 Okay, so it is 1.45 exactly. I have exactly 30 minutes I'm gonna try to keep this as short as possible so we actually have some discussion I am I don't think it's rude if you just have a question midway I will stop and answer questions as we go because I you know I think that's just a probably better way than just having me talk at you. So I'm gonna just get started We're we're here to talk about the RFP process But first I want to talk a little bit about Atten who sent me here You know I Atten is full-service digital agency. We build we do user engagement strategy We we design user experiences to funnel users to conversions and then we implement the platforms That see them through so we basically try to find out what your users want what you need from them and connect Both of those needs and we work with some really incredible cause-driven organizations Atten works with higher ed non-profit government Clients we work with a lot of libraries and museums. We don't have like a commercial arm and this other stuff That's all we do is we just do work that matters My name is Joe Crespo director of accounts So I do business development at Atten now, which means I read a lot of RFPs But that's not where my career started. I didn't start in sales I started out as a graphic designer Then it became a developer then the account manager then a project manager and now here I am and there's actually a picture of my career trajectory online Which is actually this is not fair because graphic designers do not deserve that salespeople do The RFP process that's what we're here to talk about and I think any Conversation about RFPs really has to start and I know I said in the synopsis. I'm not gonna litigate this but I am The RFP process has issues. It's there's some issues that need to be addressed and frankly There's just some people that hate RFPs specifically, there's a There's a co-creator of playground, you know, the RFP is this like huge document that is Just doesn't have a lot of information and doesn't really lead to great Outcomes there's a lot more on that and I have a link here and when I share the slides You'll be able to go to it Unless you're really ambitious and you want to just start typing away And then there's also there's a bunch of articles on Forbes about how much they hate RFPs and So there's some more some more articles for you to read later and there's some valid criticisms All right RFPs are inefficient if you have 20 people responding to your RFP you have to read if it's their 30 page responses at 600 pages to read that's 19 vendors that basically are going to pass the cost of creating that proposal onto their own clients and There's a great talk on How the RFP process is a sand in the engine I would highly recommend seeing the five billion reasons to change the RFP It's a reference to the amount that the Canadian government spends every year in the RFP process So the problems with RFPs as they are is that they're impersonal, right? They are designed to take the sort of human element in relationship out of the process and try to make it more of a Objective determinant They're really not designed to procure creative work web development application development is a craft and Connecting people is a craft and so it is by definition creative And oftentimes they did I do so I jumped all around they value price over quality and innovation There's a great example of this that if you ask somebody to build you a blog They can actually build you a blog in 15 minutes using medium just create an account. It doesn't take long or You could do snowfall, which is I think in 2013 New York Times a single blog post They spent a thousand hours on this thing And if you if you're not familiar with snowfall, this is like All of 20 every website that launched in 2014 and 2015 was like a love poem to snowfall snowfall is an homage You know it's a video in the background parallax scrolling all of this is sort of introduced in this one item So and if you are just price if you're just thinking about price consciousness The this incredible Work would not exist So long story short avoid using them Okay, enjoy the rest of the conference totally kidding No, the the let's really think about it because often, you know, we work with a lot of government nonprofit higher ed There's procurement offices. They're not going to let you get around the RFP process You really do have to work within the system So I think the best thing to do is look at what's the purpose of an RFP? Like why do you actually want to do this and you know, it's gonna state the obvious But you want to select a great partner you wanted to find the person that is the absolute right fit for your your project and By doing so doing you actually gonna produce this artifact this this document that codifies the problems you need to solve And by having this artifact I think one thing that's really great is that you can get the various stakeholders Like the stakeholders that aren't going to check in until the thing launches you can actually get them on board prior to getting started So I think that's that's one really big value of creating this RFP and finally Is you want to set your project up for success? And by the way, I just realized that I am not used to talking on a mic And I'm just like that the P sounds are killing me up here. So I apologize So anyway We want to codify the project. We want to set it up for success. We want to select a great partner and I want to look talk about this through the lens of Van Halen I'm gonna just pivot over here. Stay with me for a second. Remember these guys back in the 80s This is they had back then they did these massive tours wall of amplifiers lasers and all of this David Lee were off like flying all around the arena and so they they had this like 90 page writer I think everybody knows the story about the the brilliant idea. They had which is they said, you know in the dressing room Take out all the brown M&M's this they buried this on like