3.1  Prepare Past Performance Portion of Section L and Section M and Draft Questionnaire.

Based on the information obtained during the planning phase of the acquisition, the PCAG should prepare Section L language (instructions, conditions, and notices to offerors or respondents), Section M language (Evaluation Factors for Award) and the draft questionnaire, if one is included in the RFP, prior to issuance of the DRFP.  To ensure consistency with other parts of the DRFP, the technical, cost, and other source selection team members must review all three of these products.

Early industry involvement is essential to resolve concerns on past performance evaluation, relevancy and recency definitions, and questionnaires before release of the RFP.  Early communications with potential offerors could consist of one-on-one meetings (must meet with all potential offerors), pre-solicitation conferences, requests for information, and DRFP.

a.  Relationship between Acquisition Documents.

The key to successful use of past performance in the source selection process is the establishment of a clear relationship between the requirement documents (statement of objectives (SOO), statement of work (SOW), Performance Work Statement (PWS), or Technical Requirements Document (TRD)), Section L, and Section M.  The factors and subfactors chosen for evaluation must track back to the requirements in the requirement documents.  Make Sections L and M clear with respect to what past performance information the Government will evaluate and the evaluation process.  

b.  Section L, Instructions, Conditions, and Notices to Offerors.

NOTE:  In commercial acquisitions this information will be included in FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors-Commercial Items and FAR 52.212-2 Evaluations-Commercial Items.

The Past Performance Team should consider the following items when developing the past performance portion of Section L and Section L attachments.

(1)  Ask offerors for information on a number of on-going contracts, or contracts completed not more than 3 years ago.  Keep the number of references requested to as few as possible to give an accurate reflection of past performance.  We recommend five to ten from the prime and five from each critical subcontractor.  If you establish one number for the prime including critical subcontractors, and you expect a substantial number of critical subcontractors, you may need to increase the number of references but remember to keep the references to a manageable number.  However, when anticipating a large number of offeror responses, teams may want to reduce these numbers to streamline the evaluation. Where large, multi-function companies are likely to submit proposals, limit the references to work done by the division, group or unit that plans to perform proposed work.  Ask the offeror to identify two current points of contact on each contract reference provided. Instructions should request the original schedule and cost/price, the current schedule and cost/price, and the reason for differences.  An attachment to Section L frequently requests this information.  See Attachment 2 of this guide for an example of Past Performance Information format.

(2)  Encourage offerors to provide information on problems encountered during performance of the identified contracts and the offeror's corrective actions.

(3)  Inform offerors that past performance information on work for commercial customers, state and local governments, and subcontracts that are similar to the Government requirement will be evaluated with similar Federal contracts.  

(4)  Obtain past performance information on subcontractors, teaming partners, and joint ventures that will perform major or critical aspects of the requirement when the information is relevant to the instant acquisition.  In some acquisitions, past performance information on key personnel is required.

(5)  Advise offerors that the Government may use past performance information obtained from sources other than those identified by the offeror.

(6)  State that the Government will discuss past performance information only with the offeror (prime or subcontractor) under review.  Since past performance information is proprietary source selection information, the prime contractor must submit, with their proposal, subcontractor's consent for the Government to disclose it's past performance information to the prime.  Attachment 3 is an example of a consent form letter.  

(7)  Ask the offerors to identify which contracts are relevant indicators of performance against the Mission Capability factor and/or subfactors and Cost/Price factor.

(8)  Consider limiting the pages for each referenced contract, rather than a limit to the total page count for the past performance volume.  Exclude from any page limit: (1) organizational map where you require the offeror to explain corporate reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions, and (2) letters of consent.

(9)  Prepare the draft questionnaire if the offerors will mail it to the POCs.  Attach the draft questionnaire to the DRFP if planning to include a questionnaire in the RFP.   

(10)  Decide whether or not offerors will send out questionnaires to POCs included in their past performance volume.  Prepare language instructing the offerors to send out the attached questionnaire a certain number of days before the PCAG volume is due to the Government.  Offerors should inform the points of contact to forward the completed questionnaire directly to the Government person named on the questionnaire cover letter.  Do not require offerors to track the Government's receipt of completed questionnaires.  See Attachment 6 for Past/Present Performance Questionnaire and Attachment 7 for Sample Questionnaire Cover Letter.

