Request For Proposals - best practices

The most difficult decision of Virtual team owner is to select his team.

Often the Virtual employer compiles a RFP(Request for proposal) and pitches it to the Virtual candidate.

The shortlisting is done by the employee based on that one single reply to to his RFP.

"Most of the time I don't understand how to reply to the RFP as there are no specific questions in it" says Aravind Gosh a prospective candidate.

Most employers do not make assertions in RFP and they try to summarize the project requirement and let the candidate comment and propose his execution plan. This is very important as vision and goal of the project is more important than just technical expertise when working in a virtual environment.



Perhaps one of the most important criteria I have personally observed to be helpful is the RTQ and ATQ principle:

* RTQ = Read the Question. Refer to what the client is asking for in the proposal
* ATQ = Answer the Query: After you have read and understood the question (and researched on it) you should focus on just Answering the Query. And remember: say “NO” “NA” or “info not available” if you don’t have the answer. Saying so will help you more than hurt you. Nobody (least of all your client) wants to spend precious time reading an answer to a query they did not ask!

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