UWI Executive Certificate in Public Procurement Law: Major Procurement Projects. Program Agenda. Presented by Paul Emanuelli

Transcription

1 The University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus Faculty of Law UWI Executive Certificate in Public Procurement Law: Major Procurement Projects Program Agenda Presented by Paul Emanuelli Savannah Beach Hotel, Barbados, December 1-2, 2015

2 Program Overview Failed projects are a major risk factor in public procurement. The Symposium on Major Procurement Projects is an innovative course designed to help procurement professionals manage the risks of the procurement cycle to better ensure success in their major project initiatives. This symposium will survey project-specific due diligence measures established by standard-setting bodies including the World Bank, United Nations an Inter-American Development Bank, and focus on a diverse range of procurement areas including national defence, infrastructure, transportation, health care, education, energy and technology. Case studies will be drawn from across the Caribbean and from a broad range of other international jurisdictions including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Day One: The Art of Design will provide an overview of major project risk factors and survey the key principles relating to project governance, with a focus on team organization, project planning, format selection, document design, clear drafting and contract management. Working in collaborative groups, attendees will apply advanced project planning and design principles to a broad selection of projects, including projects drawn from their own procurement portfolios. Day Two: The Art of Selection will focus on helping your organization design and draft solid evaluation plans for its solicitation documents and its evaluation processes. Attendees will be guided through a practical step-by-step approach to building defensible evaluations by establishing clear price calculation rules, integrating transparent non-price evaluation criteria, incorporating precise mandatory requirements and adopting fair evaluation and award rules. The symposium will include practical group-based workshops that focus on applying the five-step design planning process to specific fact scenarios. Attendees will learn: Who to include in initial planning and design meetings and what each member of the project team should contribute to the plan What to include in evaluation threshold requirements, ranking requirements and process rules to better ensure defensible contract awards Where design flaws can cause project delays, cost overruns and bid disputes and how to increase project success rates with flexible tendering formats When to apply design planning principles to launch new projects or jumpstart stalled projects How to establish proper documentation protocols, including pre- and post-bid correspondence, evaluation scoring summaries, selection and award notices, and debriefing procedures, to bolster project defensibility against project audits and bid disputes

3 Detailed Agenda Day One: The Art of Design A. A State of Peril: Understanding Major Project Risks Using recent high-profile case studies drawn from newsreel highlights, public audits and reported lawsuits, this introductory segment will cover the recurring major project risk factors that must be properly balanced to meet project objectives while keeping projects on time, on budget and in compliance with bid process rules. It will also provide an overview of the five-point project design planning process that can help institutions fast-track their procurement projects. This overview will also explain how the linkages between project requirements, pricing structures, evaluation plans, contract assembly, and tendering format selection must be addressed during project planning to better ensure project success. MORNING BREAK B. The Five-Step Design Planning Process 1. What Are We Buying? Defining Your Project Requirements This segment will discuss how a properly designed initial scoping statement should serve as the framework for your project specifications and pricing structures. It will also show you how to address your material disclosure duties to help you avoid performance delays and cost overruns and how to address scope and budget estimates to avoid dead-ending your project in over-budget bid battles. 2. What Is the Pricing Format? Aligning Pricing with Requirements The early identification of an appropriate pricing format is critical to fast-tracking your procurement planning and giving your project the direction it needs to steer clear of bid challenges and performance disputes. This segment will illustrate how initial design planning can help you develop a pricing grid that aligns with your project requirements and price evaluations to provide a clear foundation for post-award contract management. LUNCH BREAK 3. What Is the Evaluation Plan? Managing Mandatories and Choosing Low-Bid or High-Score Ranking This segment will focus on mitigating tender compliance challenges through the selection of clear and streamlined mandatory evaluation requirements. It will also focus on the factors that will help your team choose between low-bid and high-score evaluations while developing clear price calculation formulas and integrating transparent non-price criteria. This segment will set the foundation for developing the detailed evaluation plans discussed in Day Two: The Art of Selection. 4. How Do We Assemble the Contract? Prefabrication or Post-Bid Dialogue This segment will explore the turning points for proper contract design and help your project team pick between pre-fabrication or post-bid dialogue as the preferred method for building your contract with properly aligned project specifications and pricing grids and appropriately tailored legal terms and conditions. This segment will identify common legal agreement issues relevant to major projects that typically require project teams to engage in more in-depth dialogues with prospective suppliers.

4 AFTERNOON BREAK 5. What Is the Right Tendering Format? The Procurement Playbook This interactive session will provide an overview of the different Procurement Playbook formats that are widely used in competitive bidding for major projects, and explore challenging fact situations to determine the best tendering format strategy. You ll learn how to mitigate the risk of tender compliance challenges by using prequalification processes and by integrating rectification protocols into your evaluation plans. You ll also learn when to use streamlined Request for Quotation formats to accelerate your low-bid procurements and how to use high-speed flexible RFP formats to navigate around over-budget bid situations and refine your contract award terms. Day Two: The Art of Selection C. Building Defensible Evaluations 1. Aligning Pricing Structures for Transparent Price Evaluations This module will focus on building transparent price evaluations for major project evaluations by using calculation formulas that clearly track to the line items in the pricing form. It will also explain the importance of accurately disclosing anticipated work volumes and of integrating clear dollars-to-points formulas when using price and non-price criteria to score and rank competing submissions. MORNING BREAK 2. Managing Mandatories This module will focus on mitigating tender compliance challenges by ensuring that the mandatory requirements used in your complex projects are: Clearly identified and consolidated within your procurement document Used sparingly for compulsory requirements only, rather than for desirable but non-essential requirements Measurable using objective pass/fail criteria rather than being reliant on subjective considerations or bidder self-assessments Anchored to the time of bid submission and distinguished from post-award performance requirements LUNCH BREAK 3. Integrating Clear Non-Price Evaluation Criteria This module will focus on properly integrating non-price evaluation criteria into the evaluation grid for your major procurements. Topics covered will include: The importance of avoiding undisclosed criteria, hidden scoring formulas or arbitrary scoring procedures Moving beyond the abstract concept of best value by clearly identifying the specific non-price criteria that will be used in scoring and ranking proposals Disclosing the relative weightings and sub-weightings of the evaluation criteria Identifying any minimum scoring thresholds that will be applied to specific evaluation categories during evaluations

5 AFTERNOON BREAK 4. Creating Fair and Transparent Evaluation and Award Process Paths This module will focus on creating clear, fair and defensible evaluation and award process paths for your major projects. Topics covered will include: Disclosing the entire evaluation, selection and award process and avoiding hidden or vaguely defined discretionary stages Identifying situations where the solicitation may result in multiple or partial contract awards, and setting out the criteria and protocols that will inform those selections Establishing clear post-selection rules that define the preconditions to award and establish the process protocols for rescinding selections and proceeding to the next ranked respondent Ensuring that the scope of the awarded contract is consistent with the description of requirements in the original solicitation document Avoiding unfair advantage and bias in the evaluation and award process Maintaining proper records of the entire evaluation process, including pre- and post-bid correspondence, evaluation scoring summaries, selection and award notices, and debriefing details For registration information contact: Ms. Lorna Payne, Faculty of Law, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Bridgetown, Barbados. Tel: 1 (246) ; lorna.payne@cavehill.uwi.edu Registration forms available at: