Holding an effective tender launch meeting is an important first milestone in the bid response process. It’s your ideal opportunity to provide key information, assemble content experts, gain buy-in from essential stakeholders, assign tasks and motivate the entire bid team.
Before the meeting date, there are several good practice tasks to you can undertake to make sure everything gets off on a firm footing:
Pre-meeting activities to maximise value on the day
- Produce an agenda with an indication of time allowance per section.
- Ensure you allocate enough time. A thorough tender launch meeting can easily take half a working day (4 hours)
- Carefully consider who needs to be present – too many cooks spoil the broth
- Circulate a copy of the ‘quality questionnaire’ before the meeting:- 500 word summary of the project
– 500 word summary of the client
- Clearly describe the deliverables of the meeting
- Circulate any key documentation and specifically indicate which documents each team member should read
- Produce a draft programme of what needs to happen during the tender period
- Request that people who cannot attend send a deputy who can brief them after the meeting
- Enlist someone to take minutes at the meeting and ensure dissemination afterwards
Objectives – Your 13-point plan
With the right pre-meeting prep, you’ll be all set to brainstorm solutions and agree the approach. You should aim to achieve the following by the end of the meeting:
- Identify the individual who is leading the bid submission (Bid Manager)
- Introduce the bid team to requirements
- Identity any questions about the tender that can only be answered by the Buyer
- Discuss tactics for the bid process
- Agree a timeline to complete the work, including all necessary reviews
- Allocate resources to individual elements of the response
- Identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of your bid
- Ensure everyone is clear on the client ‘problem’ that your bid ‘solution’ will be addressing
- Agree the operational structure that will be in place to complete the work
- Identify the Framework Governance Structure for framework bids
- Identify the person who will complete the skeleton response
- Choose the case studies that best illustrate your abilities, experience and expertise
- Agree the strategy by which the bid will result in a win
Need some support with running a bid launch meeting?
Contact Propeller or take a look at our tender launch workshops.
