John makes a very good point. I prefer to think of these types of documents as a "Request for Information" (RFI), which is a common contracting mechanism. It allows vendors to make general presentations about their capabilities, and that allows the host institution to put together a "short list" of potential contractors with whom they can engage in serious discussions. Those discussions then result in negotiations and, hopefully, the selection of a vendor and the execution of a contract. The RFI ensures that everybody knows this opportunity is there. That's different than a binding RFP where criteria for selection (e.g., "10 points for lowest cost, 10 points for technical aptitude") are published in advance and then applied based on the proposals submitted. Regards, Carl > > > --On Thursday, 13 January, 2005 17:42 +0100 "Wijnen, Bert > (Bert)" <bwijnen@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >> We definitely do want to discourage egregious bloat of direct > >> staff posts, but we also want to discourage egregious bloat > >> at the contractors we outsource to. I'm not sure why people > >> think there is more risk of one than the other. > >> > > > > With the outsourcing model, my underastanding is that we want > > to do it via an RFP process, and so that would help (I hope) > > reduce bloat. > > Bert, > > It is not easy to write really good RFPs. Indeed, it is > generally quite hard. Perhaps more important in this context, > normal RFPs are good at explaining to would-be bidders or > contractors what will be expected, but don't necessarily provide > good explanations of why we would want it done or how we justify > it. If poor RFPs go out, or poor contracts are written, we end > up with contractor-management or renegotiation problems that are > typically more difficult than employee job descriptions and > contracts, since the latter usually include "such additional > tasks as required" clauses. No sensible external contractor > agrees to such a clause without the ability to renegotiate the > agreement, demand additional fees, etc. A comitment to an RFP > process does ensure that the IASA puts resources into > RFP-writing, RFP-evaluating, and similar activities that may be > useful but may not, for a given situation be, to use EKR's term, > efficient. > > If we get multiple bidders on the same well-written RFP, we can > perhaps expect them to compete to produce the lowest price or > fewest staff needed to meet the RFP/contract provisions. > However, the Internet community had not had wonderful > experiences with "low bid" contracting, especially if the RFPs > are not exceptionally well written: getting the job done well is > often more important than getting the job done at the minimal > level needed to conform to an RFP or contract. > > So, with or without "an RFP process", we are back to needing to > trust the judgment and skills of the IAD and IAOC, with the > remedy of firing the latter if they screw up often enough. An > RFP process followed by an outsourcing contract does require > that expectations be written down. That is a good thing, but > there might be other, more efficient, ways to accomplish it in > some cases. And, again, it doesn't help much to assure us that > sensible decisions are being made about bloat-minimization: that > is a program analysis and evaluation function, not an RFP one. > > john > > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf