III.  CONSIDERATIONS FOR USING ORAL PRESENTATIONS

A.  Consider whether to use oral presentations early in the acquisition planning process.  Discuss the use of oral presentations with industry early in the acquisition process, preferably in conjunction with market research.  Industry feedback may be obtained through forums such as industry conferences, one-on-one meetings, postings on business opportunities web sites and FedBizOpps notices.  Industry comments on draft Request for Proposal (RFP) oral presentation instructions may result in a better understanding of the Government's intentions and help avoid some of the potential disadvantages discussed in paragraph II.B.

B.  Use of oral presentation techniques need not be applied to entire proposal.  Teams may decide to apply the technique to one or some of the evaluation factors or sub-factors.  Using oral presentations is not an "all-or-none" decision.

C.  The following considerations are provided to help decide whether oral presentations will be beneficial for a particular contracting situation:

1.  Oral presentations are best suited for acquisitions for services, task-order contracts, and some basic and applied research and development efforts.  Offeror qualifications and experience are normally more important on these types of acquisitions, and oral presentations lend themselves well to delivering this kind of information about the offeror.  On more complex acquisitions, oral presentations have been successfully used to gain information regarding team and management processes, corporate commitment, understanding of requirements, and subcontractor relationships.  Acquisitions for noncomplex items also lend themselves to oral presentations, since the offerors can more easily state how they will fulfill the requirement.  Additionally, past performance is often a good candidate for oral presentation.

2.  Requirements should be well defined.  If the offeror is required to provide oral technical proposal information or answer a sample technical task, enough information should be given in the RFP to define the requirement.  Performance and/or functional specifications (as opposed to detailed or design specifications) are desirable when using oral presentations, since this gives the offeror flexibility in the approach used to fulfill the requirement.

3.  Oral presentations seem to work well when the technical and/or management information requested is neither voluminous nor highly complex.  Examples are:

(a) presentation of the entire Mission Capability (technical) factor on smaller, less complex acquisitions;

(b) presentation of entire technical proposal when using the Low-Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) technique or the technical proposal and/or past performance information when using the Performance Price Trade-Off (PPT) technique; or

(c)  addressing adverse past performance information.

4.  For larger or more complex acquisitions, oral presentations may be appropriate for addressing certain sub-factors under Mission Capability such as risk mitigation plans, or cost/price risk.  Depending upon the requirement, oral presentations may be used on complex acquisitions using the formal source selection process.

5.  With respect to evaluation factors/sub-factors, oral presentations are best applied to evaluations of management capability, corporate strengths and capabilities, personnel qualifications, adequacy of facilities and/or processes.

6.  Make sure to consider whether the Government has the ability to adequately evaluate oral presentations.

7.  Address use of oral presentations in Acquisition and Source Selection Plans.

8.  Ensure participating non-government personnel execute a non-disclosure agreement.