 Okay, I think we can probably get started can everybody hear me. All right, I'll try to lean in I'm a little bit taller than the microphone But hopefully that's that still works. How's everyone feeling? It's the last day. How's your energy? Is it like okay? Okay, that's good to hear. So my name my name is Bjorn Thompson. I'm a solutions director at Imagex and to my right is John Trenn our RCTO at Imagex today. We're gonna be talking about the RFP process So at Imagex we respond to a lot of RFPs. Maybe even we probably evaluate hundreds each year we respond to to a whole lot of them and You know rather than being the author of RFPs being the consumer of our RFPs. It often gives us some you know some useful insights and tips about the process that you know can help in when you're planning To engage with the vendor and just trying to understand what are some good ways that that I can find the right partner for me Especially when you're in a process where you can't control everything In our P is the very different definition of that kind of process where there's many things that are Already decided for you. So how can you make the best of a sit of a situation where you can't control everything? So we'll talk about that today. So as I said, my name is Bjorn I work on the business development side of Imagex. So we evaluate projects including many many RFPs and decide which ones to bid on and John. Yeah, so I'm John. I manage the dev team obviously, but also I do a lot of pre-imposed sales support and pitching from a vendor perspective, but also over my career I've written and been on the evaluation side of many RFPs as well Thanks, Sean. So we work with a lot of different groups that are bound by an RFP process certainly higher education nonprofit and a very common thing is that people are trying to get their The quotes or their budget within 900 and 99 $1000 and 99 cents. So, you know, there's there's often a desire to kind of Avoid or circumvent an RFP process. We'll talk about some of the some of the ways that you can maybe either circumvent that process or Alternately that you can kind of enhance that process if that's if that's the process that you're that you're going down so The first thing I wanted to talk about really kind of briefly were some of the challenges and we don't want to paint a very dark picture of RFPs because there are some some benefits to them and we'll talk about those as Well, but they can be like a bit of a blind date They can accidentally rule out the ideal partner and that's really the biggest It's kind of drawback is that it's very common for a vendor to to look at an RFP That actually might actually be a fit for them and to rule themselves out arbitrarily without realizing that it's not the right The right fit for them and we'll talk about how we can avoid that It's also hard to know what to ask for in a consultative process where you're talking to a vendor You know in a in a kind of free-form discovery process They can ask you questions. You can ask them questions. They can ask in probe. You know, what do you mean by migration? Or what do you mean by integration with Salesforce But when you're written sort of sending written document into the ether There's often not not a chance to ask those kinds of questions except for like a written Q&A Which is a bit like sort of playing checkers by mail The other thing is they can encourage an adversarial relationship You know our piece had to be a fairly compliance heavy document So, you know, they can cause people to like overestimate things because they they they worry about Accounting for the budget for for for integration or something like that So they put in a hundred hours when it's actually a five-hour piece that that's our thing and this in general They're prone to misunderstanding So the reason that's a problem is You know, it takes a long time to create an RFP it takes a long time to get there as an organization And when you start off on the wrong foot, it's really dispiriting We see a lot of RFP is to get retracted and reissued several months later Which can lead to an even longer delay like especially coming out of kovat People don't want to wait to do their project They really want to get going and they don't want to lose that organizational energy So having an RFP that isn't very effective or or isn't structured effectively Can really kind of lead to Longer delays and confusion both on on both sides about for the vendor, you know, what are you trying to do? Why are you trying to do it? What's the sort of business case that you're trying to present? And then the last piece is a poor an RFP that is not written effectively Can really lose sight of why you're doing it in the first place And and you kind of get caught up in legalese And you know, sort of terms and conditions instead of the actual goal of the project and the business value of the project So there is a better way and I'm not going to try to hopefully I won't try to pretend in this that I have the solution to everything Or we have the solution to everything But we'll talk about some things that I think have that have value to discuss If you are required to follow a process of procuring a vendor a lot of people are and that there's a lot of value in that There are still a lot of things you can do to make sure that you have a successful project So we're going to kind of focus on four Four main areas how to create a great sort of partner driven RFP and what we mean by that is like a collaboration Most people are seeking a partnership with somebody who has a long-term orientation who who knows you who gets you So some of the things that that kind of help you achieve that include doing your homework And we'll talk a bit about that structuring the rfp So there's things you can do within the rfp document knowing that it's a limited format It's not a conversation. It's a document that can help you attract the right partner So if it's if an rfp is like a blind date at least we can write a good profile for our blind date Avoiding typical rfp traps and we'll talk about some of those are and having a well-defined selection process And that that's important too. We don't want to just talk about the document. We want to talk about how it's afterwards Yeah, is there anything else that you want to add John that haven't uh Um, no, I think I mean we've got some more points on how to do a good rfp But on the advantages side, I think You know, there are some advantages to rfps. They have kind of a negative connotation, but the most the biggest one from A procurement perspective is price pricing discovery getting competitive bids, you know, but I think there's a little bit too much emphasis sometimes on the pricing I think the the more important thing is that some things cost more or less than you think And spelling that out in rfp can give you like a broad perspective on On you know varied opinions on that And then also, you know, you can really optimize your kind of procurement workflow you know working with Just not just the people that That are looking for for the solution but also, you know dealing with legal and Procurement and working all those kinks out so that you can get started sooner than later like we've We've won rfps and then you they're they're willing to start right away But then the project's delayed for like six months because of legal or procurement issues So doing it properly can really help cut through that. Yeah, that pre-work is so so important And we'll talk about that as well as like how how you can engage with you know Engage in a way that gets you off to To the right start and kickstart rather than having to wait for three months to even get the rfp document out So before we start so we'll talk about all those elements We'll just we'll talk about a couple things you can do to tweak the rfp process You may not be able to do all of these or any of them, but if you can they're they are obviously quite valuable For some organizations Some some ways that they can modify the process include a closed or semi closed rp process Maybe inviting select bidders that you know You've done a bit of diligence You've looked on you know clutch or dupe.org or whatever it might be And you found some bit some bitters that you already feel or fit and just just letting them know this rp exists and to bid on it Another thing that if if you are allowed to is very helpful is offering individual calls Written documents are very difficult to interpret Requirements from the ability to talk to people a little bit beforehand is very very valuable If you don't have the ability to offer that and there's often You know rps are Intended to be objective. That's the whole sort of purpose of them So, you know limiting subject subjective bias by reducing the amount of like advantages ahead of time is very common Is just thinking about structuring the pre conference or the pre call bid I don't has anyone here ever attended a pre conference bid Have you ever I don't know if you if this was the format that you experienced But it's very commonly like someone will open up the rfp and like literally read it from like top to bottom It's not particularly enlightening to a to a vendor So if you structure it more like a q&a And more more focus the Whatever opportunities you have prior to the rfp structure it more like Explaining your business case explaining what you're trying to do Talk talk less about compliance and requirement and compliance and procurement And more about, you know, what are you what are you looking for? What kind of partner you're looking for? What what kind of success outcomes are you are you seeking? You know, that's actually maybe the only opportunity a lot of folks have to actually put their business case forward So when You are sort of involved in that rfp process There there's a number of things you can do to prepare and advance to make it successful. This was actually my former boss Said in a consensus-based organization 17 against 1 is considered a tie I think that's something we all know from from the organizations we work with Is that, you know, getting alignment is always a is always a really really important element to a successful project There's a couple other really really critical things one is assigning a signing a really strong project lead Like an rfp is a project and finding somebody who really can articulate your business case and pull the stakeholders together is so so important Getting alignment with the stakeholders is obviously super super important And, you know, this that project itself of creating the rfp is a discovery process So, you know, the ability to send out, you know, surveys to get people together, maybe even in discovery workshops of some sort to To understand in advance, you know, what what we're trying to