Proposal Land

Better RFP Responses & Management
 
Proposal Land

Term: Rated Criteria, Rated Evaluation Criteria

 

Evaluation criteria that the client will assess by assigning points; that is, not usually mandatory requirements, which are assessed on a pass/fail basis.

However, may be combined with a mandatory requirement to meet a minimum threshold (for example, 70 percent on a criterion or averaged across a group of criteria), so not as innocuous as they might look.

On a side note, one of the funnier typos I ever saw in an RFP was about how the company would meet the “hated criteria.” Perhaps a Freudian slip . . .

The 12 Days of Christmas

 

I remember my surprise when I learned that the 12 days start on Christmas Day (or, maybe, Boxing Day) and run to the day before Epiphany. It’s called the Christmas Twelvetide, which is delightful jargon, no?

I’ve done regular-world remakes of this classic for the last three years: 2017, 2018 and 2019. Like Christmas, 2020’s version is coming.

This year, I decided to try a Proposal Land version. All photos are used with the permission of the subject, their parent, or both (as applicable).

Merry Christmas. I hope you’re not working through it.

Silly but True

  2

I never understood why there was so much jockeying for completely irrelevant position when companies came together to respond to an RFP.

I’m thrilled to see the first Pfizer vaccine being administered in Ontario.
It’s time to put an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.
– Tweet by Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario
(for American readers, a premier is akin to a governor)

I mean, I understood the effort to grab work: Work meant revenue. But other activities seemed senseless, like the effort each company put into having the name of their company come first in proposal text, when all were listed.

Nova Scotia receives first doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine
– Headline in Halifax Today

“Why not just go with the alphabetical order?” I wondered.

Reassuring Data for Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine
– Title for article on the McGill University,
Office for Science and Society website

I mean, who cares? Pick an order and enforce it consistently. That’s it, right?

Watch as the first person in BC receives Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.
– News feed from CTV

Well, maybe not. Although most official sites use the whole name — the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine — most commentators and the general public abbreviate that to Pfizer.

If BioNTech had gotten their name first, this would now be its vaccine.

Think about that the next time you’re tempted to do the sensible or cooperative thing and give up that “pole position” for no corresponding benefit. As silly as it seems, and especially in our abbreviation-happy culture, being first can matter.

 

Term: Proposal Team

 

The group of people assigned to produce a proposal in response to a specific RFP.

Always overworked; often overwhelmed; frequently underappreciated.

Structure and make-up varies dramatically with the scope/scale of the RFP.  (See chapter 3 of my manual for more on how proposal teams are configured to tackle the 33 tasks involved.)

Sale!

 

I wish everyone used the Kobo ebook format, because Smashwords is so cool to work with.

I put my memoir on a half-price sale as part of their end-of-year promotion (Dec 18 to Jan 1) and for anyone who sees this before my weekly digest goes out, the same discount is available using a coupon code:

XW45B

And it isn’t even case-sensitive. And it’s right on the ordering page. How great is that?

And how great would it be to use this opportunity to gift my book to your own proposal buddies and support Food Banks Canada in the process? Pretty great, that’s what. (And if your proposal buddies use Amazon instead, well, still great.)