Protecting the Source Selection: Procurement Integrity and Safeguarding — One-Day Essentials

Ask a room of experienced acquisition professionals about the Procurement Integrity Act, and you will often get blank looks. The methods and the evaluation get taught; the rules that keep a source selection clean and lawful frequently do not. This course covers the part almost no one is trained on — and the part that, done poorly, can undo an otherwise sound award.

This course is for the acquisition workforce who run, serve on, or support source selections and want to keep the process clean, lawful, and protected.

We start with the Procurement Integrity Act — what it actually requires, what counts as source selection information and contractor bid or proposal information, and the limits it places on who may access that information and how it may be used. We cover the conflict-of-interest checks that belong on every evaluation team, the certifications and non-disclosure agreements each member should sign before seeing a single proposal, and who should be kept off the Technical Evaluation Panel / Source Selection Team (TEP/SST) and why.

From there we get practical about safeguarding. We cover how to identify and mark source selection information, how to store and handle it, how to control who sees it, and the everyday habits that keep it from leaking — by accident or otherwise. We cover what a compromise looks like, what to do if one happens, and the consequences when integrity rules are not followed. Throughout, we cover the public policy behind procurement integrity — why a level, trustworthy playing field is the foundation of the whole system — where the rules live in the RFO FAR and the underlying law so you can find them yourself, and how getting this right protects the award, the offerors' trust, and the organization.

This course is taught by Melinda Milheim, JD, who spent her federal career in the acquisition workforce. She served as a Contract Specialist, COR, and AOR for the U.S. Navy (and later a Contract Specialist for the Department of Health and Human Services / Indian Health Service), where she worked on more than $7.7 billion in federal contracts across RDT&E, engineering, medical, IT, construction, and major weapon-systems. She draws on that experience, along with her law degree and MBA studies, to teach the why behind the how — so participants leave with sharper judgment, not just a stack of slides. An award-winning DAU/WarU (DAWIA and FAI) instructor, she has taught more than 1,000 federal acquisition workforce students across 20-plus agencies.

Best for: contracting officers, contract specialists, source selection teams, evaluation team members, and the program and technical staff who serve on a Technical Evaluation Panel / Source Selection Team (TEP/SST) — anyone who touches source selection information and needs to handle it correctly.

Format: Available as a one-day course, delivered in person or virtually. Eligible federal acquisition workforce attendees earn 8 CLPs. A note on CLPs: This course earns continuous learning points (CLPs) that both defense (DAWIA) and civilian (FAC-C, FAC-COR, and FAC-P/PM) acquisition professionals can apply toward their continuous learning requirements. Because agencies set their own rules on what qualifies for CLP credit, check with your Acquisition Career Manager (ACM) or component training office to confirm how it applies to your plan.

You might also consider

• Conducting the Source Selection: Running the Evaluation Team — One-Day Essentials — how the team this course protects is built, led, and documented.

• Source Selection Under the RFO FAR (4-Day) — all four source selection courses together, start to finish.

• Source Selection Methodologies Under the RFO FAR — One-Day Essentials — the four best-value methods that shape the source selection you are protecting.

Pricing is set per engagement. Contact Phoenix Canyon to request a quote.