H.2. Source Selection Discussion

The Source Selection Plan (SSP) documents source selection procedures and organization. Although ser-vices have unique source selection procedures, each focuses on reviewing the proposals and selecting a best value solution. The general process involves receipt and evaluation of the proposals, performance of initial review against evaluation criteria, obtaining the necessary clarifications, and possibly conducting a mid-term briefing to the SSA. In the mid term briefing, the team evaluates each proposal against stan-dards, rather than against each other. As part of the mid-term review, the SSA makes a competitive range Figure 41 Proposal evaluation process

Proposal Evaluation Process Proposal Evaluation Process

1 Receive & Read Proposal

2 Clarification &

Communications

3 Competitive Range Determination and Mid-Term Briefing 4 Formal discussions, if

necessary

5 Final Proposal Revision (FPR), if necessary 6 Final Evaluation and SSA

Briefing

7 Source selection decision made and documented 8 Contract Award

9 Debriefings

determination for each proposal. If the determination is made that more information is required prior to selecting a source, formal discussions with industry begin. After completing these discussions, industry provides a final proposal revision in which the Government team performs the final evaluation and pre-pares a briefing to present to the SSA. The SSA makes a decision, appropriately documented, and the contract is awarded. Debriefings are offered to the non-winning offerors.

Note:

Historically there has been a great deal of focus on ensuring source selections are protest-proof, and there is “a level playing field” provided to all contractors. An emerging trend is to focus on ensuring the winning contractor provides the best value, and the Government can benefit from their inherent strengths and experiences. This is the appropriate objective of a source selection.

A modified approach to the more “classic” proposals is for various elements to be presented orally; i.e., an oral proposal. This is frequently used to address more than the technical approach, concentrating on those areas particularly challenging to present in textual form, such as explanations of the management approach, risk mitigation planning, and decision rationale. Oral proposals frequently yield some combi-nation of briefing charts and words to supplement or replace part of or the entire proposal. It will be sub-ject to the same restrictions as the written proposal. A record must be kept and provided to the applicable offeror. The contracting officer chairs the session and all evaluators must be present to hear the entire presentation. There are certain documents that may not be provided through an oral proposal. At a mini-mum, contract inserts or attachments, representations and certifications, a signed offeror sheet and any exceptions to Government Terms and Conditions must be written.

Note:

A best practice, which many programs find beneficial, is to use oral dialogue as an integral part of the discussions process. When used as a part of the issuance of an EN, this assures clear communication of the Government’s real question. When combined with oral presen-tation of the response, it further facilitates clear communication.

It is generally required that the detailed selection process be formally documented in the SSP. This plan must be prepared prior to receipt of proposals, and prior to release of the RFP. It must be approved by the SSA, and describe the organization, membership and responsibilities of the source selection team. A ba-sic source selection can be as simple as a very small group consisting of a contracting officer and a tech-nical person. It may be a medium sized source selection where there is a SSA, a Source Selection Evalua-tion Team (SSET) and a Performance Review Assessment Group (PRAG). Or it could be a very large source selection with a SSA, the SSET, the PRAG, and SSAC. The SSP must also clearly state the rela-tive importance of factors and sub-factors. Generally, these factors include some form of technical per-formance or mission capability, as well as an assessment of the proposal risk associated with a particular approach. Further, there is a requirement that past performance be graded, in order to determine past per-formance risk. Finally some measure of cost or price will be evaluated. The SSP identifies the relation-ship between cost and other factors and delineates the relative weights of all these considerations as de-scribed in Section M of the RFP (Section I.E.). Key definitions and evaluation approaches are defined, including the standards to be considered to assess the strengths and weaknesses for each element of the proposal. It also provides a description of the evaluation process to be followed, including how to score programs that exceed threshold requirements, and what, if any, value is to be placed on exceeding objec-tives. It defines the structure being used for performing a technical evaluation. Although each service has unique terms, all fundamentally show a range going from low risk, with little impact potential to the program, to high risk, which is likely to have a poorly executed program for the element being rated. The SSP shall include a description of how evaluation results will be presented.

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The cost or price portion of the proposed information is normally viewed as “reasonable” if competition exists, and the proposal is for a fixed price effort. Any further cost/price analysis is done only upon ap-proval of the contracting officer, if there is a reason to believe the price is unreasonable, incomplete or unrealistic. If a cost or fixed price incentive type contract award is planned, then cost reasonableness, realism and completeness will be assessed. If TOCs are part of the evaluation criteria, there must be in-formation to support the out-year analysis.