build very very helpful And setting clear expectations. I'll talk about that one in a minute and then finally it's kind of like a subtle one but it's very important is When an rfp isn't like written well as a business document, it's very difficult to respond to It's extremely valuable in an organization to assign somebody who understands the rules of business writing and can write a strong business case To do to the rp the rp is not like a wish list of things you want. It's a punchy concise Narrative of what you're trying to achieve as an organization So if you can get people on the project or yourself Kind of be very familiar with with what makes a strong business case I mean, I mean the way the rp you're trying to sell to the partner that you're that you're trying to reach So you want it to be not just about what you need but about, you know, helping them understand who you are and what you're trying to achieve The second thing about getting alignment is You know, it's a very common thing. I don't know if you've ever read an rp or if you read hundreds of them A year like like we do in our in our time But it's often the case. We'll see like 30 or 40 different requirements Would have very little insight into which ones are important So kind of helping the vendors understand From your wish list what the priorities are is so important And that helps that serves you so much Because you know, if they're looking at 30 things that need to respond to they don't know which ones to invest in more They don't know which ones are going to matter to you more If they know that these are our top three things or our top five things Then they're going to invest more time in that and you're going to get a better overall solution The other element is just setting expectations helping your internal stakeholders understand the big picture the earlier earlier you can sell the idea that Not everybody is going to get every single thing that they want But it's going to be vastly better. So looking at the the overall goal and the big picture the better And then secondly something that sometimes gets neglected is there's more than one way to get there When you get, you know 20 responses or 15 responses There's going to be a lot of different solutions and to be open to them and not to try to pre-solve during the the rfp process and Televendor is what you need. Yeah, I just wanted to add Not solutioning in the rfp is is really critical because often we'll see a an rfp and they've already like Pick technologies and you know started to recommend approaches to for execution, which You know, I can see why people want to do that. They want a very specific response and quote to to what they're thinking ahead of but You know, if you're when you're going out to a collection of of solution providers You need to give them some freedom to recommend and Provide expertise and if it's too too prescriptive You know, you you might be better off just Sourcing people to do it yourself instead of Going to a partner. So, yeah, it's important not to solution too much. Otherwise you're maybe using the wrong approach Yeah, totally agree John. We'll talk about that a bit about some specific traps to avoid when you're trying to try to pre-solution So I guess that brings us kind of a big part of what we wanted to talk about today is It's easy to talk in principle about You know being collaborative planning ahead doing doing things well, but what does that actually look like in practice? So there are some specific things that we Regularly see that we classify as do's and don'ts of rfp's and of course is just our take take on it and feel free to disagree But you know, some of the things that we we think are very very valuable and lead to better outcomes and better partnerships Are setting high level goals So understanding, you know, what is the purpose of of this of this project helping the vendor understand, you know What are you trying to achieve and you know, what at the high level? What is this project sometimes in an rfp? Perhaps you read one you might get to literally page 41 or 83 and still not know what this project is So that's very very important Distinguishing between must haves and nice to haves very very critical. We'll talk about that and being clear and realistic about about time and budget Because of the written nature of rfp's it's often a dance right you're worried about giving away your budget And maybe if you say my budget is 300,000, then you'll get a bunch of responses with a budget of 200 and 99,999 um, but we'll talk about some of the ways that you can you can Communicate your ranges without giving away the the store and then like john talked about avoiding solutions and uh, and finally we'll talk about being specific about integrations And integrations can stand in for anything that's complex in nature and we'll talk about what what we mean by that So I mean the first thing it may sound obvious But it's it's missed so often is just writing a clear business case and that's also where a good business writing comes in So if the goal is attracting more prospective students helping us understand what the must haves are so an updated updated design Uh, good program pages easy use navigation. I'm using a high-rated example, but it could be anything Um, and then defining nice to house interactive campus map May not be the number one thing that students care about uh, erp