Updated March 25, 2021 “DIGEST 1. Protest challenging the agency’s assessment of a deficiency under the management approach factor is denied where the agency’s evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation criteria. 2. Protester is not an interested party to challenge other aspects of the evaluation where its quotation was reasonably evaluated as ineligible for award.” “BACKGROUND …. When conducting its evaluation of quotations, the agency would assign each non-price factor an adjectival rating of excellent, good, acceptable, or not acceptable. AR, Exh. 2, Technical Evaluation Plan at 7-8. As relevant here, the technical evaluation plan provided that in order to be rated acceptable or better, a quotation could not contain any deficiencies,1 and that a quotation that contained one or more deficiencies would be rated not acceptable. Id. The RFQ specified that all three non-price factors would be considered together for the purpose of assigning an overall technical rating. RFQ at 93. The RFQ mandated that the agency would conduct price evaluations for, and therefore consider further for award, only quotations that had been evaluated with an overall technical rating of acceptable or higher. Id. As relevant to this protest, the solicitation instructed vendors to submit a management approach which described the vendor’s “methodology and approach for determining and meeting performance measures identified” and specified that vendors should not submit “generic quality control process[es].” Id. at 91. The RFQ further instructed vendors, as part of their management approach, to submit a quality management plan which contained “at a minimum” the following: a. Performance Monitoring Methods b. Performance Measures c. Approach to ensure that cost, performance, and schedule comply with task planning. d. Methodology for continuous improvement of processes and procedures, including the identification of service metrics that can be tracked in the [task order]. e. Government Roles f. Contractor Roles…” “DISCUSSION The protester challenges the agency’s assessment of a deficiency under the management approach factor. Protest at 9-10, 19-20; Comments & Supp. Protest at 9-10; 20. Specifically, Lamb argues that the agency applied unstated evaluation criteria when evaluating Lamb’s management approach and that the agency’s evaluation was based on an inaccurate reading of Lamb’s quotation. Id. The protester also challenges various other aspects of the agency’s evaluation and award decision.3 Protest at 8-18, 20-24; Comments & Supp. Protest at 2-9. For the reasons set forth below, we find no basis to sustain the protest. Management Approach Evaluation First, the protester contends that the agency applied unstated evaluation criteria in its evaluation of Lamb’s management approach. The protester alleges that the agency unreasonably assessed Lamb’s quotation a deficiency for failing to describe how Lamb would measure performance, even though there was no explicit requirement in the RFQ for vendors to demonstrate how they would measure performance. Protest at 9-10; Comments & Supp. Protest at 9-10. Specifically, the protester argues that the RFQ’s instructions describing what should be included in a quotation’s management approach required only a draft quality management plan which contained performance measures and “nothing more.” Comments & Supp. Protest at 10…” “DECISION Lamb Informatics Limited, of Fairfax, Virginia, protests the issuance of a task order to Pyramid Systems, Inc. of Fairfax, Virginia, under request for quotations (RFQ) No. ID11190052, issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) on behalf of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for information technology (IT) support services. The protester alleges that the agency unreasonably assessed a deficiency under the management approach evaluation factor. The protester also challenges various other aspects of the agency’s evaluation and award decision. We deny the protest.” Read the full 8-page decision here. Updated March 10, 2021  G2X TAKE: The lone known open protest - filed by Lamb Informatics - related to this 10-year multiple-award BPA to provide IT support services for a number of initiatives to modernize the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s IT infrastructure, primarily to provide operations and maintenance services, with additional task areas of program management support, including modernization, enhancement, and transition support, has now been denied.  No details are yet available as to the grounds for the protest, nor the reason for the decision, but they will be shared here as they are available.  Details on the protest, and the list of awardees named to the BPA, are available in the thread below.  Posted December 7, 2020  G2X TAKE: A formal protest has now been filed by Lamb Informatics in relation to this recently awarded 10-year multiple-award BPA to provide IT support services for a number of initiatives to modernize the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)'s IT infrastructure, primarily to provide operations and maintenance services, with additional task areas of program management support, including modernization, enhancement, and transition support.  No details have been provided as to the grounds for the protest. More information will be shared as it is made available.   Of note is that Lamb Informatics was identified as one of the awardees on this BPA. The list of all known awardees includes:  Perspecta  Solutions By Design II 8(a) EDWOSB Spatial Front (SFI)  Pyramid Systems  Lamb Informatics  Small business Cloud Nine Technologies  HUBZone 8(a) small business FreeAlliance.com  VOSB Strongbridge  Small business cFocus Software  One task is known to have been awarded on this BPA, a 5-year, $39M task award to Pyramid Systems for application operations and maintenance for the multifamily housing program office grouping of HUD OCIO. Competed as a small business set-aside, this drew 5 bids.   Solutions by Design, Perspecta, FreeAlliance.com and Spatial Front were recently named to the updated list of NXT UP firms poised to make big waves in the Federal sector in 2020 and for years to come.