How to Read a Construction RFP: A Contractor's Walkthrough
Most RFPs are long. Most of what is in them is boilerplate. The skill is knowing which parts to read carefully and in what order, so you can make a bid decision before you spend your estimator's time on a job that does not fit.
Before you price
Start with scope, not instructions
New readers of RFPs tend to start at page one and read forward. The instructions to bidders at the front are important for compliance, but they do not tell you whether this is a job you want.
Go to the scope of work first. Read it quickly. Ask: is this work we do? Is the scale right for us? Does anything about the scope immediately disqualify us or price us out?
You are making a go/no-go decision before you invest time in the details. The scope section tells you what the owner is actually buying.
Deadlines: there are more of them than you think
RFPs have multiple deadlines. The bid submission deadline is the obvious one. But there are usually others: pre-bid meeting attendance (sometimes mandatory), RFI submission cutoff, addenda acknowledgement deadlines, and project start date.
A mandatory pre-bid meeting you miss can disqualify your bid entirely. Check whether attendance is required as a condition of bidding.
Map all the dates before you commit. If the RFI cutoff is in three days and you just found the RFP, you may not have time to get your questions answered before bid day.
The certifications and compliance checklist
Public RFPs require certifications that private work does not. Common ones: proof of insurance at specified limits, contractor's license, business registration, tax compliance certificate, MBE/WBE/DBE certification if you qualify, prevailing wage compliance acknowledgement, conflict of interest disclosure.
Some of these take time to obtain. A certificate of insurance with specific additional insured language has to come from your broker. A tax compliance certificate can take days from a state agency.
Read the required certifications list early. If something on the list takes more than a day to get, you need to know that now.
Where the risk lives in an RFP
The scope tells you what you are building. The special conditions tell you what you are agreeing to. These are not the same thing.
The contract risk lives in the supplementary general conditions or special conditions sections, often toward the back of the RFP. Look for liquidated damages, indemnification, insurance requirements, payment terms, retainage percentage, and dispute resolution process.
A job with good scope and punishing contract terms is still a risky job. The time to find this out is before you price it, not after you win it.
Evaluation criteria tells you how you will be judged
Most public RFPs explain how bids will be evaluated. Some are low-bid-wins. Others score price, experience, team qualifications, and project approach on a weighted basis.
If the evaluation is weighted, find out what the weights are. A bid that is 10 percent higher than the low bidder but scores perfectly on qualifications might still win if qualifications carry 40 percent of the score.
Know how you will be judged before you decide how to compete.
Submission requirements: read twice, submit once
The instructions to bidders section tells you exactly what to include in your submission and in what format. Missing a required form, submitting the wrong number of copies, or using the wrong delivery method can get your bid rejected as non-responsive, regardless of your price.
Make a checklist of every required item before you start assembling your bid package. Check it against your submission before it leaves your hands.