Plus GSA shows its distaste for set-asides; DoD wants your small-business advice; GAO's affiliate-past-performance case is for entity-owned firms; and GAO wants to make it harder to get agency reports
Oh interesting--it's definitely true that agencies spend a lot of time thinking about protests and how they'll affect the timeline. The GAO report had a graph showing how bid protests have become less frequent over the past four years. It's probably because of the higher threshold for order protests at GAO. What was most interesting to me was that, starting in 2020, DoD started accounting for fewer than 50% of protests. That's probably because of the higher DoD order-protest threshold or enhanced debriefings. But DoD contracting officers also could be doing a better job at structuring their procurements.
Thank you! Being on the BD side of the house, a lot of the protest activity that goes on is sort of a 'black box' to me (I won't speak for others).
Is it me, or is protesting now basically part of the bids process? I remember back when people didn't want to protest because no one wanted to upset the agency. Those days seem to be long gone. It seems like every bad RFP I see now - and unfortunately, that's a lot - has a "pre-bid protest" discussion, along with a set up for post award protest "just in case." I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on that.
A great post Sam! Thanks for untangling all this. The affiliate past performance discussion was particularly enlightening!
Oh interesting--it's definitely true that agencies spend a lot of time thinking about protests and how they'll affect the timeline. The GAO report had a graph showing how bid protests have become less frequent over the past four years. It's probably because of the higher threshold for order protests at GAO. What was most interesting to me was that, starting in 2020, DoD started accounting for fewer than 50% of protests. That's probably because of the higher DoD order-protest threshold or enhanced debriefings. But DoD contracting officers also could be doing a better job at structuring their procurements.
Thank you! Being on the BD side of the house, a lot of the protest activity that goes on is sort of a 'black box' to me (I won't speak for others).
Is it me, or is protesting now basically part of the bids process? I remember back when people didn't want to protest because no one wanted to upset the agency. Those days seem to be long gone. It seems like every bad RFP I see now - and unfortunately, that's a lot - has a "pre-bid protest" discussion, along with a set up for post award protest "just in case." I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on that.