RFP/RFI Issuance & Scoring

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Once the technical requirements are completed and the prospective vendors are selected, the RFI/RFP can be issued.

This process includes:

• Contacting the prospective vendors, discussing the overall situation and process, and obtaining agreement on their participation
• Issuing the documents and completion instructions
• Responding to clarification requests and keeping responses on track
• Collecting and organizing the responses
• Creating and then applying the scoring models and performing any appropriate qualitative analysis
• Summarizing the results
• Developing scenarios and agendas for vendor presentations
• Attending and critiquing the presentations

The most critical and effort-intensive portion of this phase is the creation of the scoring model. That is, the development of the evaluation criteria to be used to gauge each vendor’s responses. Ideally, the technical requirements were provided to each vendor in a spreadsheet and the majority of questions lend themselves to yes, partial, no responses, making some form of “automated” scoring feasible. Unfortunately, many vendors have a habit of “puffing” their responses and this should be taken into consideration during the evaluation. Similarly, vendor’s descriptions of how they satisfy a requirement may lead to either an “upgrade” or a “downgrade” of their response, either because their solution is particularly good, particularly poor, or simply to “harmonize” the responses across the vendors.

Once the scoring model is applied and responses harmonized, a good quantitative assessment of each vendor’s response can be made. If an RFI was issued, this allows you to cut down the list to those vendors that should be issued the RFP. If an RFP was issued, this allows you to cut down the list to those vendors that should be invited to present their solutions.

The next most critical portion of this phase is creation of the scenarios for the vendors asked to present their solution. This is where you understand how your program would actually be managed and “work.” As business is always done between people, the presentations are also the first step in the “getting to know you” phase.

If your program is not large or complex, the presentations may be done remotely with a follow-on in-person meeting to dig more deeply. If your program is large or complex, the presentations should be done on-site and may run for several hours. For exceptionally “mission critical” programs, you may proceed to some form of “bake off” or proof of concept demonstration, if two vendors seem to have essentially equivalent solutions.