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Evaluate a project vendor against the work your project actually requires, not against price alone. A defensible selection tests scope coverage, assumptions, relevant experience, implementation staff, support capacity, document control, and ability to integrate with the existing team. Then keep managing that value through delivery.
Daniel Waters of CBRE Healthcare describes this approach in Building Design + Construction (April 6, 2016). His examples show why an apparently cheap bid can create claims, redesign, coordination work, or missed requirements when the proposals are not truly comparable. The article is an experience-based guide rather than a controlled study, so its figures and case examples should be treated as reported illustrations.
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What “value” means in a project-vendor decision
Value is the contribution a vendor can make to the project’s defined outcomes for the money and risk involved. It is not a vague impression of quality, and it is not a universal score that applies to every trade. A vendor’s value depends on the requirements you set: schedule, performance, safety, maintainability, coordination, documentation, staffing, regulatory obligations, and the client’s priorities.
Waters puts the project manager at the center of this work: “Throughout all vendor negotiations on a capital project, the development, evaluation and ultimate management of the value that a vendor brings is led by the Project Manager.” That means value is assessed before award and managed after award, rather than being reduced to a bid-opening exercise.
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Lowest price is meaningful only when bids contain equivalent scope, assumptions, labor, exclusions, and risk allocation. If one bidder has omitted work or interpreted an ambiguous requirement differently, the numerical spread is not a true price comparison.
Write an RFP that makes value visible
Define the required scope and outcomes
Describe the work in project-specific terms. State interfaces with other trades, required deliverables, performance standards, schedule milestones, commissioning or closeout obligations, and who owns each decision. Explain what is included in the base proposal and how alternates, allowances, options, and exclusions must be presented.
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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteA reused template with only minor edits can leave obsolete language, missing interfaces, or contradictory instructions. Those gaps produce inconsistent responses and give the parties different ideas about what the contract includes. A vendor cannot price or plan a requirement that the RFP never states clearly.
Publish the evaluation criteria
Tell bidders how their responses will be assessed. Criteria can include:
- Completeness and clarity of the scope response.
- Relevant project experience and the capabilities of the people assigned to deliver the work.
- Support capacity, innovation, labor availability, and skill diversity where those attributes answer a defined project need.
- Quality of assumptions, questions, and identification of omissions.
- Document-control and coordination procedures.
- Collaboration, role clarity, and integration with the existing team.
- Price after confirming that the compared bids cover equivalent work.
Do not publish a scoring formula simply to create mathematical precision. Waters’s article supplies no universal weights or pass marks. The useful discipline is to connect every criterion to a requirement the project can explain and defend.
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Require comparable pricing information
Specify the format for base price, alternates, allowances, unit rates, exclusions, escalation assumptions, taxes, labor assumptions, and proposed changes to the contract terms. Ask bidders to identify anything they believe is missing from the stated scope. This lets the team distinguish a lower price created by efficiency from a lower price created by omission.
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Use bidder questions as evaluation evidence
Questions received during procurement are information about both the RFP and the vendor. They may reveal an omitted requirement, an unclear interface, an impractical performance expectation, or a risk that the project team has not considered. Answer material questions in a written addendum so every bidder prices the same information.
Waters says a vendor will typically develop six to 10 inquiries about an RFP. That range is his 2016 assertion, not an independently established industry statistic. Treat the number as a prompt to examine the quality and relevance of questions, not as a quota.
A vendor that asks no questions is not automatically unqualified. However, Waters cautions that a bidder that does not test the scope may raise out-of-scope options only after engagement. Look for evidence that the vendor has read the documents closely, checked interfaces, and surfaced assumptions before award.
Compare genuine options on project-specific axes
When two or more real alternatives remain, compare them in a written matrix. Keep the evidence beside each conclusion: proposal sections, interview notes, reference checks, clarifications, and commercial qualifications.
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| Comparison axis | What to examine | Decision question |
|---|---|---|
| Scope response | Inclusions, exclusions, alternates, assumptions, deliverables, and interfaces | Does the price cover the same work as the competing bid? |
| Relevant experience | Comparable project type, complexity, constraints, and outcomes; experience of the actual delivery team | Has this team solved the problems this project presents? |
| Capacity and capability | Labor force, specialist skills, support coverage, innovation relevant to the brief, and skill diversity where needed | Can the vendor staff the work for the full schedule? |
| Questions and issue-spotting | Clarity, timing, technical depth, and identification of omissions or conflicts | Will the vendor help expose risk before it becomes a change? |
| Document control | Processes for RFIs, submittals, drawings, revisions, logs, approvals, and records retention | Can the team maintain a reliable record and adapt it to this project? |
| Integration | Defined roles, communication routes, meeting participation, escalation, and transition plan | How will this vendor work with the owner, designer, contractor, and other trades? |
| Commercial offer | Base price, allowances, alternates, schedule assumptions, terms, and risk allocation | What is the evaluated cost after scope is normalized? |
This matrix is a decision aid, not a substitute for judgment. A high score in one category cannot compensate automatically for a safety, scope, legal, or integration failure.
Interview the people who will perform the work
Proposal authors may not be the superintendent, project manager, designer, coordinator, or specialist who will deliver the contract. Invite the implementation team to a two-way, semi-structured interview. Use the same core questions for each finalist, then follow up where their answers expose a project-specific issue.
Questions that test delivery readiness
- Who will be assigned, and what comparable work have those individuals delivered?
- What assumptions did you make about interfaces, existing conditions, access, shutdowns, and approvals?
- Which requirement in the RFP creates the greatest delivery risk, and how would you control it?
- Show the proposed RFI, submittal, drawing-review, and change-management workflow.
- How will staffing change during procurement, installation, commissioning, and closeout?