Proposals must provide an integrated and consistent story to describe how the offeror intends to provide the proposed solution. It normally includes a technical description of the solution, an approach and man-agement structure of how it will be provided, a schedule to be met, and a discussion of the various risks and how they will be mitigated. It also provides cost or price information. As part of the evaluation, the source selection team needs to ensure there is consistency between various elements of the proposal. For example, risk mitigation plans may be provided, but the various elements are not budgeted for in the cost proposal. Another example is a technical approach such as spiral development for software is planned, which is not reflected in the IMP/IMS. Such inconsistencies significantly increase the risk that what is proposed is not what will be delivered.

Caution:

The SSET needs to cross check proposed approaches and costs in the different proposal volumes to ensure a consistent approach. Inconsistencies will generally result in cost and/or problems during program execution.

Beyond performing the technical evaluation and the cost/price evaluation, source selections are required to conduct a past performance evaluation, generally performed by the PRAG. Each offeror is required, as part of the RFP, to identify their applicable relevant past performance. The Government will evaluate the data, determine its relevancy and make a preliminary assessment of the past performance risk and the po-tential impact to the impending contract. Concerns will be identified to the offerors who are allowed to provide feedback and the final past performance risk will be identified.

There may be verbal or written interactions with the various offerors that are not deemed discussions for purposes of contract award.

Clarifications are allowed which make certain aspects of the proposal more clear, re-solve minor clerical errors, or discuss the past performance information. There may also be exchanges to establish a competitive range. An exam-ple may be where an offeror addresses adverse past per-formance information to en-hance the Government’s un-derstanding of the proposal.

This allows for a reasonable interpretation to facilitate the Government’s evaluation process. These clarifications cannot be used to correct defi-Figure 42 Sample proposal evaluation summary for the SSA

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Proposal Evaluation Process Proposal Evaluation Process

Summary for the SSA Summary for the SSA

Mission

MissionCapabilityCapability Offeror A Offeror A

Proposal Risk Proposal Risk

Sub-Factor 1 Sub-Factor 2 Sub-Factor 3 Sub-Factor 4 Sub-Factor 5

Sub- 1 H Sub- 2 L Sub- 3 M Sub-4 L Sub- 5 M

Performance

PerformanceConfidenceConfidence Price/Cost

Price/Cost

ciencies or revise the proposal but may be considered in rating the proposal.

After this initial evaluation is accomplished, a full presentation is developed for the SSA. It describes, in detail, the results of the evaluation against each factor and sub-factor, and includes a recommendation to either award without discussions or enter into discussions with the contractors. A sample of how the evaluation might be presented is shown in Figure 42. The evaluation is formally documented and pre-sented to the SSA for a decision regarding whether there is adequate information to award the contract. If additional information is needed to make such a decision, discussions will be entered into. This determi-nation will be documented as part of the file. At the same time, the SSA must make a competitive range determination.

If an offeror is removed from the competitive range, they will receive written notification that will iden-tify deficiencies or significant weaknesses that were determined by the SSET. A debriefing will be of-fered to that vendor, but will only discuss their proposal evaluation. There will be no opportunity to cor-rect it and they are entitled to only one debriefing.

Frequently discussions are required to determine a winning contractor. They are structured to maximize the Government’s ability to select the best value given the requirements and evaluation factors, but fo-cused on information, which will help discriminate between the various choices. Typically the discus-sions would be focused on resolving deficiencies and significant weaknesses, or understanding the opera-tional value of areas that exceed thresholds. Since entering into discussions may significantly extend con-tract award date, and expenditures of personnel resources are costly, they should be as focused as possi-ble. Further, it may require delicate handling to ensure that the Government team avoids any possibility of technical leveling between contractors. The contractor will be allowed to revise their entire proposal after the discussions are complete, in the Final Proposal Revision (FPR).

Caution:

Evaluation notices need to be scrubbed by the Government team to ensure they focus on information that will make a difference in which offeror is selected. It can be very expensive for industry to reply to each request for information.

Finally, given all the above information and the FPR, an updated proposal evaluation is provided to the SSA. A decision will be made, and documented with the rationale and the benefits. It will include the strengths, deficiencies, significant weaknesses and risks assessed against each proposal along with the supporting rationale for why a contractor was selected. This document reflects the complexity and the value of the environment and the rationale used to determine the winning contractor. It describes what tradeoffs were considered and how the proposal compared to the highest rated proposal. This will be fully releasable to the General Accounting Office (GAO) and provided to all offerors in redacted form.

For example, Offeror A would get the source selection decision document, but it would not include the information in Offeror B’s proposal.

WARNING:

The source selection must be accomplished consistent with the Selection Criteria described in the RFP. The evaluation must be performed using any described tools and standards.

The source selection decision must use relative importance and weighting for each factor described in the Selection Criteria of in the RFP. Otherwise, a protest is possible.

Throughout the source selection process a number of key documents will be required. Documentation will be required on the findings and results of the source selection, which may include items such as a copy of the briefing provided to the SSA as well as a written report to the SSA on how successful each vendor was in meeting the requirements of the RFP. A best practice consideration is to integrate the two

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