Finding similar projects for cost comparison?

Question

We're developing an application on a contract basis for an arm of a governmental organization.

At the moment, we're students, and payment was slated to done using student funding avenues. However, I've just heard word that we'll need to set up a business, write up formal requirements and a proposal, and assist in comparing bids of similar scope and domain.

So, for instance, try to find/identify applications and costs that use:

• mobile phones
• a mapping system
• a PHP backend

Is there any browsable/searchable system for comparing prices of similar projects? What is the typical way to "compare costs" for a project?

(I did try to find answers on this forum and online, hope this question isn't redundant.)

Mahalo

Answer 1

See FedBizOpps.gov: https://www.fbo.gov

This is where the gov posts its RFP's. You may not be dealing with the federal gov't but this is a place to begin your research as the general process is similar.

Since you are dealing with some kind of gov't agency, and you are just starting out, I strongly recommend that you hop on down to your local SBA and get plugged into their support program: http://www.sba.gov

Especially SCORE - which is a bunch of experienced people volunteering to mentor others like yourself. They can help you with setting up your business and learning the ways of gov't contracting. Tremendous resources, and free. Good luck!

Answer 2

We're developing an application on a contract basis for an arm of a governmental organization.

At the moment, we're students, and payment was slated to done using student funding avenues. However, I've just heard word that we'll need to set up a business, write up formal requirements and a proposal, and assist in comparing bids of similar scope and domain.

I don't understand how you could bid on a contract (by submitting a proposal) and also evaluate the bids of other vendors. Or are you a single-source vendor and you are looking at past bids from previous projects? If the latter then OK, if the former there appears to be a huge conflict of interest and you might want to seek legal advice before proceeding down this path.

Assuming that everything is OK from a legal perspective (and disclaimer here that I am not a lawyer and am not dispensing legal advice):

Is there any browsable/searchable system for comparing prices of similar projects?

This depends on the government or the agency. Your best bet is to ask the agency if they have that kind of information available, by and large in western democracies you should have access to costs for past projects. If the agency you are dealing with is having you compare bids from past similar contracts you should be asking them if they have a searchable system.

What is the typical way to "compare costs" for a project?

The experience that I've had with US Federal gov't contracts is that you as the vendor don't get to compare costs, bids are sealed. I do know that they look for discrepancies between vendors in terms of time, scope, resources, budget. So if one vendor out of five says the effort will take half as long as the other vendors a red flag goes up as the vendor may not know what they are doing or haven't put much thought into the bid. With larger RFPs points will be assigned to different sections to try to make evaluation more objective.

Does the requesting agency simply seek out other bids based on the same requirements document we'd generate?

Again based on my experience the agency sends out requirements as an RFP to a number of eligible vendors. The requirements would be the same for all vendors. Vendors may have been pre-selected (e.g. based on past experience, research on capabilities, etc) or it may be a more general thing.

More generally, government contracts are a complex thing, and given that no two will be alike you are kind of on your own beyond some basic guidelines:

• Base your costs on your estimates and not others. You don't know what your competitor's margins are, if they are more or less efficient than you, etc. Make a best guess on how much time the work will take you and give a price based on your hourly rate. That hourly rate will need to factor in all of your overhead over the period of performance of the contract, including in your case the costs to set up your business. Trying to undercut the competition to ge the contract is a good way to either lose money or tick off the agency you are dealing with or both.
• Factor in financial risk. Government contracts are usually firm fixed price, so what they pay is what is in the contract regardless of how much it costs you. That is a good chunk of the reason why government contracts are as expensive as they are.
• Clearly define scope. Again, contracts are usually FFP so you need to be clear and precise about what is/is not included in the end deliverables.
• There will likely be significant oversight costs. I say significant in the sense that oversight costs will be a larger proportion of your overall costs than you would think. Regardless of contract size there will be someone at the government's end that fills the role of a contract officer, andn is responsible for ensuring you are doing your job. Expect to devote a non-negligible proportion of your work week on documenting what you have done and reporting it.

Answer 3

TL;DR

Comparing project costs outside of your company or project team may be a useful sanity check, but it is rarely accurate for planning purposes. You need to perform your own cost estimates based on your organization's level of domain knowledge, labor estimates, and process maturity levels.

Using someone else's cost estimates as anything other than an idealized management target is a recipe for project failure, because industry-wide means or averages can still hide some truly huge variances that may derail your project. However, if you insist on using the data anyway, some of it is certainly available from public sources.

FOIA Requests

In theory, past bids for US federal government contracts should be available under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but are often withheld for a variety of reasons (legitimate or otherwise).

"Open Government" Laws

Various US states and municipalities have "open government" laws that are intended to make the bidding process transparent and subject to public review. The laws vary widely by locale, and again may not always be followed as they should be. Your mileage may very definitely vary at the state and local levels, even more so than at the federal level.

Don't Budget That Way

Even if you have access to detailed bids from previous contract winners, it's of limited value because:

1. It doesn't reflect your cost structure or level of domain expertise for the current project proposal.
2. Lowest-bidder contracts have significant failure rates.
3. Your labor and unit costs may vary significantly from other bidders.
4. Cost may be only one weighting factor in the bid process.
5. Project criteria or assumptions may have changed enough to invalidate specific line-item estimates.

For example, if you are competing for a pencil-supply contract, but your main business line is selling puppy chow, Skilcraft's cost structure for delivering writing supplies is probably not representative of what it would cost your company to produce a similar volume of #2 pencils. They're set up to do it in volume; your kibble company is unlikely to be able to compete at the same price point.