(11)  Consider what kind of information we need to evaluate the role of the various members when we anticipate teaming or subcontracting arrangements. When a subcontracting plan is not required, the PCAG may need to require that offerors indicate scope of work the subcontractors will perform (both nature of work, criticality of the work, and percentage of overall effort).

(12)  Decide if the Past Performance Volume is required earlier than the complete proposals because of the time involved in gathering data.  A suggested time for submission of the Past Performance Volume is 15 days prior to receipt of the proposal.

(13)  Attachment 4 contains an example of Section L Past Performance language.  This is sample language; tailor it for each RFP.

c.  Section M, Evaluation Factors for Award.

PCAG should consider the following items when developing the Section M past performance section.

(1)  Determine the relative weight or importance of the Past Performance Factor. (See MP5315.3, paragraph 4.4.1.2).  Normally, the past performance factor should be a significant evaluation criterion.

(2)  Assign each offeror one of the following performance confidence assessments (MP5315.3, paragraph 5.5.3.2., Table 3):  

(3)  State exactly how we will evaluate the proposals in Section M.

(4)  Define recency or, as a minimum, where it is defined in Section L. Example:  Each relevant contract shall have been performed during the past ____ (fill in a number) years from the date of issuance of this solicitation.

(5)  State the relevancy definitions in Section M.  The PCAG must determine how to define relevancy for this acquisition.  The definitions may consider varying degrees of relevancy such as very relevant, relevant, somewhat relevant and not relevant (See Attachment 5) OR a single definition for relevancy.  Full Tradeoff acquisitions (to include those for services) over $100 million should contain definitions for varying degrees of relevancy.  For Performance Price Tradeoff acquisitions and source selections $10 million and under, a single relevancy definition is acceptable; however, the past performance team must realize it can not evaluate more or less relevant performance based on the single relevancy definition.  Past performance on individual contracts is either relevant or not relevant when Section M defines relevancy with a single definition.

(6)  Consider the following when developing the definition or definitions for relevancy:

(a)  Relevant does not mean the same or identical product or service we will acquire.

(b)  Relevant means sufficiently similar to the instant acquisition to provide indicators of expected performance.  (For example, consider such things as product or service similarity, product or service complexity, contract type, contract dollar value, program phase, the division of the company that will do the work, major or critical subcontractors, teaming partners and joint ventures).

(c)  How will the PCAG determine relevancy for individual contracts-prime contracts, joint ventures, teaming arrangements and subcontractors.  The PCAG should consider the effort, or portion of the effort, that will be proposed by the offeror, teaming partner, or subcontractor whose contract will be reviewed and evaluated.  Did the PCAG write the relevancy definitions to support evaluation of a portion of the requirement?

For example, when the PCAG is evaluating the proposed subcontract and this subcontract will include the same or similar effort that the subcontractor performed very successfully recently, how will the PCAG rate relevancy.  This proposed subcontract is a small but essential part of the instant acquisition.  Base the relevancy determination on the portion of the effort accomplished on the past performance contract compared to the portion of proposed effort.  Because the effort is approximately the same on both efforts, the past performance assessment for this contract in this example should be very relevant.  Assess higher relevancy for contracts that are most similar to the effort, or portion of the effort, for which that contractor is proposing

(7)  If the PCAG team determines that more recent performance and more relevant performance will have a greater impact on the Performance Confidence Assessment than less recent and less relevant effort, they must include language in Section M.

(8)  Define Adverse past performance in Section M.  An example of adverse past performance definition is as follows:  Adverse past performance is defined as past performance information that supports a less than satisfactory rating on any evaluation aspect or any unfavorable comment received from sources without a formal rating system.  

(9)  The PCAG may consider the offeror's past performance in aggregate, in addition to an effort (contract) by effort basis.  Consider previous joint ventures or teaming arrangements in which the proposing partners participated, either with each other or with other entities, in performing work similar to that which they are proposing to perform for the current effort.  For example, the offeror is a joint venture. There are four partners that share equally in the proposed effort.  They established the joint venture for this requirement so past performance information is not available on the joint venture but is available on each of the partners.  Past performance on each of the partners may be only somewhat relevant because work, although the same, is not the same size or dollar value of the current requirement.  However, when the partners' past performance is viewed in the aggregate, the past performance information may more accurately reflect a higher rating.

(10)  Attachment 5 contains an example of Section M Past Performance language.  This is sample language and the PCAG should tailor it for each RFP.