Jun 10

WRITTEN BY: Mark Scott
Thursday, 10 June 2010 

In this last part of my Love me, tender series, I attack … I mean, I cast a critical eye over the response requirements for procurement documents. By ‘response requirements’ I mean the content you expect from a service provider to demonstrate they’re right for the job, and how you want that content to be presented. (So that said service providers can spend lots of time dutifully producing their tenders, just to drop them unceremoniously in some nondescript receptacle marked ‘tender box’, with an opening that barely accommodates the beautifully bound and packaged responses. In fact, some tenders haven’t fit and they’re lying on the floor.*)

Well, what did you expect? In part 1 I did promise more moaning. And I did promise more tips. So, here are my three final tips for procurement document writers …

1. Think!

Have you considered how much information you really need to make a fair and valid judgement of tenders? Do you realise what you’re going to get, volume-wise, in response to your requirements? Are you going to be able to compare apples with apples? Will the responses need to be broken up for evaluation by different groups within your organisation? Does pricing need to be separated so it doesn’t influence evaluation of the proposed solution or service?

These sorts of things need to be considered at the time the procurement document is written so that clear instructions can be given for the response format and its content.

Did you hear about the tender* that was so big and heavy—75+ ring binders, to satisfy the obligatory original and two copies—that it had to be delivered with a mini forklift? Or what about the request released over Christmas (don’t you just love it when they do that?) which explicitly stated not to refer to the same attachment in answer to different criteria, so the same content had to repeated in different attachments … in hardcopy ... ten sets. That response* was delivered on three flatbed trucks! And both examples were only one of several responses.

Mini forklifts? Flatbed trucks? Can you imagine? I’ll bet the requesters didn’t. Think about the carbon footprint of those procurement exercises!

2. Keep all of the response requirements together and specify them clearly.

Ever been on a treasure hunt? Reading through a multi-part RFP, it’s not unusual to find response requirements spread throughout the specification, the T&Cs and even the draft contract. This is not helpful in ensuring respondents submit everything that’s expected, especially when we’re working to a, sometimes, ambitious (to put it politely) timeframe.

For example, it’s very annoying when our people reviewing the draft contract ask whether the rest of us know about including a draft project management plan and other assorted response requirements. (Did anyone else see that Commonwealth Government RFP* a few years ago?) Why on earth would you put response requirements in the draft contract? It just isn’t logical. This sort of thing makes it difficult for proponents to plan their response and the time required to respond.

As for the spec for the solution or service, be clear about what you want. The better you are able to articulate your requirements, the better we are able to respond to them. That also means balancing your expectations of the level of detail in the response with the level of detail you’ve provided in the spec.

3. Carefully consider what you want the responses to look like.

(The good.) I’ve responded to procurement documents that include incredibly detailed, well thought out response schedules. I’ve seen others, without pre-defined schedules, which clearly define the content to be included and the format to be used. 

(The bad.) I’ve had to respond in pre-defined schedules where most response requirements have space for answers to be provided while other response requirements are stated without any indication of how or where the answers are to be included.

(The ugly.) And then there’s the ones where response tables have been thoughtfully provided. You know, they’re neatly sized to fit on a single page with equally-sized columns and equally-sized rows ready to type in, with a neat line at the bottom for the signature that’s required on every page of the response. Except, what I’m describing needs more than one page per row because of the 12-point font on a portrait page with 3 cm left and right margins; the equally-sized columns don’t make sense when one of the columns contains most of the information; the vertically-centred text doesn’t make it easy to read each row; the horizontally-centred text doesn’t make it easy to read each column; the header row isn’t set to repeat on multiple pages; and the signature line needs to be moved to the page footer so that it appears on every page. Oh, and the response schedule was issued as a PDF!* And don’t get me started on the ridiculousness of signing every page of multiple copies of a response.

This sort of thing frustrates respondents (… well, it frustrates me). If you’re going to provide a table for respondents to fill in, try using it yourself to ensure it’s actually appropriate to gather the information you’re asking for. Remember, service providers like to put in diagrams and tables of their own, so you need to determine how a pre-defined response format is going to accommodate this type of information.

And if your procurement documents provide precious little guidance for what’s expected in the response (the ugliest) then all I can say is, good luck to your evaluation team. 

So to wrap things up for the Love me, tender series …

Well thought out and clear procurement documents mean that you’ll get the best possible responses for a streamlined evaluation process that will select the most suitable service provider. You’ll keep me happy, too.

The trouble is, regardless of how well put together your document is, and regardless of how clear your instructions are, you’re going to get responses that indicate service providers didn’t read or didn’t bother to follow your instructions. Perhaps that might tell you something about the relationship you’d have to look forward to.

* As unbelievable as they sound, the cited examples are all true.