# Presentation: 092663

## Source Selection:  Common Myths and Misconceptions

- NIH
- AMC Symposium
- November 9, 2004

- TM

## Are We Communicating?Actual Announcements From Church Bulletins

- Don’t let worry kill you-let the church help.
- Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.
- Thursday, there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers Club.  All wishing to become little mothers, please see the minister in his study.
- For those who have children and don’t know it, we have a new nursery.

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## Are We Communicating?Actual Announcements From Church Bulletins

- At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be “What is Hell?”  Come early, and listen to our choir practice.
- Wednesday, the Ladies’ Liturgy Society will meet.  Mrs. Jones will sing “Put me in My Little Bed,” accompanied by the pastor.
- This being Easter Sunday, we ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.
- A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall.  Music will follow.

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## Acquisition Cycle Time:  “The Need for Speed!”

- “We must become a community of innovative, even daring risk takers. As acquisition leaders, we need to encourage and support our folks when they take thoughtful risks.”
- Dr. Marvin Sambur, SAF/AQ

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## Myth and Misconception #1:

- You must have an evaluation criteria established in the RFP for every possible issue or concern, or there may be aspects of the offeror’s proposal you can’t evaluate.

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## GAO B-275185, JoaQuin Manufacturing Corporation

- “Solicitations must inform offerors of the basis for proposal evaluation, and the evaluation must be based on the factors set forth in the solicitation.  While agencies thus must identify all major factors, they are not required to identify all areas of each factor which might be taken into account, provided the unidentified areas are reasonably related to or encompassed by the stated criteria.”

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## Myth and Misconception #2:

- You must retain all of the individual evaluator’s notes and scoring sheets in the official source selection file.  Otherwise, you could lose a protest.

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## GAO B-285085, Structural Preservation Systems, Inc.

- “If the record indicates that the consensus scores of the evaluation board provide a detailed, reasonable evaluation and comparison of the competing proposals, the individual evaluator’s notes and scoring are not necessary to judge the rationality of the evaluations.”

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## Myth and Misconception #3:

- You must conduct the source selection process in strict accordance with your Source Selection Plan.  If not, you will lose if a protest is filed.

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## GAO B-285085, Structural Preservation Systems, Inc.

- “The protester’s assertion that the agency failed to follow its source selection plan does not provide any basis to sustain the protest.  Source selection plans provide internal agency guidelines, and, as such, do not give outside parties any rights . It is the evaluation scheme in the RFP, not internal agency documents such as source selection plans, to which an agency is required to adhere in evaluating proposals and making the source selection decision.”

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## Myth and Misconception #4:

- During group consensus, if an evaluator decides to change his/her individual rating, they must thoroughly document the rationale for why they are changing. This information must be retained in the source selection file.

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## GAO B-280388, General Security Services Corporation

- “Source selection is a subjective process and draws upon the individual expertise, experience and judgments of the evaluators.  This subjective process can often result in disparate scoring among the evaluators. This range of opinions, however, forms the initial basis for discussion and reconciliation among the evaluators in the group consensus process.  As long as the group’s consensus evaluation is adequately documented, there is no need for mechanical traceability in the record between what was scored by each evaluator and what was scored by the group.”

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## Myth and Misconception #5:

- An evaluator can never use their own direct personal knowledge about an offeror during the proposal evaluation process.  They can only evaluate the offeror based on what is contained in the offeror’s proposal.

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## GAO B-280511.2, GTS Duratek, Inc.

- “Under the circumstances, the agency could not reasonably ignore personally known information about the offeror’s past experience and performance on the contract.  In this case, the evaluator was also the COR on the subject contract and had direct, personal knowledge of the offeror’s performance on that contract.  While there is no legal requirement that all past performance references be included in a valid review of past performance, some information is simple _too close at hand_ to ignore.”

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## Myth and Misconception #6:

- Every question about the draft or final RFP, must be answered and published to all the offerors.

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## Questions and Answers

- If questions and answers are published to all competitors, many important questions will never be asked.
- The FAR encourages “one-on-one” meetings with the offerors. (FAR 15.201)
- Consider the following language in the RFP:  “The Government will review all offeror questions and comments; however, the Government will only publish answers when it is determined the answer will have a material effect on the offeror’s understanding of the RFP and/or approach to developing their proposal.”

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## Myth and Misconception #7:

- You can never bargain with the offeror’s during a competition.

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## Bargaining (FAR 15.306)

- Bargaining includes persuasion, alteration of assumptions and positions, give-and-take, and may apply to price, schedule, technical requirements, type of contract, or other terms of a proposed contract.
- Government may suggest to offerors that have exceeded any mandatory minimums (in ways that are not integral to the design), that their proposals would be more competitive if the excesses were removed and the offered price decreased.

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## Myth and Misconception #8:

- There is no effective way to cut down on the number of competing offerors without running a formal down-select process.

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## Agency may publish presolicitation notice that provides general description of purpose of acquisition and invites potential offerors to submit information
Allows government opportunity to “advise” offerors about their viability for the competition

- Allows government opportunity to “advise” offerors about their viability for the competition

- Advisory Multi-Step ProcessFAR 15.202

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## Advisory Multi-Step Process

- Invite potential
- offerors to submit
- information

- Identify criteria
- used to make
- initial evaluation

- Evaluate
- Responses

- Advise potential
- offerors whether
- or not they’re viable
- competitors

- All may
- participate

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## Myth and Misconception #9:

- If it’s not addressed in the FAR, you shouldn’t do it!

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## Role of the Acquisition Team

- Exercise personal initiative and sound business judgment in providing best-value products or services to meet customer needs
- If a specific strategy, practice, policy, or set of procedures is in the best interest of the government and is not addressed in the FAR, prohibited by law, executive order, or other regulation, that strategy, practice, policy, or procedure is permissible exercise of authority

- FAR 1.102

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