Adaptive Path Blog

RFPs recently have been a hot topic on our internal mailing list. These conversations were sparked by discussions around the web as well as an influx of opinions about our sales process from newly hired designers and our new manager of client relations. A few key points have emerged from this dialog that are telling in terms of what it’s like to hire and work with Adaptive Path. So I thought I’d jump into the conversation with a post about how we at AP approach RFPs and the sales (if you can call it that) process. Specifically, this post is about how most companies RFP’s processes just don’t work for us and why.

The traditional, one-way RFP process simply doesn’t communicate enough about the project and the company. There needs to be an actual conversation between the client and the potential consultant. I understand why clients think the fair and equal approach is to send out a RFP and insist that all questions are sent via email and responded to en masse. But the truth is clients put themselves at a disadvantage when they do this. A sales process is an opportunity to engage in meaningful and often difficult discussions. We face linguistic, philosophical and tactical hurdles (simply trying to understand what “user experience” means to each company can take a full hour of conversation). But learning about how an organization communicates is an essential aspect of the process, one that should not be given short shift.

Although our sales process doesn’t feel as lightweight as it should be, we rely on it to not only provide information about ourselves but obtain important information about the client as well. Clients need to be prepared for us to ask as many questions about them as they are asking us. Even though we seem to be having an informal conversation, the truth is we’re interviewing and we expect to be interviewed. You have to get at both the tangibles (money, time and process) and intangibles (philosophy, personalities and motivations) to get all the information we both need to make a decision to move forward together. In some ways we’re *selling* our services, but we’re also trying to make sure we’re a good fit.

To gain an understanding of our client’s processes and goals, we try to talk to as many of the key players as possible. (The people who are actually going to do the work and who understand the impact that the work will have on the business.) Sometimes that knowledge resides with one or two top individuals within the company, but often the CEO stresses different goals then, say, a business unit manager and part of our job is piecing all of that together. We balance and weigh each player’s motivations before we can determine how best to succeed within the organization. So when we ask — “Why are you choosing to do this project now? Who else cares about it and what aspect do they care about? If we move forward together, what challenges do you see us facing? How important is it to the organization to solve this problem? And is this actually the problem that needs solving?” — it’s with this goal in mind.

I tell clients working in companies with strict procurement processes: “Don’t let procurement run the show.” We all know there are guidelines that need to be followed, but the relationship between our joint team is going to last the entire length of the project (and hopefully, beyond)– not just the procurement phase. So clients: Take the time to talk to your potential consultants, use the conversation to explore their problem-solving methods, be upfront about any difficulties your own team has communicating internally and openly discuss difficulties or successes you’ve had with past engagements. And tell us how things *really* get done in your organization.

Frankly, at the end of the day, we don’t care what’s in or out of a RFP document. As long as a company is willing to engage in an open conversation with us about their project, company and expectations, a RFP can be three sentences: “We’re doing cool stuff. We need help. Call us.”

This entry was posted on Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 11:38 am and is filed under Adaptive Path. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

This post is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.