“The overriding conclusion is, there is ‘a fundamental mismatch’ between what agencies want to hear about and how proposal teams spend time and money..”

Unique Proposal Evaluation ResearchWendy Frieman

On July 15, 2015 Wendy Frieman [say Freeman] made a presentation at the NCA APMP dinner meeting on research she had performed addressing the RFP evaluation process. During the past three years, she has conducted more than 100 interviews with individuals who have substantial source selection experience. Her interview subjects crossed agencies, domains, and levels, and collectively participated in more than $100 B in awards.
Her findings provide deep insight that is of interest to anyone preparing and submitting contract proposals to federal agencies. Wendy is a Vice President for Proposal Management at The Lewin Group. Her insight, good organization, and articulate delivery enhanced the presentation.

 

Proposal Evaluation Insights

She said that common themes emerged from the research: “The overriding conclusion is, there is ‘a fundamental mismatch’ between what agencies want to hear about and how proposal teams spend their time and money..”

She painted a vivid picture of the dismal situation for the Source Evaluation Board (SEB) members. This “undesirable position” has overworked board members brought into a room where they can’t leave until they finish reading “all of that boring stuff.” The members have regular jobs and heavy responsibilities. Their overriding goal is “to get out of the room.” Some are new to the job. But “most do not come to the job with a preconceived notion as to who is the winner.” The process is “more fair that some people believe.”

Many of the evaluation and selection personnel fail to grasp what losing means for industry. A young contracting officer (CO) who Wendy knows was describing a debriefing meeting provided to a losing bidder. He commented, “Why was everyone so emotional? It is just a proposal.”

The CO sees the RFP as his or her baby. Therefore, they see complaints on the RFP as a slam against their baby. Therefore bidders need to be careful about how they ask questions in order to avoid offense. And this also includes verbal questions. [Some bidders I know will never ask a question, preferring to have a third party ask all of their questions. – Editor] Further, the Government loves to use objective evaluation factors to avoid a protest. This includes items that are cut and dried such as certifications and accreditation’s.

 

Common Bidder Mistakes

Don’t put extra items not called for such as attachments and annexes in your proposal. This just keeps the evaluators in the room longer and makes them annoyed with your proposal. Also the evaluators are not aware of themes and discriminators. That is not to say these don’t help strengthen your proposal. Just the evaluators are unaware of them. And they wont admit that graphics helps a proposal.

Proposal teams go through needless anguish on things like definition of a word in the RFP or development of a grand graphic explaining the whole concept. Usually the word in question has its normal meaning, and if there is a doubt, go down and hall and ask a random person what the word means. Wendy believes that time spent obsessing on the hidden meaning in an RFP is misspent because the meanings are usually straightforward. “Don’t speculate or read meaning into the RFP.”

Wendy is familiar with one solicitation where the bidder spent a huge amount of time developing an overarching graphic to explain the concept. And the government evaluators couldn’t understand it.

\She has seen proposal teams trying to write a novel. In order to follow the rule of helping the SEB members “get out of the room,” what bidders really need to do is start with the evaluation criteria and make sure everything they write maps back to those criteria. . Answer everything with concrete proof. Address RFP requirements that are not directly relevant to evaluation criteria with the minimum amount of effort. When you are not straightforward and compliant and deviate from instructions and can’t be crisp and clear, it makes the SEB personnel doubt you could do a responsive job. Keep the answers responsive to section L instructions; be careful to conclusively address the section M evaluation factors; and answer the RFP in order so the evaluators will never have trouble finding your responses.

Wendy believes an efficient approach is to:
1. Start with a compliant response
2. Then add ghosting, text boxes, etc.

She has seen many proposal teams that spend days completing the strategy and trying to come to grips with the program when the schedule is short. In her opinion you should not hold up starting to write until all themes are complete, because it wastes too much time.

It is important to have a deep understanding of the program and the customer. Whether you are incumbent or challenger, you should probably no bid unless you have a deep understanding. One of her customers posted photos of the SEB members. Although it was difficult. the proposal manager was able to coax information about all of them out of the team for use in preparing a more responsive proposal.

 

Proposal Evaluation Staff

Sometimes understaffed agencies outsource CO functions. They are required to say they are doing this if they are. Once she was debriefed by a CO who was a contractor. When there are questions in the RFP that don’t align with section L, then you need to ask a question. When you answer RFP items, use the “reasonable person” standard – provide an answer that is brief enough but that a reasonable person would consider responsive.

“The biggest change in my proposal approach after completing this research is that ‘now the section M evaluation factors are my Bible’.”

“In closing, Wendy said, “The biggest change in my proposal approach after completing this research is that ‘now the section M evaluation factors are my Bible’.”
Further, she mentioned, “the work of the Source Selection Board (SSB) is not always final.” She has seen the CO prevail upon the SSB to reverse its decisions.