Requirements

Check these before the RFP leaves your desk

Four groups of checks. Each corresponds to a specific way that RFPs come back with proposals you cannot compare against each other.

What is actually going on

Proposals become incomparable for four reasons: the problem is ambiguous, the constraints are missing, the requested format is unspecified, or the decision process is undefined. Each check below closes one of those gaps.

How the work runs

Step 01

Read it as a supplier would

Go through once asking only: could I price this? Every place the answer is no is a place you will get a padded number.

Step 02

Cut everything decorative

Remove requirements you will not verify and boilerplate that applies to any project. They dilute the parts that matter.

Step 03

Confirm the decision path

Know who signs, on what criteria, by when — before you ask anyone to spend days writing you a proposal.

Is the problem unambiguous?

If two suppliers could read this and picture different products, the proposals will not be comparable.

The current situation is described concretely, with numbers where they exist.
The outcome is stated as something that becomes true, not as a feature list.
Every user type is named, with a rough count and what each does.
Anything explicitly out of scope is written down.
Domain terms specific to your business are defined.

Are the constraints all stated?

Missing constraints do not disappear. They surface after the contract is signed, as change requests.

A budget range appears somewhere in the document.
The deadline is given along with the reason it exists.
Existing systems that must keep working are named individually.
Data migration is addressed: what moves, how much, from where.
Regulatory or compliance obligations are stated, not implied.
Who maintains the result afterwards is named.

Is the format you want specified?

Without this you receive six documents in six shapes and no way to lay them side by side.

You asked for itemised work, not a single total.
You asked for days or hours per item.
You asked what assumptions the price depends on.
You asked who specifically would do the work.
You asked what happens when an estimate is exceeded.
You asked what you own at the end and when it transfers.

Is the decision process defined?

Suppliers write to visible criteria. Invisible criteria produce generic proposals.

Criteria are published with their weightings.
The person who signs off has agreed to those criteria already.
There is a deadline for questions and a channel for asking them.
The decision date is stated and realistic.
You have decided what happens if every proposal exceeds the budget.

Common questions

What if I cannot answer some of these yet?

Say so in the document rather than leaving a gap. A stated unknown gets a priced assumption; a silent gap gets a padded guess.

How many suppliers should receive it?

Three or four. More than that and evaluation takes longer than the discovery phase of the project itself.

Software Development RFP Template With Notes on Each SectionRead this How to Write a Software Development RFP That Gets Useful AnswersRead this How to Evaluate a Software Development ProposalRead this Software Development RFPRead this

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