Last week I came across a blog post that referenced one of our past posts, “Let’s Make a Sandwich.”  From what I gathered from the blog, www.tdtidbits.blogspot.com, the author is a project manager for one of our friends in Chicago, Chicago Scenic Studios.  In the post, “Building a Sandwich,” the importance of a detailed Scope of Work written in an RFP was outlined.  I couldn’t agree more with the point, “you will never get what you want unless you ask for it.”

As the main proposal writer for Taylor Studios, it’s often tricky to know exactly what a client wants and how our proposal will be evaluated.  Often times the proposal requirements do not follow or match the proposal evaluation criteria.  I spend a great deal of time ensuring all the proposal requirements are in line with the criteria on which we will be judged.  Since my work is going to be graded on not only our skills, abilities, and past work, but also, completeness, readability, organization, etc. it would be nice if all RFP writers would put together their packets with the same criteria in mind.

As for the actual Scope of Work section, our estimating department is ecstatic when an RFP comes through that outlines exactly what the client wants.  When we receive bid packets with instructions to just bid what we want or offer a price without really knowing what the client has in mind is not fair to the companies that bid on the work.  Proposals can take days to complete.  When we are spending this amount of hours trying to win a job just to find out we didn’t bid what the client wanted or our price was three times as much as the lowest bidder is really disappointing.  Going back to the tdtidbits blog, do you really think a company that bids $.50 per cookie vs. a company that bids $6 per cookie really offers the same product, service, and quality?

Now getting back to why I started this post – no it really wasn’t all about the details in RFPs.  After reading “Building a Sandwich” I reread our original sandwich post and thought that some clarification might be needed.  Our typical design-build process consists of four phases: Schematic Design, Design Development, Final Design, and Production.  Over the next few weeks, we will review what we do during each phase.  Since not everyone uses exactly the same terminology, this process can be confusing.  Hopefully this series will help answer questions, but if it doesn’t, please ask!

Posted by: Kara