Capability Checks
Checking agency experience
Check an agency’s relevant work, customer references and proposed team against the assignment you need delivered.
Check whether an agency’s past work is relevant to the job you need done. Check whether the people proposed for your account can apply that experience. A case study, a customer reference and a discussion with the delivery team answer different questions. Use them together and keep gaps in the evidence visible.
Define relevant experience
Identify the difficult conditions in your assignment before you examine a portfolio. For a website rebuild, these might be a platform, integration or migration constraint. Where several internal teams are involved, experience managing decisions and dependencies may matter more than an industry match.
Choose conditions that would make an example useful. Include what the agency would own and what your business would supply. A familiar client logo alone cannot show how the agency handled those conditions.
| Evidence | What it can show | What it cannot show alone |
|---|---|---|
| Case study | The agency’s account of the work and reported outcome | That it caused every result or could repeat it |
| Customer reference | One customer’s direct experience of delivery | How every engagement or a different team will perform |
| Proposed team discussion | How the people offered for your work understand its constraints | That they personally completed every portfolio project |
Connect examples to the proposed work
Ask for an example that shares an important constraint with your assignment. Establish what the agency was responsible for, what the client or other suppliers did, who made the main decisions and what changed during delivery. Confidential figures may be unavailable; the agency can still explain its role and how it assessed the work.
Check whether the people behind that example are part of the proposed team. If they are not, ask the current team what it learned from the project and how it would handle a comparable choice.
Meet the proposed lead where practical and ask what they would inspect first, what they would need from you and which decisions would require another specialist. Listen for clear reasoning and acknowledgement of what cannot yet be known.
Check claims in proportion to the purchase
For a reported result, ask what was measured, over what period and from which record. Ask what else changed at the time. A result can be accurately reported without showing that the agency caused the whole change or that your business should expect the same outcome.
For a consequential engagement, speak with a suitable reference customer if they agree. Ask about the scope, the people involved and how problems were handled. An agency-selected reference describes one engagement; note how its circumstances differ from yours.
If confidentiality prevents a detailed case study or reference, ask for another useful form of evidence, such as a redacted deliverable or a walkthrough of a decision. Record what remains unknown instead of treating an unavailable item as proof of poor performance.
Decide what the evidence establishes
For each condition you identified, note whether the evidence shows it, partly shows it or leaves it unknown. Distinguish a capability you have reason to doubt from a capability the agency has not yet demonstrated. Before relying on company history, confirm who would lead and produce your work, their expected availability and how specialist gaps would be covered. Ask for a focused clarification on any essential unknown.
Interpret pre-qualification carefully
In a Victorian Government procurement, a pre-qualified supplier arrangement is a list of suppliers that meet selection criteria, including criteria about their capability to supply the goods or services. Inclusion is not the buyer’s final decision: the buyer still undertakes a procurement process to determine which supplier offers best value for money.
Information available to buyers can include a supplier’s capability, management and operating systems, areas of expertise, skills and resources, and past performance. The amount of information depends on what was requested when the arrangement was established, so do not assume that inclusion demonstrates every experience relevant to your engagement.
Check whether the pre-qualification criteria align with the scope of services sought. A register is not the same as shortlisting suppliers as qualified to proceed to the next procurement step. Being listed does not guarantee the supplier any business.
Pre-qualification in Victorian Government procurement: key facts
- What pre-qualification means
- Suppliers meet selection criteria including capability to deliver goods or services
- Does inclusion guarantee business?
- No – buyers still assess best value for money
- Information available depends on
- What was requested when the arrangement was established
In this guide
- Evaluating case studies without accepting every result claimExamine an agency case study’s role, measurement and result claims without treating a past outcome as a forecast.
- Asking reference customers useful questionsPrepare an agency reference call that tests scope, delivery, problem handling and the experience of working with the team.
- Distinguishing agency team experience from company brandingFind out whether the people proposed for your account have the experience, roles and availability your project needs.