page 67 of a 90 page writer And so that what they did was the idea is is that they go to the dressing room if they see brown M&M's They know something's wrong. They go into panic mode and check all the all the rigging and what have you But is it was this actually a brilliant idea? I have an actual picture of their dressing room This is David Lee Roth standing in front of five bottles of whiskey wearing chaps. I think Not safe for work So Ultimately, this wasn't a good idea. This is clever and this is a clever trick that buried essential requirements I would rather have somebody Checking the rigging rather than pulling the brown M&M's out of that bowl I would rather have somebody actually making sure that those amps aren't going to fall on me and That is the Van Halen thing, but I think today the RFP like legalese can bury your essential requirements The boilerplate that's required by a procurement team Can bury your essential requirements sometimes stakeholders that have like strong opinions about their niche can have their non Essential requirements bury the essential requirements And so I think there's a few things to think about before actually issuing this document And I'm gonna say again my job here today is just to state the obvious And as you said to do homework and the homework involves specifically It's getting making sure that the key stakeholders that are gonna have an opinion on this project See what you're going to issue before it's it's sent out. Make sure that they weigh in I think the other is is to pre-qualify people you want to work with the publicly posted RFPs will get like 30 responses from people who are so are not busy enough to Ignore your RFP so pre-qualifying vendors finding like the five or six people that you want to work with is a great way to get started And I think the last thing is you know RFPs have a great When you're sort of doing ideation on a project it's really easy to like have that project expand and expand and I think it's a really good idea to break up monolithic projects into small discrete projects So like for example, you see this a lot where somebody's like we need to redo the website Oh, but we should really think about our messaging which leads to let's talk about a brand conversation That is These are three different projects that might be well served to break down You can use the same vendor for them in a lot of cases, but I think it's a good idea to use us but it's All of that being said, it's good to break it down So let's just talk a little bit about what should be in an RFP with things that I look for when I'm reading them I'm scanning I get about 15 cross my desk every week and the things that I'm scanning if or as I want to know about the project background I want to really understand You know, what's your organization's mission and I'm not talking about like you know the entire The book on this but like a like a couple of paragraphs on like what the history of the organization is and what you who you're trying to serve the History of the project in this in particular as if it's a website is this green field new website that that just coming into existence This is a migration, you know, what was the purpose for it and ultimately? Why is this project important? You know, it's why are we actually making this a significant investment of time and energy? And then the last is why would users care about the thing that we're going to build? It's something outrageous a number of digital projects fail. It's just about 40% and in that failure is a lot of projects that launch with all the features and You know fully featured projects that just never get used that they don't find an audience So I think the second is to make things that need to be in the RFPs to make requirements very clear It's going back to the Van Halen example You know, I think I initially wrote this as what would be the features of the project But I think more important is what are the outcomes? You know, what what what purpose does this serve? What are your priorities? So ultimately a lot of organizations we work with have competing stakeholder groups and some want to Promote events some want to collect donations Which is more important like how does this you know that will help inform a project plan? The next is scoring metrics, you know is price of of the is price the most important thing Or is there something else that's really critical? Actually sharing like that gives a sense of what is important to you and the last one I think this is really key is that Prescriptive solutions can be limiting. I spoke with a client a few years ago And they said one of the requirements is that we need to have six images in our carousel on the home page Which is a very prescriptive solution which also Sort of glosses over the accessibility issues you'd run into a carousel the pay the page data payload That would that that would add and then finally the actual user Analytics that show that less than 1% of users actually interact with a carousel It doesn't actually do the thing that it's supposed to do so having a very prescriptive approach to the problems You're trying to solve Is is it sometimes it's really good to bring in a vendor to to sort of help codify those issues together as a part of the project I think the next thing that needs to be in this RFP is the timeline. What is your timeline? And why is this important to the project in particular? I think a lot of RFPs do this. They're very clear about the submission deadlines You know these is when you the questions are due. This is when the vendor call is this is when the proposal is due But I think the second is the project timeline, you know And what what is it and why is it being? Why is this important being driven by a becoming campaign? We work a lot of non-profits again, so the fiscal year funding is really important or grant funding is really important and Then finally is is the timeline being informed by the level of effort So it's not uncommon