The Owner’s Selection Committee - Design-Build for Water and Wastewater Projects - page 204

PREPARING THE SELECTION COMMITTEE
FOR THE EVALUATION PROCESS
At least two weeks before proposals are received, committee members should receive
the schedule for the evaluation process and a copy of the procurement documents (i.e.,
RFQ and/or RFP) and any addenda. These are public documents and do not require any
confidentiality controls. About a week before proposals are received, it is advisable to
hold a committee members' orientation meeting, which should be led by the owner's proj-
ect manager and/or an owner DB consultant. During that orientation, the project scope,
evaluation criteria, and the structure and procedures for selection should be reviewed in
the RFP, and discussed as required by the committee members. Specifically, the roles and
responsibilities of each member should be explained, as well as the procedures for con-
ducting committee activities.
The following list details other topics that should be addressed in the orientation
meeting. Note that chapter 17 presents several methods for evaluating DB proposals.
• Confidentiality requirements and signature of any agreements
• Validation that there are no potential conflicts of interest
• Evaluation and selection schedule, including when committee members need to
be present
• Location of meetings
• Support materials to be provided to the members
• Role of the committee's chairperson
• How and when technical and commercial support will be provided to the
committee
• Procedures, including forms, to document evaluation scores and any comments
such as strengths and weaknesses, benefits, risks, and so on
• How committee member questions should be directed and handled, including
any questions that may be provided to the proposers either before or during the
oral interviews.
• What communication, if any, will be allowed between committee members and if
any committee group discussions will be conducted
• How oral interviews will be conducted: when, how long, how order will be estab-
lished, what committee members can and cannot do, and so on
• DB proposals: how they will arrive; how they will be structured; how they will be
copied and distributed; how members must secure proposal materials, and so on
• The potential teaming arrangements of design-builders: engineer or contractor
led, and if joint ventures are likely, how they are normally structured.
• How final nonprice criteria scores should be prepared. It is recommended that a
scoring guide be provided to the members so that a consistent scoring approach
is used. For example, define the scoring range for evaluation criteria to represent
a member's independent judgment of “excellent,” “very good,” “average,” “below
average,” and “not acceptable.”