Generally, eTips on the subject of tenders and proposals focus on the strategic issues.
This eTip is directed to tactical consideration involved in getting a successful bid out the door, with a minimum of stress, tension, drama, and tears.
Here are some practical suggestions:
- save a new version of the tender base document every hour, or so
- call each version by a distinctive name - draft at 9am, draft 10am, etcetera
- make a removable copy (to diskette or CD) every couple of hours
- create heavy graphic elements like flowcharts, complex tables, and organisation charts in separate documents - bring them into the base document later
- the electronic master document must have only one owner/custodian: don't have several people attempting to tinker with it, especially in the later stages
- for really large proposals, create them in separate sections and page number within sections. For example: Section A, pages 1-99, Section B, pages 1-99, and so on …
- only early in a tender project is it helpful to have people creating unformatted text - from the half-way point onwards, make certain all contributors format text using your master template
- for long tenders, calculate expected print and collation time - multiply your estimate by two to workout your "drop dead" moment - printing of final work product must start before that time
- remember the favourite saying of one of our leading consultants: "Do you want perfect? Or do you want it printed?" Feel free to use this saying around your office if you have to!
- if you're taking a high-tech approach to your tender (say, by using PowerPoint) create, perfect, and finalise the whole of the verbiage first in Word before converting the presentations to PowerPoint
- make an investment in a great, high-tech tender template which does all the things you need: page layouts, use of logos, hierarchy of headings, text styles, automatic table of contents generation, automatic section and page numbers, custom headers and footers, special bullets, etcetera
- loose leaf, ring binders are less seductive than many other binding options, but they have the added appeal of flexible, easy collation and accommodating a variety of sizes and styles of annexures
- work out the structure of your document at the beginning - document it and ensure the right cross-references, titles, and so on are used from the outset
- hand-written edits are often the best way, especially when you're receiving input from multiple sources - don't confuse "high tech" electronic edits with efficiency!
- Don't leave making covers, spines, and title pages to the end - do it early
- Carefully estimate the amount of base paper you'll need for final printing - then order double your estimate!
- Print and collate one complete "master" first - produce the rest only after quality assuring the master
- Don't paginate documents until the very last - ask proofreaders to ignore the auto-generated page breaks
Have someone unfamiliar with the document do the final proof read: brief him/her to look for typos, grammatical, and formatting problems only. Note: this is not the time for stylistic changes or general editorial advice.
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