More on Why ‘Templating’ Is A Bad Practice When Developing Bid Strategy

There’s an endless list of reasons why relying on templates is highly inadvisable when responding to EOIs and RFPs . . . and the advisability of adopting an “anti-template” policy is just as pertinent to bid strategy formulation, as it is to the production of the end document.

Here are just three reasons why what I call “templated thinking” should be hotly avoided when formulating strategy:

1)  Genericism vs Uniqueness:  A Process that Doesn’t Match the Required Mindset

Once the nature of a procurement or project is understood, a bid team should endeavour to identify and place focus on the unique characteristics of that procurement or project. (This is particularly so where the competitive field are all well-qualified for the task at hand.)

Thus, past the first few hours of a strategy development session, trying to run it with the use of pre-formulated, generic outlines is potentially counterproductive.

Think of it this way: 

If, for example, a recycled water project is characterised by its inland location, its low base of identified industrial users, its need for de-nitrification, its high energy usage in comparison to other solutions, so what, and what then?

Or if, for example, a program is characterised by its urgency against the backdrop of local body political instability and uncertain funding, an uneducated client pushing for risk-ridden technological solutions, a disaggregated network of incompatible systems to be brought together and an overwhelming backlog of individual projects, so what, what then, why, and where to from there?

The discussion is clearly a qualitative one, and, after it progresses past the initial characterisation of the project or other type of procurement, the only real strategic direction to move forward in, is that which is dictated by the findings and conclusions of each previous level of the thought process.

The same fundamental principle of context-specificity will be at play whether you are bidding for the provision of a large IT software installation or hardware contract into a Government department, legal services into a large corporation, or logistics services to a fast-moving consumer goods manufacturer.

2)  Strategy Development Should be Led By A Strategic Thinker

The ability to run a group through a questions-based, columnised template – or a series of them – is not the approach a genuine strategist would take.

A true strategist will allow conversations to evolve naturally, channelling the thinking and discussion along in a lateral and flowing – albeit well-controlled – fashion, fully developing all threads of input.

And a strategist will not only rely on his or her own researched understanding and sense of logic to channel the thinking and the discussion along in a productive direction, they will channel multiple threads of the discussion along at any one time as the conversation diverges into a variety of subtopics. The progression of all of these are critical to the development of the optimum end strategy.

That’s a process a templated approach can not achieve.

3)  A Template-Directed Discussion Will Hit An Early Wall

By its very nature, a template can’t go deep enough to ensure the development of an optimal strategy.

At best, the conclusions resulting from a templated approach will stop the discussion at a generically pre-determined point – and quite possibly (well) short of the best possible strategic decision.

A solid, detailed and worthy bid strategy simply can’t result from a formulaic, template-based, tools-assisted process. In fact, using the outputs of such a process will almost definitely result in a bid that is little more than a superficial, homogenised piece of mildly-tailored brochureware. I see it repeatedly.

Strategy formulation should be a fluid process . . . because a tight and well-formulated strategy is a synthesis of moving parts. And I’ve never seen a template with the required stretch, movement and overall flexibility to allow bid strategy workshop participants to go adequately deep and wide in their thinking.

In short, it’s an art . . . a highly developed skill that can’t – and shouldn’t – be reduced to a questionnaire-based activity.