When you lose a federal contract, you are entitled to a debrief. Under FAR 15.506, unsuccessful offerors on negotiated acquisitions above the simplified acquisition threshold can request a written or oral debrief from the contracting officer within three business days of receiving notice of award. The contracting officer must provide the debrief within five business days of the request.
Most firms never ask.
This is one of the most consistently exploited BD advantages that experienced federal contractors have over firms that are still developing their process. The debrief is the only formal occasion where a government official is required to tell you specifically why you did not win. Every piece of information in that conversation, handled correctly, improves your probability on the next bid.
What you are legally entitled to receive
FAR 15.506(d) specifies the minimum content a debrief must include. The contracting officer must tell you:
The government's evaluation of your proposal's significant weaknesses and deficiencies. Not a general summary. Specific weaknesses and deficiencies. This is the most actionable part of any debrief.
Your overall evaluated cost or price and technical rating, if applicable. You will learn where your proposal ranked on the evaluated criteria.
The overall evaluated cost or price and technical rating of the awardee. You can compare your evaluated position against the winner's.
The rationale for award. Why the contracting officer determined that the awardee's proposal represented the best value.
Reasonable responses to relevant questions. If you come prepared with specific questions about the evaluation, the contracting officer is obligated to answer them within the bounds of what is releasable.
What the contracting officer is not required to tell you: the names of other offerors, point scores if the evaluation used a narrative adjectival system, or any information that would compromise the integrity of future acquisitions or other offerors' proprietary data.
How to request the debrief
Request within three business days of receiving the award notification. This is a hard deadline under FAR. If you miss it, you can still ask, but the agency is no longer obligated to debrief you, and many will decline.
Your request should be in writing, addressed to the contracting officer by name, and should specifically reference FAR 15.506 and your request for a written or oral debrief. Request the oral debrief if you can — a real-time conversation allows follow-up questions and produces more usable information than a written response, which tends to be more carefully limited.
Include your offer number, the solicitation number, the contract award date, and the name of the awardee if you know it. Be professional and brief. The request is a process step, not an opportunity to express frustration about the outcome.
Preparing for the debrief
Come with specific questions. A debrief where you simply listen and take notes is less valuable than one where you direct the conversation toward the information you most need.
Questions worth preparing:
On technical evaluation: What were the specific weaknesses the government identified in our technical approach? Were there any areas where our proposal was evaluated as not meeting the requirements? If our approach was rated lower than the awardee's, what was the primary differentiator?
On past performance: How was our past performance assessed for relevance and recency? Were there specific examples in our past performance narrative that were evaluated as not comparable to the requirement?
On price: How did our evaluated price compare to the IGCE? How did it compare to the awardee's evaluated price? If this was a best-value tradeoff, what was the specific price-to-technical trade that led to the award decision?
On compliance: Were there any compliance deficiencies in our proposal? Were any sections evaluated as incomplete?
Bring a copy of your proposal. When the contracting officer identifies a weakness, you want to be able to look at exactly what you wrote and understand the gap between what you said and what they needed to see.
What to do with the information
Write up your notes immediately after the debrief while the conversation is fresh. For each weakness or deficiency identified, note: the section of your proposal where it appeared, what the evaluator said was missing or weak, and what a stronger response would have looked like.
Separate the feedback into two categories. First, issues with the proposal itself — sections that were unclear, inadequate, or non-compliant. These are fixable on the next submission regardless of what you actually delivered. Second, issues with your actual capabilities or past performance — gaps between what you could credibly claim and what the requirement actually demanded. These require investment, not just better proposal writing. Review your CPARS record after every debrief: it is often the root source of a past performance gap the evaluators spotted.
Fixing a proposal issue is a matter of revision. Fixing a capability gap requires winning a contract that addresses the gap. That is a longer timeline, and the sooner you identify it the sooner you can start building toward it.
Debriefs on simplified acquisitions and task orders
FAR 15.506 applies specifically to negotiated acquisitions above the simplified acquisition threshold. For smaller contracts and task order awards, your rights are more limited but not nonexistent.
For simplified acquisitions, the government can provide debrief-like feedback at its discretion. It is worth asking. Many contracting officers will share basic evaluation feedback even when not required to, particularly if your firm has an established relationship with the office.
For task orders under IDIQs, check the terms of the underlying IDIQ contract. Many agency-specific vehicles include debrief rights as a contract term. The VA's schedule vehicles, for example, include specific task order debrief processes. Know the vehicle terms before you assume you have no debrief rights.
When the debrief suggests something larger
Occasionally a debrief reveals information that suggests the award decision was improper — a technical evaluation inconsistent with the RFP criteria, an apparent conflict of interest, or an award to a firm that did not meet stated eligibility requirements. These situations require legal judgment, not just BD analysis.
A bid protest filed with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) or the Court of Federal Claims (COFC) is the formal mechanism for challenging an improper award. The GAO protest deadline is ten days after a debrief, or ten days after the date the basis of protest was known or should have been known. This deadline is strict. If you believe the award was improper, talk to an attorney who handles bid protest work immediately after the debrief, not after you have had time to think about it.
Most debriefs will not reveal improper conduct. They will reveal exactly what they are designed to reveal: a clear picture of how your proposal was evaluated and where it fell short. That information is valuable, and it is available to any offeror who asks for it.