By a2 on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 05:50 pm:

Why don't you just explain what you require in instructions? Recycled "verbage" usually screws things up right nicely.

By Vern Edwards on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 06:57 pm:

I suppose that you could use the language in the old FAR provision, 52.215-7, Unnecessarily Elaborate Proposals or Quotations (APR 1984), which has been removed from FAR. It read as follows:

"Unnecessarily elaborate brochures or other presentations beyond those sufficient to present a complete and effective response to this solicitation are not desired and may be construed as an indication of the offeror's or quoter's lack of cost consciousness. Elaborate art work, expensive paper and bindings, and expensive visual and other presentation aids are neither necessary nor wanted."

By joel hoffman on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 10:28 pm:

We use that old FAR Clause. It pretty well sums up our opinion. You can tailor the language, if you desire.

Reminds me of the time we issued an RFP for a design-build contract to rebuild Homestead Air Force Base after Hurricane Andrew, in the mid 90's. This was a contract for an entire flight line of operational and support buildings, Base Ops, hangars, Base Supply, base CE etc., to bed-down an F-16 fighter wing that Pres. George the First promised South Florida after the hurricane. One of the offerors was a large, international construction company, headquartered in Brazil with a Miami based, US branch office.

Our Chief of Contracting was the PCO/source selection authority. One day, I was briefing him about the best and Final proposal evaluations, while he looked through the proposals. The Brazilian firm's rather elaborate proposal cover sketch of two jet fighters scrambling, complete with afterburners blazing away in full vertical takeoff, caught Ed's eye. Ed had been a Contracting Officer for the Air Force, years ago. All of a sudden, he jumped up out of his seat and started ranting and raving about that sketch! It turned out that the cover sketches were of MIG 29's (apparently a component of Fidel Castro's air forces - the very planes that Homestead Air Force Base is assigned to protect AGAINST)! He told me that there was no way this bunch of clowns, etc., etc. would provide the "best value" to the Government, and that they might even be spies or something!! Lucky for the source selection board and me, it was a weaker proposal, even though it was nearly a million dollars less than the winner's proposal and we had recommended the strong proposal...

I tell that story as a lesson learned about the benefit of warning offerors not to submit unnecessarliy elaborate proposals, which could back-fire on them, in my design-build class.

HAPPY SAILS! joel hoffman

By Vern Edwards on Tuesday, September 03, 2002 - 11:01 pm:

Joel:

That's a great story.

Vern

By Ophelia on Wednesday, September 04, 2002 - 08:11 am:

Enjoyed it also.

By Anonymous on Wednesday, September 04, 2002 - 09:23 am:

Thanks, Vern. I will use the old FAR language.
Thanks, Joel for a great story.

By formerfed on Wednesday, September 04, 2002 - 09:37 am:

I am constantly surprised how many companies gloss over or ignore boilerplate language like the old FAR clause on Unnecessarily Elaborate Proposal.

a2 offers good advice in my opinion. Describe in Section L in concise and direct language what you want. A good RFP provides specific instructions to offerors in Section L, while Section M informs how their offers are evaluated. Both sections should tie together and be written specifically for the procurement.

If your objective is to eliminate all the "fluff", you might use a page number limitation

By a2 on Wednesday, September 04, 2002 - 11:44 am:

The old FAR language is a vast loophole. An "Unnecessarily Elaborate Proposal" is in the eyes of the beholder. You can generally be assured what is necessary in the eyes of a corporate VP for PR will be unnecessary for functional evaluation in your eyes. You can also rest assured that many companies require input from components dealing with image and PR. The proposal team may even need to show your instructions to block requirements that they know will not be welcome. The FAR language "is just a matter of opinion" as far as detail.

Give your corporate proposal teams clear instructions and ammunition to forestall fluff from above. As an example, state that no illustrations shall be used unless required to make an explicit point in the proposal and tied to that language. Require that figures contain only text necessary to explain the components (PR will try to slip those loving statements in otherwise). Limit pages and general font size. Require black and white if you don't need color and that covers contain only identification and corporate logo if fancy covers bother you.

You know what you want and don't want and presumably you can write a few sentences. Why do you want to accept someone else's version and risk not getting what you want?

By Vern Edwards on Wednesday, September 04, 2002 - 12:36 pm:

Gee whiz!

Poor Anonymous just wrote to ask for some info and didn't say that he/she wasn't going to include other information in the instructions to offerors. He/she just wanted some words to make a point.

There's nothing wrong with the old FAR language; it was standard for nearly three four decades and didn't cause any problems. Historically, the provision figured in only 12 GAO protest decisions, none of which was sustained due to the provision. In one case the GAO said:

"We believe the record supports the reasonableness of the agency's scoring. Apparently, one reason that PDSI did not receive higher scores for Technical Understanding and Approach was because PDSI submitted an unnecessarily elaborate proposal that in part was confusing regarding what was being offered. An offeror has the burden of submitting an adequately written proposal permitting the agency to make an intelligent evaluation, and failure to do so justifies lowering the proposal's score."

Professional Data Services, Inc., B-220002, Dec. 13, 1985.

While a2 and formerfed are entitled to their opinions (and I agree with them for the most part), let's cut Anonymous some slack.

If you want to give Anonymous some really good unsolicited advice, suggest that he/she drop the requirement for written technical proposals entirely and instead use oral presentations and a simple form to solicit binding offers.