DEFINITION

Our reference to the “system” of collection, retention, and use of past performance information is meant to refer to the overall ecosystem, meaning the aggregate of behaviors, methods, norms, and so on that make up the commonalities of collection, evaluation, retention, and use of past performance information across the government contracting market. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) has definitions for more than 247 terms that relate to procurement, and in FAR 2.101 defines past performance as an offeror’s or contractor’s performance on active and physically completed contracts. In the FAR, the term past performance appears approximately 20 times spelled out and a little more than 100 times abbreviated as PP. It is apparent that past performance is a substantial part of the government acquisition process although it is minimally defined, perhaps because it is an all-encompassing concept that involves many details and varying perspectives. Whatever the reason for the simple definition, knowledge and awareness of how past performance is evaluated are critical to successful proposals to perform government work.

One of the most succinct definitions of past performance is that it is an evaluation factor (Edwards, 1995). Past performance defined as an evaluation factor distinguishes it from past performance information, or relevant information about a contractor’s actions under previously awarded contracts (Edwards, 1995 and 2005). In this volume, however, we will not limit the term past performance to an evaluation factor and will use the definition put forth by Edwards in 1995:

“Past performance” is a composite of three things: (1) observations of the historical facts of a company’s work experience—what work it did, when and where it did it, whom it did it for, and what methods it used; (2) qualitative judgments about the breadth, depth and relevance of that experience based on those observations; and (3) qualitative judgments about how well the company performed, also based on those observations. (p. 25)