On a federal architect-engineer selection, a debriefing is automatic. FAR 36.607(b) says debriefings of successful and unsuccessful firms will be held after final selection, no written request required. But the same rule withholds four of the six things a postaward debriefing must cover. You get your own weaknesses, not the scoreboard. The weaknesses are the more useful half.
You Do Not Have to Request an A/E Debriefing
Most proposal people know the Part 15 rule: three days from the award notice to file a written request, and if you miss it you have lost the debriefing. That is FAR 15.506(a), and on an A/E selection it does not apply.
FAR 36.607(b) reads: "Debriefings of successful and unsuccessful firms will be held after final selection has taken place and will be conducted, to the extent practicable, in accordance with" 15.503, 15.506(b) through (f), and 15.507(c).
Read what it pulls in: the list starts at 15.506(b). Paragraph (a), the three-day written request window, is not incorporated, so there is no request deadline to miss. And "will be held" is mandatory language: the qualifier "to the extent practicable" governs how a debriefing is conducted, not whether one happens.
Which means a firm that has spent years staying quiet, believing it blew a deadline, was wrong about the rule it thought it broke.
What an A/E Debriefing Must Cover, and What It Withholds
Here is the part that sends people home frustrated. FAR 36.607(b) carries a note: "Note that 15.506(d)(2) through (d)(5) do not apply to architect-engineer contracts."
FAR 15.506(d) lists six minimum contents for a postaward debriefing. Strike (d)(2) through (d)(5) and this remains:
| 15.506(d) minimum content | A/E selection? |
|---|---|
| (d)(1) Weaknesses or deficiencies in your proposal | Yes |
| (d)(2) Winner's price and rating, and your past-performance record | No |
| (d)(3) Overall ranking of all offerors | No |
| (d)(4) Summary of the rationale for award | No |
| (d)(5) Make and model (commercial products) | No |
| (d)(6) Whether the stated procedures were followed | Yes |
By regulation, an A/E debriefing is almost entirely about your own weaknesses and whether the agency followed its process. It is not a scoreboard, and was never designed to be one.
That reframes a common complaint. Firms leave saying the contracting officer was unhelpful because nobody would say where they ranked. Ranking is (d)(3) and award rationale is (d)(4), both switched off. Asking for them spends the meeting on the two answers you were never going to get.
The Two Questions a Debriefing Will Actually Answer
You have (d)(1) and (d)(6). Both reward a specific question over an open one.
On (d)(1), ask section by section. "What weaknesses did the panel find?" invites a summary that ends the topic. Name the section and the claim instead:
- "In Section F, did the panel see the example projects as relevant to this scope?"
- "Were there gaps in the key personnel we named for the two lead roles?"
Each asks about your own submittal, which sits squarely inside (d)(1). A panel that has just scored a stack of packages remembers what cost you points, and will say so if the question is narrow enough.
On (d)(6), ask about process, not outcome. You are entitled to reasonable responses about whether the procedures stated in the solicitation and the applicable regulations were followed: whether the criteria were weighted the way the synopsis said, whether the board was composed as described, whether the evaluation criteria were applied in the stated order. It is not a back door to the award rationale, and framing it that way gets it shut down.
Write it down the same day. A debriefing is usually a phone call with no transcript, and the value fades within a week unless somebody records each finding against the section it concerns.
This Is Not the Debriefing You Run Internally
The word does double duty here, and the two instruments have almost nothing in common.
The one most firms mean is the internal retro: the pursuit team meets within a week of a decision and writes down what happened. That is your meeting and your read of the outcome, the habit behind finding what actually differentiates a firm and building client intelligence before the RFP drops, and it works on state, local, and private work where nothing is owed to you.
The one this article is about is the agency's: government-authored, regulated, and available only where procurement rules create it. Narrower than your retro, and far more authoritative, because it is the client telling you what it saw rather than your team inferring it.
Run both. Your retro says what the team thinks went wrong. The debriefing says what the evaluators marked down. When they disagree, believe the second one.
