Technology RFPs

[[blogger.com has been working just fine. Do not adjust your dial.  This is my first post since September.  I've been spending my free time reviewing an Oracle SOA book (more on that later), remembering how bad I am at Linear Algebra, and working out (ugh)]]

At Zirous we do a fair amount of local, state, and federal government work, meaning we respond to a lot of RFPs.  If you're not familiar with the RFP process it basically goes like this:

• A government agency issues an RFP which either contains 1) A small number of vague requirements because no one at the agency has a detailed idea of what they actually want to do or 2) 150 pages of requirements of which the agency plans to do about 5% but some magazine, vendor, or sales guy told them they really need.
• This RFP also asks for a fixed bid quote which you are held to down to the penny, but the agency is free to "interpret" your bid to include pretty much whatever they want.
• Bidders usually get one shot at written questions, which the agency will misunderstand or answer vaguely or incompletely.
• Vendors will be given no more than 34 mintues and 16 seconds to produce a response which can go over 100 pages.
• 22 printed copies have to be delivered to the agency and attach every product manual in triplicate. 
  
• After all of this the agency will take 3 to 22 months to make their final decision of which vendor to select.

...but I shouldn't complain.  A lot of our business at Zirous is derived from RFPs, and we're getting very good at winning RFPs.   Don't get me wrong.  I don't hate the player, I hate the game -- this is a terrible way to procure software and IT services.  You are not buying a fleet of cars or 6 forklifts.  There is too little feedback in the RFP system for getting something as complex and flexible as enterprise software.  Selecting a vendor whether it be to buy software or procure services should involve a free flow of information back and forth.

I know that the idea is to make an objective decision and eliminate sweetheart deals.  Anyone who has done a few RFPs knows that ultimately it's a subjective decision.  No matter how many scoring spreadsheets and formulas they use, the people on the selection committee will go with the software or solution or vendor they "like" the best.  Who they "like" is often deterimined before a single score has been calculated.  The hard part for us as a hopeful vendor is figuring out what the committee is looking for.  If you've been on the other side of this process, I'd love to hear from you...