Here, verbatim, is what the RFP tells the offerors to talk about during the first four hours of the oral presentation:

"(1) The Offeror shall provide an Organizational Plan, as part of the oral presentation, which includes a description of the functions and roles of the organizational units, how this organizational structure will improve Pantex Plant operations, operational concepts for how the units will work together and indicate who will be the decision authority for major operational decisions. If a joint venture or teaming arrangement will be used, the Organizational Plan should address how the individual companies will function as a seamless single business unit.

(2) The Offeror shall provide an Organizational Chart that describes the Offeror's proposed organizational structure (to at least one level below Key Personnel). [Sic.]

(3) The Offeror shall provide an oral presentation by each of its Key Personnel who will accomplish the following functions:

General Management
Operations
Environment Safety and Health
Quality Assurance
Controller
Engineering
Program Management
Facilities and Maintenance Management
Research and Development
Safeguards and Security

DOE expects the above functions to be performed by 10 to 12 Key Personnel. Proposed Key Personnel must have a current DOE 'Q' clearance or be eligible to receive such a clearance. After contract award, the proposed Key Personnel for the selected Offeror will be included in a DOE Human Reliability Program.

(4) In these oral presentations, the Key Personnel shall address specific information on the qualifications, experience, demonstrated performance, leadership, and capability to: perform the Statement of Work relevant to their proposed position; cause overall positive change; improve performance; meet commitments to customers; and adapt to changing requirements."

These instructions set up the government evaluators to have to listen to three hours and forty-five minutes (8:30am until 12:30pm, less one 15 minute break) of self-selling by 10 to 12 people, 18.75 to 22.5 minutes per person if each is given equal time. This does not include any time for the government people to ask questions. I wonder how much they can learn about these 10 to 12 "key" people in that time.

Three hours and forty-five minutes of sales-pitching per offeror! No time to ask questions. And that's just before they can go to lunch. Good grief is right! This is no way to pick contractors to run our nuclear weapon production plants.

By Ramon on Thursday, January 27, 2000 - 12:58 pm:

Good grief! Maybe we should regulate this. How about a proposed silly regulation to the effect government people shall sit in non-ergonomic straight back, hard bottom chairs at attention during oral death marches?

Seriously, so much of this seems to be form over substance and have something in common with requirements problems -- failure to pare things down to what is functionally needed to get the job done accompanied by considerable vigor in tossing excess baggage overboard. I also wouldn't be shocked to find some was also the result of trying to please every interested party by addressing their vaguest concerns and interests.

By Vern Edwards on Thursday, January 27, 2000 - 12:07 am:

If you want to see an example of what to avoid when conducting oral presentations, go to the Department of Energy's Albuquerque Operations Office's website and look at its RFP for the M&O contract for the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas: RFP DE-RP04-00AL66620.

The RFP requires each offeror to make six and one-half hours worth of oral presentation in a day that begins at 8:00am and ends at 5 pm.

The agency will open the presentation area to the offeror at 8am. The first session begins at 8:30 and continues until 12:30, with one 15 minute break. During this session the offeror must present its "Key Personnel and Organization Plan." Each and every one of at least ten "key personnel" must speak.

This session is followed by 15 minutes in which DOE will provide the offeror with a "hypothetical technical problem."

The offeror will then get one hour and 45 minutes to get some lunch and prepare a response to the hypothetical. (I hope no one is planning to eat.)

The offeror then gets one hour to present its response, followed by one hour in which it must answer questions about its response.

Finally, the offeror gets one-half hour to make a closing statement.

Note that out of all this time the government personnel get just one hour to ask questions.

This kind of presentation will be extremely expensive to prepare -- the offerors will spend large sums of money to develop the presentation and design overhead slides, to hire proposal consultants, and to conduct presentation rehearsals.

This will be a trial by ordeal that will tax the strength of the offeror's presentation designers and deliverers and the government attendees. The government attendees (who will have to go through this two or three times) will be hard-pressed to remember and give thoughtful consideration to what they hear over the course of such a long day. Most people have a hard time listening attentively to a one hour presentation, even when the speaker is good.

DOE has been requiring these kinds of extreme presentations (trials by ordeal) for some time now. I don't know how they got started doing this. I suppose they think that long presentations are warranted by the large dollar values of the M&O procurements, but that is not sound thinking.

No idea is too good to be ruined by senseless application. Don't do it this way.

Two hours, three hours at most, are enough for an oral presentation and question and answer session. If you need so much information about key personnel and organization that an offeror needs four hours to present it, ask for the information in writing. But you don't need that kind of information to make a sound source selection decision (especially in such a small well-known industry as DOE is dealing with).

(DOE is asking for junk: talk about "leadership," the ability to "cause overall positive change," to "meet commitments to customers," and to "adapt to changing requirements" -- worthless statements that could be cut and paste from a popular business book.)

It's this kind of tendency to spawn perverse mutations of good ideas that gives government contracting (and government people) a bad name.