Common Mistakes In Government Contracting, and

How To Avoid Them

Recording Link PM

Recording Link AM

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Speaker Bio

• About me– President & CEO

• Seville Government Consulting

– Director - Certifications, Tyson’s Corner Chapter NCMA

@jaimegracia

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimegracia

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Industry And Government Communications: How Collaboration Improves Outcomes

•The early identification of requirements for an acquisition has been highlighted as a major

challenge facing the government

•Without effective engagement

–Clarity of purpose is never obtained when the government acquires a product or service and does not

adequately define up-front what it wants

–Fundamental mismatch among government wants, needs, affordability, and sustainability

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Industry And Government Communications: How Collaboration Improves Outcomes

•Discussions with Industry to identify the real needs, not just “requirements”

–Rethink vendor outreach

–Discuss affordability

•As the needs are identified, prioritize them through a lens of affordability

•Break reliance on known and preferred solutions and focus instead on the actual needs of users

–Innovation through the use of performance-based contracts

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Government: Inadequate Market Research

•Creating a culture for sharing knowledge and improving

federal acquisition

•Requirements

•Weak competition

•Inadequate price

•Same cast of characters

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Industry: Does Your Business Look Like A Risk?

•Government contracting is a risk-averse environment

•Risk issues

•No track record

•No references

•The owners use AOL, G-Mail, Yahoo and other free e-mail services for “official” government communications.

•Do not know agency

•Do not speak the “language:

•All about educating yourself!

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•Collaboration builds better RFPs

– What, exactly, does your RFP communicate about your

organization?

– Is it well structured and clearly written?

– Can recipients scan it and understand what you're

looking for?

– Is it free of jargon?

– Are you getting the same questions from numerous

vendors?

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Government: Inadequate RFPs

High quality RFPs garner high quality responses

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Industry: Awful Proposals

•Poorly designed

•Misspellings, typos, wrong acronyms

•Wrong agency

•Improper use of graphics

•Not following instructions

•Making it difficult to read

•No consideration to reader

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Industry: Awful Proposals (cont’d)

•HOWs, Who’s and Where’s of the proposal

• Articulate HOW you will accomplish the project

•Commonly-missed area in proposal writing

•Forget themes of “superior customer service” and “unmatched experience.”

•Fluff

•Solving the government’s problem at a fair and reasonable price is what gets you the win.

•Articulate how key personnel add value to the solution

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Government: Inadequate Debriefs

•Thoughtful and thorough debriefs helps build partnerships

•Take the time to talk with the representative of each firm that submitted

a proposal

•Forthright discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of their proposal

compared with the competition's.

•Builds the agency’s reputation

•Creates confidence in the contract award decision

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Industry: Ask Questions of RFP

•Ask questions of RFP requirements

•Ambiguous, conflicting, TBD

•Don’t rely on own interpretation

•Know what happens when you assume

•You will assume risk

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Government: Wrong Contract Type

•Firm Fixed Price is not the only contract type available

•Effective market research

•Consider nature of work

•What is being purchased

•Need to consider Risk

•Manage to correct contract type

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Industry: Not Following Proposal Submission Instructions

•Read instruction carefully, and follow them to the letter!

•Resume format

•Font sizes

•Locations

•Times

•Page counts

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Government: Not Ensuring Prompt Payment

•Prompt Payment Act implemented in FAR 32.9

• Vendors need to be paid in a timely manner

•30 days after a “proper” invoice is received, or by the payment date set in the contract

•CO responsible

•7 days after receipt, invoice deemed proper

•Interest payments

•Don’t assume payment was made

•Don’t use payment as a negotiating tactic or weapon

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Industry: Wrong Forum for Bid Protest

•Three forums, and three forums, only

•Procuring agency

•Government Accountability Office

•Preferred forum for most protests

•Court of Federal Claims

•NOT SBA

•Understand time frames for submitting protest

•Must be filed within 10 days of when a protester knows or should know of the basis of the protest

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Government: Improper Evaluations

•Critical to use only stated evaluation criteria, and evaluation mechanisms

•Ignoring RFP

•Using some criteria, not others

•Tradeoff to LPTA

•Using criteria not in RFP

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Government: Improper Discussions

•Discussions must be meaningful, and not misleading

•Deficiencies, weaknesses, or adverse past performance information to which it has not yet responded

•Do not mislead or misinform

•No favoritism

•Do not reveal one offeror’s solution to another, or price

•Offeror’s must be a given an opportunity to submit final proposal revisions on a common cutoff date.

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Industry: Be World - Class Contractor

•Satisfactory is not good enough

•Effective, efficient, economical

•Innovative

•Always find ways to improve

•Value engineering

•Superior service to government customer

•Skilled, well-trained, capable, and professional workforce

•Avoid incumbentnitis

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Q&A