Tender: from bureaucracy to action

Recently, in the podcast WebProfessionals.ru, I shared my experience in selecting contractors and working effectively with them on projects for the development of mobile software and sites. In this post, several theses are formulated on how to turn the usual procedure of a corporate tender of a large company into an effective - for both parties - process.

1. Formulate the task . Moreover, both the business component and the grocery. A clear understanding of expected ROI and measurable KPIs is required. In the course of the tender, the task will be specified. Take time to work on concretizing the task in the process.
2. Identify the requirements for the timing, resources and level of quality of the project. Decide on additional parameters that are important to you. What criteria are most important in making a decision.
3. Assign PM - one (!) Responsible for the implementation of a specific employee. Decision making is the prerogative of the person responsible for the project as a whole. Partner success means PM’s personal success, partner’s failure means PM’s personal failure.
4. Create a list of bidders (no more than 10). Preliminary selection can be carried out using public information and formal features (portfolio, recommendations of real clients, experience of the company and people working in the company ...).
5. Send the task to the tenderers and set deadlines for consultations , the wording of the proposal and the date of the decision .
6. Be sure to chat (and ideally meet) with the bidders. Make sure that the participants of the tender set the task completely (!) , And they asked all the questions that arise.
7. Estimate the depth of task decomposition . This will show how much you can trust the timing and cost.
8. Evaluate how tenderers understand the business task (if it is supposed to be voiced as part of the tender).
9. Evaluate how tender participants are experts in implementation tools and whether they have proposed various solutions .
10. Be sure to evaluate how the company worked in the tender. How much water is in the documents , are you ready to take responsibility.
11. Evaluate which SLAs the company is ready to take on. Responsibility should be clearly measurable and spelled out in the contract .
12. Assess the understanding of the bidders of the risks and what criteria they influence. Understand for yourself how the terms, amount, quality will change. If risks are not specified , this does not mean that they are not.
13. If you feel that your own competence is not enough for an assessment, contact the experts .
14. Evaluate how comfortable it is for people to work within the project.
15. Record meeting summaries , conditions, and eligibility. For clarity, combine the data in a single document. Analyze, think, and as soon as all the data is received, immediately make a decision.

Konstantin Polunin aka @kopo_ru
Project manager
SUP Fabrik