The Team Is Scored First

On a qualification-based federal pursuit, the first thing an evaluator reads is who you are: the firms, the named people, the projects they delivered together. The methodology, the schedule and the price come later, if they come at all. A team that does not qualify never gets to show them.

Yet pursuit teams are routinely assembled by availability. The partner who answered first, the consultant from the last job, the firm that happened to call. The roster is written before anyone has read the evaluation grid closely. That is a contact list, not a team.

A name on a response is not a courtesy either. It is a commitment. One set of federal general conditions states the rule plainly: where specific individuals are identified in the contract, the contractor must provide them unless it cannot for reasons beyond its control. A replacement must have similar qualifications and experience, meet the criteria used to select the contractor, and be acceptable to Canada. The résumé submitted at qualification is a promise kept for the life of the contract.

Five Ways a Team Is Built to Fail

1.The roster written before the grid is read

Every rated criterion a team member can satisfy is a slot: the builder, the designer, the specialist, the bonding, the clearances, the references the evaluators will recognize. A team built from the grid fills each slot for a reason that scores. A team built from the contact list fills the slots that happen to be available, and leaves gaps the evaluators find before you do.

2.Everyone approached at once

Recruiting by broadcast feels efficient. It gives up the one advantage that order provides. Every firm's decision includes the same question: who else is in? A credible first commitment makes every following yes cheaper. An empty team pays full price for every seat. Approach everyone on the same day and every firm prices you as an empty team.

3.The conflict nobody screened

Current federal standard instructions allow Canada to reject a bid where the bidder, a subcontractor, or any of their employees or former employees took part in preparing the solicitation, or had access to information other bidders did not. By submitting, the bidder represents that it is in no such position. One member's history can carry the whole team out of the evaluation.

The same screen checks each proposed member's standing under the federal Ineligibility and Suspension Policy, and its clearance eligibility for the slot it would fill. The screen runs before the first call, not after the response is assembled.

4.The name with nobody behind it

A marquee name on the organization chart earns points at qualification. If the person behind the name is committed elsewhere during the delivery years, those points are borrowed. The replacement clause collects them: the substitute must match the original and be acceptable to Canada, and the evaluators scored the original. A team that cannot deliver its named people has already started to change.

5.The handshake treated as a contract

Verbal commitments age, and competing teams court the same firms. A partner who agreed in principle in the spring can be on another organization chart by the summer. A member who is not on paper is a member you are renting week to week.

The paper matters for a second reason. Where a contract is awarded to a joint venture, current federal language makes every member jointly and severally liable for its performance. Each partner underwrites the others. Both sides should know that before the first signature, not after.

A team approached in the wrong order assembles someone else's team.

Why This Belongs to the Principal

Teaming is usually handed to business development along with the contact list. The outreach can be delegated. The ownership cannot. Every name on the response is a commitment the principal will deliver, and on a joint venture, every partner's performance is a liability the principal carries.

Owners have a stake here too. An owner selects a team on the strength of the people it scored. A loosely assembled team is the team most likely to change after award, and the owner then manages a team it never evaluated.

The team is assembled once. It is delivered for years.

A Teaming Discipline: Six Controls

01
Read the grid and the lock date first. Map every rated criterion to a slot, and every slot to the reason it scores. Then read when the team locks. Some qualification documents allow a change to the respondent team only with the authority's express written consent, which may be refused or granted on conditions. Where composition locks at qualification, that date is the real deadline, not the proposal date.
02
Screen before the call. Conflict of interest, unfair advantage, standing under the Ineligibility and Suspension Policy, clearance eligibility for the slot. An unscreened candidate is not approached.
03
Secure the anchor first. The anchor is not always the largest firm. It is the member whose commitment most raises the value of joining for everyone after it, who can be secured now, and who could be lost to another team if you wait.
04
Cite commitments at their true level. "Agreed in principle" and "signed a letter of intent" are different currencies. Overstating one to land the next is the fastest way to lose both. This is a small industry, and principals talk.
05
Paper every yes. Set the paper deadline at the moment of the verbal yes: a non-disclosure agreement, then a letter of intent with exclusivity, then a teaming agreement with scope, workshare and withdrawal terms. Make exclusivity specific to the pursuit, time-limited, and void if the pursuit ends. Partners sign faster when the cage has a door.
06
Name only the people who will be there. Confirm each key person's availability across the delivery schedule, in writing, before the résumé goes into the response.

Route Around the Damage

Every market carries its grievances: the architect paid late on the last job, the builder who lost a claim, the two principals who no longer take each other's calls. A team built from the best firms in a market will sooner or later need two of them who share a history.

Approaching across the damage rarely works. The better route runs through the team member who holds the clean relationship, who makes the introduction and vouches for the pursuit. If the firm joins, design the workshare so the two parties do not share an interface. If the grievance is still live, take the next candidate on the list.

Two moves never work. Concealing the other party's involvement turns a hard conversation into a defection, discovered at the worst moment. Disparaging a competing team reads as weakness and travels faster than the pitch. The affirmative case is the only case worth making.

Companion Pieces

What the Evaluation Grid Cannot See examines how capability disappears inside an evaluation. This piece concerns the step before it: choosing the capability the grid will be asked to see. Federal Construction Procurement: A Field Guide for Owners and GCs maps the terrain upstream of both. Written to Be Scored takes the next step: turning that team into a response the grid can score.

The Fiduciary Reading

A pursuit team is assembled in weeks and delivered over years. The weeks decide what the years will hold: which people show up, which partners carry which risk, and whether the team the owner selected is the team the owner gets.

A grid map, a screen, an anchor, paper at every yes and confirmed names cost a principal a few weeks of discipline. The alternative is a team that looks complete on the organization chart and comes apart under the first pressure.

The team is the first deliverable.

Luc Simard
LSPP Solutions