Web Development RFP: a Really Bad Idea
April 2nd, 2007
Ok, something that drives me crazy. RFPs for web development.
Honestly, they make no sense at all. Don’t get me wrong, we get tons of them, and reply to every one, but at the end of the day; are they really serving the company that sent them out? Nope. Here’s why I say this:
What does an RFP accomplish:
- It demonstrates the creative writing skills of the author
- It consumes time writing about and requesting services that the author usually knows little about
What doesn’t an RFP accomplish:
- It doesn’t allow you to get to know the people you might be working with
- It doesn’t allow their expertise to influence the quality of the project you are requesting
- It doesn’t allow the creativity of the “vendor” to influence your decision/project
Developing a website of any significant size or scope isn’t going to be addressed effectively in an RFP. It just can’t be done. As I mentioned, we see a ton of them and almost none of them that come in add any real value for the person who sent it. Most often, they are requesting old technology, wrong technology, or even things that just don’t exist. Why? Because the read about it somewhere or cut and pasted it from something they grabbed off the web because their boss told them to put out an RFP.
If you’re charged with getting your company’s website developed and selecting a vendor, I suggest you do the following things:
Identify possible vendors by: searching the web, asking friends/colleagues, contacting developers of sites you’ve used and found to be well built.
Look at their work, not just their portfolio. Ask them for more clients that aren’t posted on their site. Don’t just browse the sites, but see how well they rank in the search engines, see how long it takes them to load, if they are e-commerce, try and get through the checkout process. If you get confused during the process, think twice, or at least ask the vendor some good hard questions.
Call their customers. Not just the ones they give you, but identify some of their customers and call them without permission.
Once you’ve seen some work you’re impressed with and talked with their customers, spend some time and get to know the vendor. If they are doing their job right, you’re going to have to work with them a lot, so get to know them and their company, and let them get to know you. They’ll be able to do the best job for you by knowing you and knowing your goals, not by reading an RFP that you dreaded putting together anyways.
If you’ve found yourself in an organization that requires the RFP process, fine. Find yourself a vendor you like and trust and see if they’ll help you put it together. I know they’re a necessary evil sometimes.
The main point is, don’t make decisions based on a piece of paper. Get to know the people you’re going to work with.
August 18th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
[...] you could tell in my initial post on Web Development RFPs, I’m not a huge fan for many reasons. One of the main reasons though, is that people are [...]
February 25th, 2009 at 9:43 am
But, what is does do is allow the company to do due diligence and justify spending the money on web development. It also helps explain WHY you chose one vendor over the other. From the creative and technical standpoint, the company extending the RFP may just want to know if it’s comparing apples to apples. In the end, an RFP is a business tool and serves those needs, not a technical specification or a creative vision document.
July 6th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
[...] Web Development RFP: A Really Bad Idea [...]
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