integration may help with that But it may be something further down down the road road map piece So just helping people understand here's the goal Here's the elements of execution that we think we need. Um, and then here's some things that we think might be useful over time Aside from like the business case another thing that gets talks about a lot and people are kind of almost nervous about is How how much should I say about budget? How much should I say about time? How can I structure that in a way that's useful? So just because of the nature of rfp is they don't really let you Learn a whole lot about what what the right budget should be or what the right timeline should be Um, so the way that you ask vendors for budget timeline can really help you understand understand better And uh, you know, it can It's very very helpful If you can give them a little bit of flexibility kind of we talk about what don't talk about the solution Because cost and time is also part of the solution So, um, rather than telling them, you know, this is the timeline That that is an option at times that you can you can do especially if the timeline is a little bit more flexible in nature if you if right now it's You know april 2022 if you say we'd like to launch before april 2023 That's probably enough time to do something and to give people enough flexibility alternately If you say the goal is to launch In june 2022 you're probably going to have fewer responses by by the nature of that that unrealistic timeline So asking for timeline is a range is very helpful and giving people a little bit of guidance about budget If you don't people give people any guidance about budget the likelihood you're going to get a lot of irrelevant responses Or a range between 20,000 and 400,000 is just so high So if you can say for example, we can't exceed this amount or even a very broad range like 150,000 to 400,000 It's so valuable for people so that the vendor who Wants to work with you won't just opt out. We we opt out all the time because we don't know From reading the rp. We don't know how What kind of budget people have and and what what their tolerance might be for that? Yeah, it just comes back to priorities. So if you're if budget you have a very fixed budget and You don't tell people that you might get You know a bunch of quotes that are double what you you could possibly spend so it's a waste of everyone's time or if you need it delivered in four months and Vendor can't start for three months because of resource constraints. There's really no point. They should withdraw and you should let them know enough for them to withdraw on time and not waste your time reviewing a proposal doesn't make sense but So yeah, so, you know kind of golden triangle constraints there, but help helping set clear Priorities for your vendors and for yourself is really helpful Yeah, that's one of the most common Sources of of like rfp reissues and retractions as people You know put it put it out there and then they get bids double what they what they were hoping for And it's kind of this this really really Unproductive process and then the final piece is You know rfPs are often fixed bid that's often than just the nature nature of them But if we can if it's possible to avoid You know fixed bid to give people a little bit of sense of of what your budget range is But be open to their their budgeting approach. I think that's extremely valuable The other thing in john you kind of already talked about this is Presenting vendors with problems not solutions. There's like fingernails on chalkboard for a vendor on sleep When we see something has already told us what we're building It doesn't give the vendors you want to have imagination and curiosity and passion And that's not going to attract that kind of vendor So the things that Are helpful to vendors is to say okay the content needs to be user focused navigation needs to be clear Walk us through your discovery process. Help us understand how you work with us What's not helpful are things like key pages need a flexible slider and then no explanation of why just you know They need a flexible slider. We need a mega menu. Okay. You need a mega menu Or sort of a common thing that is Seems like it it adds precision but actually adds fuzziness is you know, we see a lot like rfPs We will have a A phase in the project called strategy that will go from march 3rd to You know may 7th That just makes it so difficult for the vendor to respond because they have their own Process that's probably quite effective. It's been refined over years So the more that you Don't prescribe how they do it but tell them what their what the goal is the better the result's going to be I guess the last piece about sort of do's and don'ts is is about being specific about requirements Every vendor has ever responded to an rfP Or if anyone has ever responded to rfP knows what i'm talking about Is you see a section called integrations. There's always a section called integrations or or systems or whatever it's called And then you'll see like it's about this long and it says sales force ERP integration sas system and you wonder What am I supposed to build? And those those are the sorts of That putting a little meat on the bones of what people are building is so valuable Or if you're not sure and you and you say we know we need to sales force integration. We're not sure yet As much