The Owner’s Selection Committee - Design-Build for Water and Wastewater Projects - page 203

Owners will, however, need to address some issues early in the procurement schedule to
better define the selection process. It is recommended that the owner plan and decide
very carefully how the committee will be selected and assembled, and how the process
will proceed. The following list details some concepts that should be considered during
this preplanning phase.
• The nomination of committee members and any alternates, in case members need
to be replaced
• Personal communication restrictions (e.g., “cone of silence”) once members are
named to the committee
• DB consultant participation in the evaluation /selection process and communica-
tion protocol between the consultant and the committee
• Arrangements to provide each committee member with his or her own working
copy of the procurement documents, addenda, and of each DB proposal.
• Protocol for communications among committee members during the evaluation
• Schedule for committee meetings
• An advance site visit to increase the committee's familiarity with the project
• Security procedures for handling and/or removal of proposals and committee
materials from a secured area
SELECTION COMMITTEE COMPOSITION
The size of selection committees varies, but having between five and seven voting mem-
bers is ideal and recommended. This number of members is sufficient to accommodate
the possible withdrawal of one or two members and is easier to manage, keep to a sched-
ule, and maintain focus on the objectives than a larger group. Members should have the
capability to understand the scope and complexity of the project. It is advisable that
members represent the owner's project team, the owner's management, the operators,
and other public or private stakeholders or agencies. Some owners include an indepen-
dent industry firm representative or the DB consultant, not affiliated with any competing
design-builder, on the selection committee either as a voting or nonvoting member. When
inviting members to participate in the selection committee, the expectations for time and
effort, as well as confidentiality and professional conduct should be outlined. Typically,
members need to commit to devoting between 60 to 80 hours to preparation for, and
participation in, the selection committee activities. This commitment can be significantly
higher for large complex projects or for those with a greater scope such as design-build-
operate (DBO).
The committee should have a chairperson that schedules and manages the commit-
tee's activities. The chairperson should have administrative and logistical support for
meeting arrangements, proposal reproduction, and compilation of evaluation comments
and scoring results. Some owners prefer that the chairperson be a nonvoting committee
member so the chairperson can focus on the management and support activities for the
committee.