, not scarcity
8
Slow down to speed up
Slow down to focus
Slow down to negotiate
Slow down and learn something
9
It Shouldn’t Feel Like This…
Paul
Kevin
10
Slow Down to Speed Up
• Slow down to execute on schedule
• Develop reasonable schedule: Stick to it
– Ripple effect when the eval schedules changes
– It’s easier to meet schedule when we do not
sprint
– If you don’t have time to do it right the first time,
will you have time to do it twice?
11
Slow Down to Speed Up
• Offerors spend money before D-RFP
– Long delays drain resources
– Ultimately increase cost for everything due to
the impact of B&P dollars on overheads
– TELL industry about delays early
– Better yet, use a VERY long schedule and be
surprised if you are done early.
– Be rare. Under-promise on schedule
– Beware: the “traffic effect”
12
Slow Down to Speed Up
• Does schedule match acquisition strategy?
• Stop the busyness
• What if you build a longer, executable
schedule? What would really change. Really?
• Is it really an urgent need? If so,
– What about a limited comp (FAR 6.3), UCA
(FAR 17.5), SAP (FAR 13.5), GPC…?
– Slow down and learn something new
13
Slow Down to Speed Up
• How many factors? Subfactors?
– Drive for simplicity
– Force the user to pick three and weight them
– They can give strengths for innovations later,
but have them pick 3
– We are not likely to get innovation, if offerors are
building a case around our 17 eval factors
14
Slow Down to Speed Up
• How long did you give your team to
evaluate and award the contract?
More factors
+ More instructions
+ More pages
MORE TIME
– Risk: If you take too long, the offerors’ proposed
team may no longer be available for you
15
What if the Schedule Slips?
• Contractors must deliver according
to the RFP schedule – CO’s should too
– Increase the probabilty of a successful
acquisition by ensuring contractors can execute
on the schedule they proposed
• The truth about people “on overhead”
– Contractors continuously plan how to keep
everyone working on a billable project
– Very difficult to deal with major changes to
government award schedule
16
Slow down to speed up
Slow down and NEGOTIATE
17
Slow Down to Negotiate
• 15.215-1 “Discussions” are negotiations
that occur after CRD that may result in the
offeror being allowed to revise its proposal.”
– Build negotiations into the schedule
– FPR can be a new proposal, redlines, you decide
– Slow down and hold discussion…
– Use a LONG term view (1 day now for 100 later?)
18
Slow Down to Negotiate
• For us, discussion resulted every time in
– Transparency
– Better communication
– Better prices
– Fewer protests
– Faster awards
– Better contracts
– COMPLETION!
19
Be Obvious
Be Obvious to Teach
Be Obvious to Communicate
Be Obvious so they know what you are doing!
20
Bidder's Conference
• Benefit to Government, not just industry
• Use plain words – what do you want to buy?
– 1-on-1s (or you won’t learn anything)
– Contractors will tell you if DRFP doesn’t match
your words
• Be prepared to answer real questions
– Entire acquisition team in attendance
– Don’t forget the users
• Use Contractor input to validate requirement
21
Make Yourself Available
• Talk to Contractors: just be ethical
• Start with "this is all pre-RFP"
– Just talk - you'll be amazed what you learn
• Why should I talk? Can't contractors read?
– Think of talking them out of bidding
– Help industry qualify your RFP
• Industry doesn’t want to bid if they can’t win
• Do you want to evaluate proposals that cannot win?
22
Create – not Cut and Paste
• What does boilerplate mean?
– Proven, maybe, for the same requirement…
– Are you buying the same thing?
– Offerors will comply with every instruction
• Commoditized RFP = commoditized issues
• More specificity helps offerors “self qualify”
– Leads to better proposals
23
RFP Myths
Myth • Offerors can read your mind
– They can read, but do they understand?
Slow down and ask
– Can they read it? Yes.
– If they don’t understand it, do you really
want them to ‘guess’ when they bid?
– They waste their time and yours
Maybe
24
24
24
© Skyway Acquisition Solutions, LLC
Embrace Questions
• Why do they question my language?
– To gain a competitive advantage? (Maybe)
– Because they don’t understand? (More likely)
– Make improvements if you went too fast
• What if you delay by a month (or two)?
• If it’s THAT important, use FAR 6.3
• Get offerors to help: They read EVERY word
– So make each word count
– And get their input on every word first
25
TEACH offerors how to propose better
26
RFP Myths
Myth • We will get plenty of competition
– We got lots of proposals. However,
•
•
•
•
Many were not ‘competitive’
If they knew not to bid…
If they knew WHY not to bid…
If they really knew what we wanted…
– What if you focused on getting FEWER,
and better (not more), proposals?
– We wish we had
Maybe
27
27
27
© Skyway Acquisition Solutions, LLC
Teach them to Succeed
• To RFI or not to RFI?
– Value to CO: Draw more qualified offerors
• Communicate to get 3 great proposals, not 80 ‘darts’
– Value to Industry: Qualify opportunities
• They only want to bid on RFPs they can win!
– Draft RFPs are your friend
• Consider when offerors start their proposal
• Can be before DRFP, for sure at DRFP release
28
TEACH through Debrief
29
Debriefing
• What CO is often thinking…
– Get me out of here without a protest
• What CO should be thinking…
– They do not WANT to protest
•
Hint: Ironically, COs are actually more likely to
talk offerors into (not out of) protesting
– How much can I tell them to convince them this
was fair, and what can they improve?
– We all want to move on
30
Debriefing
• Does mean
– teach them what you did – be proud of it
– ask them what they liked (and did not like)
– protest paranoia is a self-fulfilling prophecy
– you can influence how well they do next time
• Does not mean
– read the slides
– quote the FAR on what you cannot do (*)
– “lawyer up”
31
A Great Debrief…
• Losing is part of competition
– Offerors (should) expect to lose sometimes
– Neither CO nor offeror like debriefings
– Offerors are disappointed, but they want to know
they got a fair chance and to move on
• Share more information, not less.
– Help them understand why they lost
– Send charts and redacted SSDD
• What would you want to know?
32
“What we wish we did”
Think abundance, not scarcity
33
34