Winning with Past Performance , livre ebook

Winning with Past Performance
Strategies for Industry and Government
J IM H ILES W. E ARL W ELLS
8230 Leesburg Pike, Suite 800 Tysons Corner, VA 22182 (703) 790-9595 Fax: (703) 790-1371 www.managementconcepts.com
Copyright © 2015 by Management Concepts, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief quotations in review articles.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014941983
ISBN: 978-1-56726-466-1 eISBN: 978-1-56726-449-4
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
J im Hiles started with past performance as a contracting official choosing between competing offerors. He retired after a distinguished career in the U.S. Navy and subsequently led organizational development initiatives at multiple companies, developing and refining contract, partner/vendor management, business development, and service delivery functions.
Earl Wells started with past performance management as a proposal manager for Electronic Data System’s government services division. Since then he has been a capture, proposal, and operations manager for government services at firms including Systemhouse, PRC, Oracle, and BlackBox. Earl has been a Shipley Associates proposal consultant and currently works with multiple companies as a founding partner of Kapner-Wells Consulting.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1:   Past Performance in Context
Definition
Collecting Past Performance Information
Evaluating Past Performance
Problems with Past Performance
History of Government Use
CHAPTER 2:   The Past Performance Cycle
Buyer Past Performance Cycle
Seller Past Performance Cycle
CHAPTER 3:   Past Performance as Storytelling
Providing Just the Facts
Providing Context
Showing Impact
Increasing Understanding
CHAPTER 4:   Past Performance Information
Government Repositories
Private Repositories
Firm Repositories
CHAPTER 5:   Past Performance Evaluations
Responsibility Determination
Contractor Performance Monitoring
Past Performance as an Evaluation Factor in Source Selection
Client Perceptions
Collection Methods
Assessing Past Performance Write-ups
CHAPTER 6:   Disputes and Protests
Timing of Disputes
Contractor Responses to Agency Reviews During Contract Performance
Venue
Basis of Appeals
Case Histories
CHAPTER 7:   The Changing Face of Past Performance
What Caused Past Performance to Rise in Importance?
What Will Cause It to Change?
Are There Models to Learn From?
How Do Successful Firms Manage Their Past Performance?
What Are Government Buyers and Policymakers Doing?
CHAPTER 8:   The Future of Past Performance
Shorter Cycle Times
Increased Standardization and Digitization
Increased Analyzability of Information in Repositories
More Robust Reviewer Identity
Increased Reviewer Accountability
Increased Access to Information
Broader Participation in Reviews
More Interaction Between Buyers, Sellers, and Interested Parties
More Prominent Use of Social Responsibility Metrics
Past Performance as a True Indicator of Future Performance
REFERENCES
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
GLOSSARY
INDEX
FOREWORD
T he past should not be where we’re heading. But it discloses where we’ve been and tells us how we’ve performed. And that performance can measure our likely success in the future.
One of my mantras is that for contractors to be successful in the federal marketplace, they must have an unrelenting focus on “performance, performance, performance.” But even federal contracting firms that think they have performed with excellence must ask: If no one knows about it, did it really happen?
The answer is that past performance is their opportunity to make sure people know about it. In the federal marketplace, there is an almost continuous expansion of federal regulations, agency initiatives, and contracting officer trainings focused on measuring contractor performance, reporting on that performance in a consistent and timely manner, and evaluating those past performance reports for future source selection decisions. Government contractors must pay close attention to their past performance record or else pay another price—in the form of exclusion from future awards.
For those who are serious about managing and leveraging their past performance portfolio, Winning with Past Performance is a must-read. It provides both the what and the how to use past performance information successfully in future opportunities. I’m not aware of any single book that compares to this one, for the full spectrum analysis of issues relating to past performance in the federal marketplace that Jim Hiles and Earl Wells provide, or for its insight into the requirements and opportunities federal past performance presents.
Uniquely, this book also provides insights from the federal government’s perspective. That side is rarely represented. In fact, this book could be a good tutorial for federal officials hoping to quickly come up to speed on the requirements and burdens imposed on them and on their contractors. That knowledge will help make government officials smarter commentators on contractors’ past performance and more sophisticated consumers of contractor past performance reports.
Don’t expect to find a simple checklist for success here, because the authors’ thoughtful commentary and insights permeate this book. But those readers who are committed to success in the increasingly challenging federal market will find tools and actionable strategies they can put into practice immediately. The message is clear: Don’t wait to get started on the journey to “winning with past performance.”
—Alan Chvotkin Executive Vice President and Counsel Professional Services Council 1

 
1 The Professional Services Council is the leading national trade association of firms providing professional and technology services to the federal government. The views expressed here are Alan Chvotkin’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Professional Services Council or any of its members.
PREFACE
T his book is about past performance. It seeks to provide a well-rounded perspective that includes both industry and government points of view. As such, we intend it to inform, advise, and challenge those of us doing business with the government as well as those doing business for the government. We hope it will help aspiring government contractors, government procurement officials, and program managers improve company and contractor performance as well as the management and use of past performance information on both sides of the contracting process. We all share the same goal—to bring awareness of the significance of firm past performance and get it to speak volumes about a particular bidder’s ability to deliver the best results—cost-effectively and at the lowest risk to the government.
In spite of almost two decades of spotlight focus by the federal government on past performance as a means to distinguish among bidders, both the collection and use of past performance information remain disjointed, siloed, and not well understood by either government or industry. There has been practically zero literature of any significance published on the subject that is geared toward helping contractors, whose livelihoods depend on how their past performance information is collected and used by the government. Additionally, there is little in the literature that presents balanced government and industry viewpoints on the subject. Finally, there is no voice in the conversation that succinctly presents the universe of uses and issues associated with past performance. The few texts available essentially take the construct of the current past performance information system as a given and provide little analysis, evaluation, or examination of this system.
Our goal with this book is to fully examine past performance as a business tool, to increase awareness, improve understanding, and promote the adoption and use of smart business practices on both the buyer and seller sides of the past performance equation. Our decades of experience in both industry and government have included dealing with every aspect of firm past performance, ranging from deciding when and how to collect past performance information to evaluating responses to past performance questionnaires, assembling industry teams based on past performance, crafting hundreds of proposals and navigating contractor performance assessment report completion with government clients.
Our intent is to convey three overarching themes:
1. Well-informed buyers and sellers seek to understand what their counterparts on the other side of the buy/sell process go through. Hence, informed buyers and sellers temper their actions and activities based on this knowledge. They gather as much knowledge as possible about the impact of their actions on the other party, on the acquisition, and on the outcomes sought.
2. The highest and best use of past performance information and other customer satisfaction inputs is to impact execution and, therefore, actually improve performance and operations.
3. Both buyers and sellers want to know each other’s identity. They both want to know and understand the other. Who organizations are is perpetuated and understood through stories. Past performance information reported by the buyer and past performance write-ups included by the seller with proposals are these stories and have common features and scripts.
Readers of this book will find immediately useful tools for assessing a firm’s past performance, for implementing active management of past performance information in both government agencies and private firms, and for facilitating discussion. Readers will also benefit from a holistic look at