RFP delays affect more than timeline...

Have you heard the one about "Cost, quality, time – choose two"? It's not a joke...if you manage a project it's a tricky balancing act. An RFP process is a project within a project and shouldn't be treated any differently. If you delay the posting but expect to have the contract awarded by a certain date, you should expect poor quality "rushed" proposals, higher costs or worse - a process that fails and needs to be reposted!

I've experienced delays in processes for different reasons but they fall within a theme (planning):

1) One of the stakeholders wants to delay so they can extend an existing contract or direct award due to "emergency" - failure to plan or circumvent the process is NOT an emergency.

2) End-users have difficulty translating their vision into a specifications document/requirements/statement of work. -need to have plenty of time built into timelines to facilitate discussions to build their requirements

3) Procurement was an "afterthought" and wasn't built into the project timelines - ie many people believe they know how to "buy" so figure they've done the work & posting an RFP is instantaneous - need to educate the end-users on what could negatively impact them with the process "as-is" vs what positive impacts Procurement's contribution will be (generally they'll call Procurement into the process earlier the next time)

4) Last minute scope/authority/political issues crop up - these affect the timing of posting in the best-case and a total rework of the requirements in the worst-case -we can't always prevent these but making sure all impacted stakeholders are involved or aware can mitigate this cropping up.

So, in the case of the 3 month delay of the Navy network - how do you see that turning out? Its great they are extending vendor contributions, but will the increased quality of specifications & keeping to same deadline result in a higher cost?