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Is there any guidance out there on how to do this?
I've never done it before. I'm being handed these requests and asked to write responses, but the damn requirements matrix and the responses seem so rote and repetitive, I'm driving myself crazy. How many times can you write the same thing in different ways and sound original? I got my ear chewed for handing in a crappy response, but when I told the rest of the team, "I've never done this, I literally have no idea what I'm doing!", all I hear is, "We're too busy to teach you or to do it ourselves."
I've kept my boss informed, so people can moan and carp about it, but that's it... one person who tried to roll me under the bus found out my supervisor already knew the situation based on BCCs and didn't really like the response he got
I assume RFI means request for information, RFP means request for proposal. What the heck does RFS stand for?
Ditto.
RFIs and RFPs are very different items, at least in my world. An RFI is usually a detailed clarifying instruction, ranging from a paragraph to a few pages. RFPs, or the somewhat related RFQs, are much more detailed documents, potentially hundreds of pages long. As they are essentially bud documents soliciting business, no same company blows them off with an unqualified person.
I've done RFP and RFI work for a number of years in responding to federal, state, and local solicitations. I would suggest buying a proposal template from a place like fedmarket.com (no I don't work for them) and use the template as guidance.
My father did this for years in the DoD aerospace industry.
I never understood what he did until I had to do it at age 24.
I swore then an there that I would never have a job that required me to this.
How my father stayed sane is beyond me.
I do this frequently. We use a system to keep track of common questions and approved responses.
I'm assuming your company doesn't, so are there other RFPs/RFIs done in the past that you can reference for answers? More often than not, the questions are usually quite similar.
It does feel that your repeating the same thing over and over at times, so you're not alone in that feeling!
Welcome to the world of proposal writing, where no one is ever satisfied!
You need to get yourself some proposal software first and foremost and get trained on how to use it. PMAPs and Qvidian are the two biggest at the moment. Once you have that software you can start populating it with these typical questions/responses so that the next time you come across these questions you'll have a template to work off of. To initially populate it I would leverage past RFPs that folks in your organization have signed off on.
To appease these people - typically Sales - send them a draft of your responses and let them edit the document where they see fit about a week prior to the due date. Then they have no room to complain as they had their chance to "massage" it to their liking. Just be sure and capture all their changes into the software so that the next time you're asking the same question (you will be, hundreds of times) you already have their answers ready to go.
RFS=Request for Services.....just another way of saying RFP, essentially.
I've been on both sides--issued RFPs and managed proposal evaluations, and then after retirement worked at writing proposals.
You are right, they can all sound the same. The evaluators are looking for the one that's a little bit different, that gives a little bit more. You need to be able to tell a good story, which is how I made some money in that post-retirement career.
You do have to start with the truth. They are looking for which firms they can eliminate, and often that's made easy by sloppy proposals that don't follow the format or don't provide the information requested or provide irrelevant information. I can't tell you how many times, for example, a proposal for civil engineering services requesting demonstration of three projects of similar size and scope included, say, one civil project and two traffic engineering projects. BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Loss of points right there. What are they thinking?
Make sure you've got the correct, required information, and then tell a story about why you do it better than anybody else.
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