where the timelines 12 months for a three-month project or the timelines nine weeks for a 12-month project Having some and this goes back to pre-qualifying vendors having some calls and getting getting a sense of what the timeline might be This is something that I really think is important and it might not be Completely obvious is to separate the requirements of the project the timeline of the project from the boilerplate that you're required to include in RFP and specifically First don't assume that it's necessary. I think the best Processes I've gone through are when I'm been handed a four to six page spec sheet of things that need to be done and without any of the boilerplate but Again, you sometimes you have to include the sample contract There's a lot of language that needs to be included and this language doesn't change from RFP to RFP So and and maybe you're familiar with this You'll get a document that has like all the boilerplate and then like insert scope here and then more boilerplate in skirt timeline here In those instances make liberal use of appendices Just make your RFP boy all boilerplate and appendix a is the scope of work and appendix B is the timeline This is just really easy for it makes it really easy for great vendors to scan Your your document very quickly and qualify it say this is a good fit for me And this is a I got two more things here on this on this Make the RFP a searchable document I've seen this a lot where the RFP is issued as a PDF and it's basically like an image of text Which makes it impossible for me to go like quickly use a search function to go find the budget or the timeline You know or some other keywords that I'm interested in and Finally and I've seen this if your RFP is a jumble of copy pastes copy pasta from other RFPs You the responses are going to match that tone and that is not valuable I think at all so if you I've seen RFPs that have like we need support for three months And then in the next paragraph six months and then six pages later nine months That is that is clearly being pulled from other documents another thing is That I think is really helpful for me when putting together a project plan is to understand the team. I'd be working with and Specifically who are the team who's on the team that you can be working with day to day You know, what are their superpowers? What are they bringing to the table? Do you have in-house development? Maybe you don't need a heavy lift on development Or maybe you have a designer or somebody who's creating a lot of content for you So you don't need the automated migration That's really helpful to know It's also really helpful to know to how much of their time will be dedicated to the project You know some partners that you choose to work with will be people who you know You hand requirements to and they squirrel themselves away and they deliver something months later That's not how we operate and so it's really important for us to understand like how much time are you actually do you have Giving to this project and that will inform the project plan and lastly Never share your budget ever Totally kidding totally share your budget tell the people how much you're actually gonna spend on this project I think that there's this There's a perception that if you if you share what your budget is All of your vendors are gonna go straight to the top of your budget and that might be the case But the issue here is isn't that you need to do an apples to apples comparison And so it'd be it's very good to let people know how much you have to spend If you're a project manager, maybe you're familiar with the iron triangle of you know scope budget and timeline which all Rolls up into quality if you don't share the budget The problem is is that you don't really get a sense of what the quality of the work is going to be so Why share this budget? It's just right sides of the project plans and proposals if you have a big budget Maybe you want it to do workshops. You know think think do a deep dive Maybe if you're working with a small budget, maybe you need to have something that is more off the shelf And then also you get to judge you take the budget out of the equation and you judge on the quality of the plan and the Experience of the team and not just the price I'm gonna try to get through the last piece very quickly on the takeaways If you can help it Don't use an RFP big first takeaway if you must you have an RFP organize it. Well in some sections There's somebody one of our clients here who it issued the RFP that basically told me how to put this slide together Is first start with a summary and overview of the RFP project The organization background the project background including goals what you know about your audience and your analytics Team information. Oh, I'm head team information like who's on your team how much of the time is on the project What are their superpowers is the scope of work the iron triangle of deliverables timeline budget and Boiler plate if you have boiler plate Either use it skip it attaches Appendance and that is the everything I have to say about that. So thank you all I'm willing to take let's do questions. Let's open the floor. We have 10 minutes So you're asking is there a way of simplifying? I'm sorry. Maybe I don't understand the question Okay, so in this instance, so the the I have the I have instructions to repeat this on the mic Okay, so they so you had a you issue an RFP for a certain amount Responses came back and said this we can meet that in Drupal. We can bring it come in a little bit less in WordPress But your capacity was it was in Drupal And so I think that's actually that is a part of that I would consider that a part of the requirements piece that it is Drupal to say we have a strong preference for Drupal now I'm not I know there's Drupal console. I might need to whisper this but I'm not like a Drupal Priest like I don't like swing the incense at home or have an alter For Drupal. I'm I I want to work