Farnorth
Global user
(5/12/00 12:32:15 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del All | New perspective - from the other side
I just finished participating in a consultant selection process as part of a project management team. It was eye-opening. I spent 5 years writing marketing proposals (for engineers) and responding to RFPs, RFQs, RFIs, etc. This was the first time I sat on the hiring side of the table.
I don't know how many of you write proposals, but if you do, here's what I found:
A non-responsive proposal will get you thrown out of the process very early. After you think the proposal is finished, read it one more time against the RFP and make sure you addressed every item in the RFP, especially every item in the client's scope of work.
Have someone else read your proposal for completeness, ease of understanding, grammar and spelling. We threw out a consultant that I believe could have done the work (they had the experience), but no one could understand what they were trying to say. The proposal had disjointed sentenses, run-on sentences, partial sentences, miserable spelling, and poor grammar. If you can't write, fire yourself and invest in someone else to write your proposal.
Show applicable experience, both for your company and for every team member. If the client wants data architecture design, data modeling, programming and project planning, don't just use a generic experience statements, make it easy to pick out and quantify how many projects of each kind each team member (and the company as a whole) has participated in. Many selection processes are numeric (in order to be fair). List those projects so they can be counted.
Don't regurgitate the client's scope of work. Be honest about what's unworkable ("We suggest ...") and make suggestions where the client didn't have the knowledge to fill out the scope themselves. As Janet's books suggest, if the client's scope is totally worthless, suggest a scoping phase (paid by the client).
Make your project management process stand out from the rest. Don't just say you use PMI and Project98. So does everybody else.
If possible, find out the fee range the client is expecting. If the client expects a $100,000 fee, you're going to be considered non-responsive if you quote $500,000 or $30,000. Ditto with schedule.
Use color for emphasis.
Use graphics where it makes sense (your project management process, your design process). A half-page graphic can convey a lot more information than 2 pages of text.
Don't use techonospeak and acronyms. Your reviewers may not all be information professionals.
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