Last month the Drupal Association published a detailed article on 'How to Write an RFP for Open Source Solutions'. This post covers the most effective way of crafting your RFP in order to find the ideal supplier to build your open source solution, including providing a template guide to act as a starting point for pulling everything together.
Building an RFP can be a time intensive process that carries a high risk of attracting suppliers that may not be the best fit for your team if the requirements are unclear. This post will centre our top 5 considerations for writing an effective RFP, with a focus on reducing the time investment and increasing quality for both buyers and suppliers.
Lock Down the 'Must Haves'
Avoid compromising on your 'must haves'. Recognised standards that demonstrate a commitment to quality, security and expertise in your open source solution of choice (e.g. Acquia Drupal Triple Certified Expert) can be pivotal in ensuring quality in the final product. Through demonstrating commitment to Security (e.g. ISO 27001), the supplier has already been through a rigorous audit process that a buyer can trust, without investing the effort and time into trying to verify this themselves.
- Pro-tip: If you're looking for ISO standards, make sure they're verified to a UKAS accredited standard.
Keep it Agile & Open
Unless a clear Discovery has already taken place, keeping the requirements open will help to keep your solution user-centred, agile and responsive to emerging requirements. Although providing requirements are essential for ensuring you're able to communicate what you want from a solution, requiring a detailed responses to an extensive list of requirements will not only require a time-intensive evaluation, but also limit the flexibility of the resulting solution. Focus on the bigger picture of functionality, rather than the details that should be worked out as part of a user-centred product.
- Pro-tip: Highlighting pain-points with an existing CMS can be a great way of finding solutions in an open source product
Set Clear Response Parameters
Set a clear response criteria that dictates what you need to see from each requirement or question raised to suppliers. By adding a word count for suppliers to adhere to, you're forcing the supplier to slim down the waffle and focus on the value of their response, making responses clearer and easier to evaluate for your team.
- Pro-tip: Look for contributions to open-source to demonstrate not only the technology fit, but also that the supplier is involved in maintaining it.
References & Case Studies
Seek out references and case studies that demonstrate expertise in the core qualities of an agency that you're looking for. Engagement with a supplier's existing client base will help to rapidly ascertain whether the supplier is the right cultural fit for you and your team.
- Pro-tip: Ask for a range of references from the larger clients to the smaller, and across multiple sectors to get a true feel of the agency
Budget Transparency
There would be nothing worse than reading a response to your RFP that sounds like your dream supplier, only to find out their submission is well above your intended budget for the project. By sharing the rough budget up front, suppliers can tailor their response to meet your needs, aiming for the maximum value for money in the resulting product within the budget stipulated by your organisation.
- Pro-tip: Leaving a portion of the budget for a 'Phase 2' after launch can be an effective way of ensuring the solution is continuously evolving to user needs