with it. I think of it as a hammer and you know if I need to drive a nail That's the best tool If a vendor comes back and says hey, we've got WordPress we can do WordPress with for 85% less I would I would be hard pressed to go with Drupal now with the amount you're talking about was like a 5% difference That is if you think about it over time like the amount of time that you the amount of the cost To actually support that would be more than offset by the savings Because if you have internal capacity for Drupal and you don't have like the WordPress capacity then that becomes problematic for your organization I would I would always include the budget range is fantastic. I think that you know It's I think that gives a sense that of what is like, you know At the minimum, you know at the minimum is like we know this is going to be at least I don't know $60,000 and if you come in at $15,000 we know you're not serious That's that is I think and then at the maximum to say this is the absolute must most we can spend then that becomes a question of You know, how do you have guardrails in the project to make sure you're not going to go over that? Does that make sense? I think a range is fantastic Sure, so you're asking about how to pre-qualify vendors without like prejudicing other vendors So that is that's a great question, and I think there's a few different things There's a lot of resources and that's gonna be totally self-serving, but that's fine. I don't I don't I'm from New York City I'm totally fine with being self-serving. No, I think that in the like Drupal dot D dot o marketplace has a bunch of like like really qualified Drupal vendors and clutch Dot-co has also a number of listing of Drupal vendors, and that's a great place to start the conversation With respect to having those conversations Especially when you're in a regulatory environment those conversations really have to start before the RFP is issued and That is and what because once the RFP is issued then I think a lot of times that's when the gates close And you can't talk to people in those instances It's just good to reach out and get a sense for the people you'd be working with and just have a conversation and In those instances it's it just helps you to understand Like to get a sense of what that project is being how that project is being Seen on the agency side, and it also helps to get a sense of what is how you can Write an RFP in a way that be welcomed by the agencies that you prefer That makes sense So there's a question about policy. Sometimes you have policies that prevent you from doing something like sharing the budget for example And how can how can you work within that system or how can you change that system? Changing the system feels a little bit more like above my pay grade. I one of the things I Reason why I want to give this talk is because you know, there's a lot of there's been like six or seven years ago There's a lot of talks about like ending the RFP process and it didn't get any traction So I said well, why don't we just try to improve what's there? with respect to like How I've seen people work within those sort of constraints Successfully is when you can't share the budget Require that the budget is part of a second round So like you actually just see a like a technical proposal without any cost And then you pick like the three top and then you ask for the cost proposal from there And the reason is is that you actually eliminate a lot of You then you are judging so first of all you're incentivizing the vendor to just like say this is what we want to do This is the best we can do. This is the best value that we see and then they share the budget with you as a second round Because otherwise if you are just saying well give us your give us your project plan and the budget together What happens is is then you're in a competitive environment with 20 different people and the the cost is the thing that's going to drive it down I know I'm focusing exclusively on the budget. I'm happy to talk more about other aspects as well We've got like two minutes. Is there any any final? I mean, I don't want to say like final burning thought questions because I feel like that puts too much pressure on it But any trivial questions? Have I ever seen like a funny RFP? Okay, so No, because every time I see an RFP. That's not good. It's like it feels like it's a waste of time for me No, I have seen an RFP. I saw a project that had it was an incredibly technical Project, which is like using multiple pantheon upstreams of multiple API integrations with a tie-in to like an internal workflow and They had $11,000. So that was I was like this is a great project. It's really interesting until I got to the budget page and I said I should have gotten to the budget page first How do I handle customers without an RFP? That's a great question because I think a lot of times that is that's also challenging because you have to work together to understand like the business requirements and you start at a much higher level and that is Typically what I like to do there is I like to introduce them to the at-and-team and Have them actually work with a strategist to start thinking through the problems that need to be solved And then that way we have a you know We have a strategist that helped them work through the problems that need to be solved and a project manager that can Sort of formulate a project plan for them and in that way we are starting from a collaborative place Okay, last question Sure, so this is a question about change management is a software changes as it's sort of coming into focus Yeah, that's a that's a that's a really interesting I know how I know how to do that from a proposal perspective, but not from the RFP perspective I have to follow up with you on that. Anyway, I'm out of time. Thank you so much. This is a really great conversation Don't forget to contribute and also give give answer the surveys at the end of the conference. Thank you very much