RFPs: Everything You Need to Know About the RFP Process
- The Split Up: If your team has standard criteria and they all understand what a good proposal looks like, you could ask them to split up work and each
take a few proposals. You could set up a meeting wherein each employee makes a case for or against the proposals they’ve evaluated, giving the overall team an idea of what has been submitted. One issue here is a proposal that sounds like garbage to one employee might sound great to another. The goal is to judge by those standard criteria we mentioned earlier. If each employee is viewing these proposals objectively, they should be able to communicate its merit in a professional, factual format. Standardized training or shadowing is a good way to get your employees on the same page. Trained employees with a detailed rubric will produce more cohesive results. - Share and Score: With this strategy, team members are assigned sections of each proposal that they read and compare. For example, one team member might be assigned to evaluate each “experience” section. If there are five proposals up for consideration, they would evaluate all five experience sections, making notes on each one. They would then rank the sections with a predetermined scoring system. This would be completed by various team members for every section. At the end of the evaluation, each proposal would have multiple scores that could be added up to determine an overall number. This number serves as a grade and shows the stakeholders how various proposals measure up to their standards, according to employee evaluations. This also allows employers to become experts on the various parts and compare apples to apples at a more micro level.
- Multiple Eyes: This strategy is best for organizations that have narrowed their choices down to a few proposals. For maximum exposure, have every team member look at every proposal and take notes on their impressions. This is the most time-consuming
option, but also ensures every employee with decision-making power sees every proposal.