information as you can give the vendor About the nature of these complex technical pieces ERP diagrams whatever you can do to help them understand Is going to lead to far better responses So just just some rough examples of things that are likely to get better responses are our sales force system We'll pull three required fields for display in a list of programs The list must update hourly to make sure that new programs are displayed in a timely way If you can start to spec out the business requirements to create them as kind of user stories It's so valuable. Even if they change it gives people a little proxy of what kind of complexity they're dealing with Are we the right organization to respond to this or not? so you know I guess one of the key points of structuring the rfp is if you can think of it like the kinds of things that A vendor needs to know what kinds of things you'd want to know If you read that would you understand it and helping them helping them a long way They don't have the internal knowledge So if you can give them a little bit of insight into what what what you need Very very valuable So the last piece we want to talk about is we've talked about like Constructing a technical document and there's a lot of work and thought that goes into that But then you get all these responses and we'll We're going to provide a little bit of thought that we have about Some effective ways of scoring and following up So one of the key things is just making sure that you're scoring things that that actually matter And there's a lot of ways you can do that But you know this is going to be a little bit of probably common sense But I think it's important to say is some indicators of a strong proposal things that You know you're looking for and And show show you that the the vendor that actually cares about your problem and and is grappling with it in a In a kind of profound way is you know customized responses a huge indicator of of something that is um You know where it's not just like an intern sort of slapping together and cutting and pasting Elements from previous proposals a clear understanding of your problem It's very useful in in in rp if you can if one of the questions is could you Summarize your understanding of our problem In a brief or concise way that that's often very telling about what they they actually understand what they're building Also, if a vendor is willing to challenge assumptions, and that's something that's very good to say in rp Tell us what we don't know or tell us if we're doing it the right way Also if a vendor provides alternative approaches, they might say, you know, yes, we could do it this way But here's another way that you also think could work that you might want to consider And then finally a vendor who provides concise clear themes And that's where you can really help them if you have 40 things that you want And you help them focus on five That helps them to kind of develop like a narrative for the for the response and to help Um helps them understand. Okay. They care a lot about accessibility You know, they care a lot about content governance. We can develop some themes around that And then of course selecting finalists, um There's always going to be a mix of of gut and science with with selecting finalists And we won't presume to tell you because I feel like we're we're biased and of course Selecting selecting finalists as an agency But it's very useful to have a scoring model and to have a clear scoring model that you put in the rp Make it very straightforward and hopefully make it match the structure of the rp and what you're asking for Um, but also talking about gut, you know, you there is a, um If we only depend on score and we never talk about, you know, the the sort of overall Gestalt of the of the proposal. I think we're kind of kind of missing something getting too deep deeply into the weeds It's obviously very helpful. This is probably common sense, but sorting things into Uh knows maybe's and yeses and the maybe's might actually prove themselves over time if you give them if you give them a chance So for maybe's and yeses, um asking follow-up questions extremely valuable If you're permitted to have a follow-up call, that's even more valuable Uh, but any way that you can kind of help Um help them succeed. Maybe there were some areas where they didn't really understand what you're asking for or they You know, even potentially didn't have didn't have time to to respond to that in the depth that they that they could Very very helpful. Not every team that has an amazing design team and an amazing Development team has the time to respond to your proposal. Well, so sometimes you giving them a second crack at is very helpful When doing the group the group down to a manageable number and then setting up a clear work back schedule for when you're going to have final presentations How long you're going to take to evaluate them? and and all those elements and that That brings me to the last step before you did John does anything else that you wanted to add to that You're good for now. Okay So this is something that is true and we all know it from our own work lives Whatever we do is that not everybody's good at everything Often people who have a very slick Pitch and and and are beautiful presenters Aren't always the best fit for for your team not say that they wouldn't be But a finalist presentation