At Some Agencies, Ask Whether a Debriefing Will Happen at All
This entitlement is not universal across the federal government right now, which is new.
The model deviation text published under the acquisition overhaul has no counterpart to 36.607. Its Subpart 36.3 is one section on contracting officer responsibilities, with no debriefing requirement. ACEC named this deletion in its September 2025 comments. At an agency working from that text, the entitlement above is not in front of the contracting officer, so confirm which text applies before building a pursuit around any Part 36 assumption.
The proposed rule would make that the norm, not the exception. On September 18, 2026 the FAR Council published the Part 36 proposed rule (91 FR 59534, FAR Case 2026-010, comments close October 19). It restores a debriefing provision at proposed 36.202-3(f), with one word changed: "Debriefings of successful and unsuccessful firms may be held after final selection has taken place and will be conducted, to the extent practicable, in accordance with 15.301." By the reading above, "will be held" is what made the debriefing automatic. "May be held" makes whether one happens the agency's call. Proposed rule read in full 2026-09-21. Nothing changes until a final rule issues, and the current FAR 36.607(b) still governs agencies that have not adopted the deviation.
The practical move is small: ask during the pre-proposal window, not after the loss, whether a debriefing will be held and in what form.
Current as of September 21, 2026: the FAR text above is FAC 2026-01, effective March 13, 2026, and the deviation text was last checked August 31, 2026. The Part 36 proposed rule under FAR Case 2026-010 was published September 18, 2026 with comments due October 19; nothing above changes until a final rule issues, so re-check both then.
What the Weaknesses Finding Is Actually Worth
Paragraph (d)(1) is a critique of your qualifications package, produced by the people who evaluate them for a living, at no cost to you. A consultant's review of your SF330 is an informed opinion. This is the evaluator naming the part of your Section E that did not carry the role you claimed.
It gets wasted the same way. The finding lands in one person's inbox, that person moves to the next pursuit, and the following submittal repeats the weakness. The debriefing was not useless. It never reached the place where the next package gets built.
That is a records problem rather than an insight problem. When the panel says a project example did not demonstrate the scope, that belongs on the project record, not in a meeting note. When it says a resume overstated a role, that belongs on the staff profile. A qualifications library that stays current is where debriefing findings turn into something, because the correction is sitting there the next time somebody assembles a package.
That is the layer RFPM.ai works on. Staff profiles and project records live as structured data, so a finding gets recorded once against the person or project it concerns, and Ask RFPM Agent surfaces it, with the source, when someone is deciding who to feature next. Your team still chooses what goes in the proposal. The choice stops depending on who was on the call in March.
Two of these findings a year will do more for your go/no-go discipline than another round of template work. It is the only feedback here that comes from the scoring side of the table.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have to request a debriefing on a federal A/E selection?
No. FAR 36.607(b) says debriefings of successful and unsuccessful firms will be held after final selection has taken place. The three-day written request window at FAR 15.506(a) is not incorporated into the A/E rule, so there is no deadline to miss. Contact the contracting officer if one is not offered.
Will a federal A/E debriefing tell you where your firm ranked?
No. FAR 36.607(b) states that 15.506(d)(2) through (d)(5) do not apply to architect-engineer contracts, which removes the ranking, the winner's rating and price, and the rationale for award. You are entitled to the evaluation of weaknesses in your own submittal and to answers about whether the stated procedures were followed.
What is the difference between an A/E debriefing and a Part 15 debriefing?
A Part 15 debriefing must be requested in writing within three days and covers all six minimum contents at 15.506(d). An A/E debriefing under FAR 36.607(b) is automatic and covers only (d)(1) and (d)(6). It is easier to get and narrower in what it reveals.
Does every federal agency still owe an A/E debriefing?
Not necessarily. The model deviation text published under the acquisition overhaul contains no counterpart to FAR 36.607, so an agency working from it has no debriefing provision. Ask during the pre-proposal period whether one will be held rather than assuming it is owed.