- Describe a lesson learned from a similar project and the process change that followed.
- What information do you need from the rest of the team before mobilization?
Assess whether the answers are specific, consistent with the written proposal, and candid about constraints. Transparency, collaboration, and communication are key components to success, in Waters’s words; the interview is where those qualities become observable rather than aspirational.
Plan integration and document control before award
Define the vendor’s role in the project organization. Identify who can direct the vendor, who approves technical decisions, where its work meets other packages, how conflicts escalate, and what happens if the vendor joins after design or construction is already underway.
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Ask the vendor to demonstrate how it controls RFIs, submittals, design drawings, revisions, meeting actions, test records, and closeout documents. Confirm naming conventions, review durations, approval authorities, distribution lists, and the location of the current record. Then test whether the process can change when the project has unusual requirements.
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Waters writes, “The critical factor is that their process meets the general requirements of a project.” Generic tools do not prove that. Microsoft applications or other project-management software may support the workflow, but the differentiator is whether the process produces timely, traceable information for this project.
What the reported case studies reveal
Omitted electrical scope can be found before award
In one case, an electrical-services procurement for a large healthcare facility had a stated project budget of $26 million. One of three firms submitted eight add-alternate items outside the original RFP scope. Two examples were a $100,000 allowance for synchronized time clocks and $50,000 for exterior feature lighting. Waters reports that the lighting omission was recognized and the budget corrected before contract award.
The lesson is not that every bidder should add work or that these amounts apply to another project. It is that a bidder’s technical review can expose missing requirements while there is still time to decide whether they belong in the project. Require such discoveries to be listed separately, priced transparently, and accepted only through the project’s authorization process.
Ask which requirements govern the price
In another example, an electrical vendor asked whether its pricing reflected current legislation. The project was using AHA Facility Institute Guidelines rather than state codes, and the discussion prompted scope changes on other projects. This account does not replace current jurisdiction-specific legal or code advice. It demonstrates why the RFP should identify the governing standards, edition, authority having jurisdiction, and responsibility for verifying compliance.
Late specialists need a transition plan
A sub-architect hired two years into a project for healthcare-planning expertise had difficulty transferring ideas to the wider team because the transition was poor and the relationship with the principal architect was conflicted. Define reporting lines, design authority, information handoffs, and decision rights before a late-joining specialist starts. Expertise has little value if the team cannot receive and implement it.
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Probe the client’s priorities, not just the vendor’s strengths
In a furniture-vendor interview, the vendor emphasized disassembly and future repurposing, while the interview team prioritized architectural finishes and comfort. Waters says the vendor failed to uncover the client’s priorities. Ask each finalist to restate the client’s decision criteria and explain how its proposal addresses them; do not assume a technically interesting feature is valuable to this client.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.A practical selection sequence
- Translate the project brief. List outcomes, constraints, interfaces, standards, schedule dates, and client priorities.
- Draft and review the RFP. Remove template language that does not apply, define deliverables and pricing format, and publish evaluation criteria.
- Issue clarifications consistently. Log bidder questions, answer material issues by addendum, and preserve the communication record.
- Normalize the proposals. Reconcile exclusions, allowances, alternates, labor assumptions, schedule commitments, and commercial qualifications before comparing prices.
- Score evidence against requirements. Use the comparison axes, citing the proposal or interview evidence for each conclusion.
- Interview the delivery team. Test implementation experience, assumptions, issue-spotting, staffing, lessons learned, and integration behavior.
- Verify references and capacity. Confirm that the named people, labor resources, and document processes are available for this project and dates.
- Resolve open scope. Issue a final clarification or negotiate a clearly documented change; do not rely on an informal promise to cover an omission.
- Record the award rationale. State why the selected offer provides the best fit for the requirements and identify any accepted risks or conditions.
- Carry the value plan into administration. Put responsibilities, reporting, document control, issue escalation, and performance checks into the kickoff and contract-management routine.
Common failure modes and corrective actions
- Automatic lowest-bid award: Recheck scope equivalence and exclusions before treating the spread as savings.
- Vague or recycled RFP: Issue a project-specific addendum and require bidders to confirm assumptions.
- Unpriced omissions: Ask every bidder to identify missing work and decide whether each item belongs in base scope, an alternate, or the owner’s budget.
- Proposal-only evaluation: Interview the people who will execute the work and verify their availability.
- Late integration: Write a transition plan with authority, interfaces, records, and escalation paths.
- Tool-led procurement: Judge the workflow and records it produces, not the brand or feature list of the software used.
- Unverified legal assumptions: Confirm current requirements with the applicable authority and qualified professionals before contract execution.
Managing value after the contract is signed
Hold a kickoff that converts the selection rationale into operating commitments. Confirm the scope baseline, responsibilities, staffing, submittal and RFI workflow, meeting cadence, decision deadlines, escalation route, and records location. Track whether the vendor is surfacing issues early, meeting response times, maintaining accurate documents, and coordinating with affected parties.
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When a change is proposed, identify its cause, scope effect, schedule effect, cost, and impact on other packages. A vendor’s willingness to identify a problem can be valuable even when the resulting change costs money; suppressing the issue usually moves the risk into a less controllable phase. Revisit the original requirements at major milestones so value remains tied to the project’s current needs rather than to the sales promises made at bid time.
Source and limits of the examples
The guidance and case details above are drawn from Daniel Waters, “Evaluating the value proposition of project vendors,” Building Design + Construction, April 6, 2016: read the article. The $26 million budget, eight add-alternates, $100,000 time-clock allowance, and $50,000 lighting allowance are figures reported in that article, not independently verified benchmarks. Its examples illustrate questions to ask; they do not establish a universal weighting system, threshold, or guaranteed outcome.
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