isn't always the best showcase For for the defender that you want. So how do you find a partner within that kind of artificial format of a final finalist presentation? So some of the key things include like making it a conversation. It's very common in finalist presentations We see a list of like 13 questions that we want people won't chose to respond to often in 20 to 25 minutes It's not really a chance to get to know what it's like to work with that person So making it more open and more flexible is very valuable Keeping the agenda flexible instead of peppering it with every wish list item that you want Think about something like share share a case study with us Tell us what you think we should do on this project maybe in three areas Here's a problem that we have. How can we solve this problem? The other elements of evaluating the finalist presentation are Making it as much about q and a as possible often the presentation is not that revealing but the q and a is very revealing so if you Wait the time of the presentation more toward the q and a you'll often get a lot more value out of it and then finally like You know in a finalist presentation because of the nature of the rp process where people are trying to keep things Objective and non-biased it's common that people Will almost have a very kind of like cold demeanor in these presentations But in the end of the day you're looking for somebody you want to work with for years You want to be able to get to know what what it's like to talk to them It's like to what can you work with these people? So trying to establish rapport a little bit of small talk at the beginning asking questions Making people feel comfortable A lot of the people and part of that secret is a lot of people you're talking to in the finalist presentation They aren't professional presenters, you know, they're developers or designers and You know if you make them a feel a little bit Comfortable you're much more likely to get a better response And then I guess the last thing we want to talk about is once you get through the that that process of Evaluation scoring and such negotiating Negotiating offenders. So this is a really important one because doing this Inefficiently can tie you up in in really really long process of legal wrangling Some of the ways that you can shorten that process. It's never possible to do it As short as you want But include taking a collaborative approach maybe walking through the so w and msa together with with your with your vendor And understanding, you know Helping them understand what some of the pitfalls are helping them understand we think legal is going to care about this or Maybe even asking them could you please share your documents early so I can start to share them internally and get that process going The other thing is Trusting that your partner is acting in good faith trusting that you've made a good call And trying to treat it as non adversarily as possible So if the partner has an alternate way to capture a requirement that they are suggesting You know just being open to that being being open to that the fact that they've done this a lot of times And that they may actually have some a valid way to approach this in a different way And that brings us to the last point is you know asking the partners advice Not to say that you're blindly trusting them But you know A lot of times vendors have been through this before and they can help guide you through The procurement process in a way that where you might have only done once or twice and maybe they've done One or two hundred times So there's a lot of value in in getting some input from the vendor. Don't be afraid to ask ask for that As a as a vendor I have a funny story for you. So recently we won a Drupal RFP and of course the the client wanted to get started right away and we Start negotiating the contract and the one of the first terms we notice in the Legal contract is no open-source software. So that kind of put a quick stop to the project. So we you know, we just We're not actually weren't that surprised. We've seen it a couple times and we work with their legal team you know got We didn't really have to get our lawyers involved was more of an educational Exercise to to show them, you know, the obviously the the conflicting Items there and then we worked through it with them and we got stuff cleared up pretty quick But yeah crazy things like that, you know happen quite regularly Yeah, it's um, it's a very common thing that you have certain institutional requirements that you have to Solve for like for example, it's very common that people have milestone base billing Like we won't pay until the design phase is finished or something along those lines And asking your vendor to kind of help you solve that Very very valuable, you know, not even being afraid of like collaborating on on in in sort of pre-discovery meetings sharing google docs in order to kind of Get get a collaborative approach going earlier in the process rather than Sending documents back and forth, which is very time-consuming and very uh mistake prone So That's that's the summary of our presentation. So I guess like the key point that We want to make about the rp process is, you know, we can put a kind of pit of Nervousness our fear and people stomach that they feel like they're They're concerned that the rp process is going to overtake the project that they're