Project Management - Managing the Bid

The bid/no bid decision was "bid", so now we have totechnical requirement will be met.
organise the response to the Invitation to Tender (ITT)The Commercial Response will contain, as well as a
from our customer.response to the contractual terms and conditions, the
Your team already have their copy of the ITT forprice and payment requirements including a stage
review and they have had a brief look at it, in order topayment plan, if required.
understand the project sufficiently well to knowIf there are to be bought-in good and/or services
whether the company is capable of carrying out theincluded, the Procurement Manager will need to feed
work. Now the Project Manager, the Technical Leadsub-contractor technical responses, costs, timescales,
and the Commercial Manager, as a minimum, mustpayment and commercial requirements to the
review the paperwork in detail, responding to everyappropriate members of the bid team.
single paragraph in one of three ways. These areThe Bid Manager will co-ordinate all this activity. He will
"compliant" (yes, we can meet this requirement)create a plan of exactly when inputs to documents will
"non-compliant" (no, we cannot meet this requirement)be required, to allow time for them to be
or "partially compliant" (we can meet part of it and thisword-processed, proof read, reviewed and approved,
is what we recommend). Each individual response willcorrected, bound and published. This will cover all
form part of the overall Compliancy Matrix which willcompliancy responses, narrative, costings and plans.
be laid out as a table, listing each requirement and ourThe Bid Manager will call regular meetings to review
responses.progress. In the case of a bid with a short timescale,
In addition to the Compliancy Matrix, as a minimum, thethese will be daily. If time and resources permit, the
Customer will require a Project Management Plan, andmembers of the bid team will be co-located for the
Technical Response and a Commercial Response.duration of the bid, allowing for constant consultation
As well as the detail of how the project is to beand exchange of ideas.
managed overall, the Project Management Plan willFinally, the delivery of the bid must be arranged at or
include a Programme Plan showing dates andjust before the exact time designated in the ITT.
milestones, detail of how sub-contractors are to beWhen the bid is delivered, the team breathe a huge
managed plus Quality and Configuration Managementsigh of relief and wait for the customer to start asking
Plans.questions.
The Technical Response will give details of how each