I've chaired many Request for Proposals evaluations. Many people new to the process (or who have not been involved in a structured evaluation process) have questions before committing to be an evaluator. Here's a brief overview (which also tends to be my opening remarks when debriefing vendors on their proposals).
1) The written word is law - only what is actually written in the proposal is evaluated. No outside knowledge nor past history nor links to websites are considered. So if a vendor answers a requirement by saying "you have worked with us before" or "please see our "About us" page on www.ourwebsite.... will get a score of "arguably meets requirement". To withstand legal scrutiny, the process can only evaluate what was submitted in the proposal by the closing date. Personal knowledge is deemed subjective; websites could be changed after the closing date, so neither would be fair for the process. (A note to those in other countries - Canadian Contract Law deems the RFP itself is a contract, and as such, there are some limitations to the process in Canada - we'll discuss this in another post).
2) Only the criteria included in the Request is evaluated - anything other than what was asked for would be considered a hidden preference - I could cite a few Canadian legal cases where municipalities have made the mistake of not citing a preference for a certain type of material or methodology over another.
3) Scoring is not like school - generally scoring is based upon a pre-defined matrix (eg. 0-3, 0-5 or 0-10) where the middle number "meets stated requirements and any perceived risk is deemed acceptable". Higher than 2, 3, or 5 in the above samples are for "clearly meets requirements with no added risk" or "exceeds expectations with acceptable or no added risk". Just meeting requirements won't win a contract, nor provide the public sector with any value-add/innovation. The public sector has to answer to its public, therefore perceived risks need to be accounted for. In many debriefings, I've advised vendors to face up to any weaknesses in their methodology/experience and advise how they will mitigate those risks (whether real or perceived) - ignore the weaknesses and risks to the public sector, and they will be scored accordingly.
4) Demonstrate Experience, don't just state it - This tends to be one of the most common errors made that result in a low score. Stating "We've provided these services for 20 years" tells the evaluators NOTHING - but demonstrating "For Client X, our firm was hired to provide Y. Our role was Z, we outlined A, B, C; completed D,E,F, and the resulting outcome was GHI." It doesn't need to be pages upon pages of excrutiating detail, but give action statements of relevant projects citing role, responsibility, tasks, outcomes to demonstrate the experience.
These are just a few tips on the inside view of evaluations - mostly what I've had to repeat numerous times. I'll provide more in future posts!
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