not going to find the right people And that they're going to get such a different range of solutions that they're not going to even know the way forward But there are a lot of things that we can do Early in the process in the rp in the finalist presentation and afterwards to kind of help help the vendor succeed Given the impression that they need to be successful and also signal to the vendor that we're a together organization That you're going to want to work with You know all these things are like an rp document is a marketing document You want you want to find somebody who wants you and likes you and wants to work on your project So the more you make it easier for them the more likely you are to find the vendor That's a fit for you for the long term. Thank you Yeah, of course I guess what I'm asking for is guidance on number one sort of down to like the use of O4 Yeah, yeah And also like I don't want I don't want to do discovery with Five for Exhausting. Yeah, exactly. I want to do discovery once and hopefully that goes Yeah, this is where there's a productive discussion about like You know the like sort of who will who holds the cards who's in the capricy? Um, so five discoveries is too much. I couldn't imagine doing that. I just intended four days of a conference and I'm exhausted um I there is the though value if Your if your process allows it. I don't know if you're locked into any specific way of doing things or not Um, if you can have at least some form of shorter Call with each of those of those vendors usually within an hour You'll be able to explain enough They'll be able to ask enough so that you have gotten value on both sides And even if out of that process you don't um, you don't end up Liking that vendors approach you you probably will learn something And the and you probably will have helped them understand whether the project is a fit So it's it's just in the vendors that best interest um To suggest a paid discovery process Maybe even sometimes an unpaid discovery process, but certainly a paid one, uh that uh kind of helps them understand your problem But it's In a competitive bid scenario. That's very not practical for most groups. Uh, so the ability to Have a shorter, uh process where at least you have a chance to talk to them is definitely valuable Um, did I I guess the question is did I answer your question in full? Okay. There's another part to that Gotcha Maybe maybe No, I understand why yeah, yeah That that seems like that's a large road to go down When you start a conversation that seems like a less of investment on both sides and more likely to Start to get a little bit of a sense of a match I think I would suggest you um, think about your own priorities and just what you're saying today suggests a little bit of what you're looking for which is Not a bunch of you know initial discoveries you want to figure out kind of maybe the working relationship first and then Uh, the discovery would be part of the project, but you know, you don't want to do a lot of initial kind of pre selection stuff so Finding an agency that works Well in that model is is is one way to exclude uh, or select. Yeah, exactly. Yeah Yeah, and some agencies are happy to do that other otherwise want to do the discovery before you've been Respond to therapy and that that will help you select or you'll shortlist R5 sure That's sort of Yeah, that's a great approach and you I or I was going to suggest that as well You basically you get kind of generic information about the agencies but a little more depth than you would you know in a conversation You know at a conference, right? So yeah, the great thing about you about expression of interest or rfi as well as More vendors are willing to To respond to them than to an rfp which may not fit into their into their schedule So if it's an eight page or six page document, they're much more likely to to to be able to to respond to it in the time frame So Yeah, that's a great question So I might maybe I can even throw it over to rosie who hates we put on the spot In the back here So we have we have a formal evaluation process that we that we go through We have several it's a little bit like scoring. It's like a little bit on the other side How the how the prospect would score the the response is we do we do have an rfp scoring model um, it includes like several criteria like, um, you know sector fit Or obviously budget time those sorts of things And that helps us a lot And we also have regular kind of rfp like Scrums where we talk through like all the all the things we could be doing which one to fit which one's not and the other important element of that is This is kind of a subtle one that's important is when we're as a vendor evaluating an rfp We're also trying to evaluate will this will this project carry our organization forward toward our goals Like is it a big project? Is it a project where the sector we want to be in? and what's also then also evaluating the winability do we think that By investing 20 or 30 hours in this Uh, we are likely to win it or is this just or very legitimately. Maybe it's not highly winnable, but Maybe it brings us into a sector. We really want to get into So you're here you're at Drupal on the last day Maybe you're in your last session. No one will get upset with you if you go back to your hotel and have an app I don't think but thank you so much for joining the session