The company or joint venture or partnership under contract to deliver the Work.
“Successful contractor” is redundant: “contractors” are, by definition, successful in the sense of having won the Work, having been awarded the contract.
By way of contrast, see bidder.
The client employee designated in the RFP to manage the procurement. Often the only client employee with whom bidders are authorized to communicate during the RFP process. Failure to abide by this restriction can render a bid non-compliant.
Sometimes becomes the Contract Authority after contract award, but the two roles are distinct.
“Design the designing.”
Rhys Newman and Luke Johnson
Huh? Well, sometimes “catchy” isn’t “clearest” – at least not across industries. So instead, try this quote from the same section:
“There’s one very simple rule when innovating:
Design the process to fit the project.”
Yes, of course. Yet for something so obvious, it’s surprising how often it isn’t done:
Most people who work on proposals don’t mind working hard – they understand and accept that it’s part of the deal. Heck, they might even enjoy it. What they resent is working stupid:
If you “design the designing” – if you design the process to fit the project – you will be focusing everything on the desired outcome: the on-time submission of a compliant, complete, clear, compelling, and well-costed response. This, in turn, will foster teamwork:
Proposals are schedule-driven projects that require a strict project management discipline. Right? Partly right. In proposal terminology, I’d call that answer incomplete. Proposals are projects, for sure, but they’re also the output of teamwork. I’ve recently been learning how much the design business has in common with proposals.
This post is one of a series on proposal teamwork, inspired by a fabulous article on Medium on design teams:
“No Dickheads! A Guide to Building Happy, Healthy, and Creative Teams.”
“Good studios build good walls.”
Rhys Newman and Luke Johnson
At first glance, this rule for fostering teamwork is perversely reminiscent of one of the more famous quotes of a former Poet Laureate of the United States. You know the one I mean.
“Good fences make good neighbours.”
Robert Frost
But this is not about building walls between people. Instead, it’s about using walls to connect them.
Walls – whether actual or virtual – are places where the big points about an RFP response are posted, in a format big enough and simple enough to be seen and taken in at a glance:
As you’ll see from the external links below, “passive information radiators” are important for all teams – indeed, for all organizations. For proposal teams, they’re especially important:
It’s easy to get swamped by the detail. Using a wall makes the big pieces visible, a crucial first step to managing them.
Information Radiators – Agile Tools
Information Radiators – Element #2 of the Personal Kanban
Proposals are schedule-driven projects that require a strict project management discipline. Right? Partly right. In proposal terminology, I’d call that answer incomplete. Proposals are projects, for sure, but they’re also the output of teamwork. I’ve recently been learning how much the design business has in common with proposals.
This post is one of a series on proposal teamwork, inspired by a fabulous article on Medium on design teams:
“No Dickheads! A Guide to Building Happy, Healthy, and Creative Teams.”
A table submitted with the proposal that does one or more of the following:
That depends:
Well, it’s never wrong, except when it is extended to apply to all RFP paragraphs, which shows a fundamental misunderstanding of its purpose and of the import of the various parts of the RFP. This lack of understanding is not a good thing to expose to the client at the bidding stage.
Be warned, however, that it’s exceedingly time consuming to create one for large, complex proposals.