Yesterday evening I delivered a brief talk to the meetup members of the NCTech4Good meetup in RTP on the topic of interpreting a RFP.
The basic premise is that due to a disconnect from the people who help write and distribute RFPs and those who respond, the returned proposals often do not meet the expectations of the client. Contractors bid too high, omit relevant details, can't meet the schedules, or prove that they haven't fully read the original proposal. What's going through the minds of those contractors, anyways?
In the talk I briefly outline how Caktus takes a RFP and turns it into a quote, and what our process means for people writing RFPs. Check out the slides here! Here are some of the highlights from the talk:
- The best RFPs are written by people with the same skillset as the potential contractor.
- Specificity and quality answers to questions go a long way towards making bids less expensive.
- User stories, mockups, wireframes, and workflows are often more instructive than descriptions of the same things.
