Weights move after the responses arrive. Stop them.
The commonest form of RFP rigging involves no dishonesty at all. The team reads the responses, forms a preference, and then finds the weights "need recalibrating", always in the direction of the front-runner. The countermeasure is procedural: the weight column is agreed, signed and dated before the response deadline, and any later change must record, in writing, which vendor it benefits. Most proposed changes do not survive that sentence being written.
The scoring sheet
| Criterion |
Weight |
What a 5 reads like |
What a 2 reads like |
| Understanding of the requirement |
15 |
Restates your problem with insight you did not hand them, and flags gaps in your own RFP |
Your document paraphrased back with the company name changed |
| Proposed solution fit |
20 |
Each requirement mapped to what exists today, what needs configuration and what must be built |
Capability asserted everywhere, demonstrated nowhere, roadmap and product indistinguishable |
| Assumptions and exclusions |
10 |
Stated plainly in one section, with the commercial consequence of each |
"No assumptions noted", which means they exist and you will meet them after signature |
| Pricing transparency |
15 |
All-in pricing across the contract life, with unit rates for changes and growth |
A confident year-one number, later years "to be agreed", expenses undefined |
| Delivery team and plan |
15 |
Named people with relevant CVs and committed percentages, and a plan that shows your obligations too |
An organisation chart of roles, "resources confirmed on award", your effort absent |
| Relevant evidence |
10 |
References at your scale that you may contact directly, without the vendor on the call |
Polished case studies with no contactable client behind them |
| Contractual position |
10 |
Your terms accepted, or specific redlines provided now with reasons |
All contractual matters deferred until after selection, when your leverage is gone |
| Response discipline |
5 |
Your questions answered in your structure, within the limits you set |
Your questions rearranged into their standard sales deck |
The dissent column, and why it exists
Scoring meetings average disagreement away: a 4 and a 2 become a 3 that neither scorer believes. The sheet adds a dissent column beside every criterion, where any scorer records an unresolved disagreement in their own words, and those entries travel into the recommendation unedited. The evaluation committee then sees the dispute rather than the mean. Experience says the dissent column predicts post-contract problems better than the scores do, because it captures the doubts that consensus was about to erase.
How scoring sheets get bent out of shape
- Anchors get abandoned mid-evaluation and 1 to 5 becomes a mood scale, at which point the sheet measures the demo's charisma.
- The best bid-writing team wins rather than the best vendor: professional responses from mediocre firms outscore honest responses from good ones unless anchors force evidence over prose.
- Scores are backfilled after the group discussion so the totals match the room's emerging preference, reversing the entire point of independent scoring.
- The dissent column is summarised in the final report as "minor reservations", and the one person who spotted the delivery risk goes unrecorded.
When the completed sheet warrants an outside reading
A finished scoring sheet ranks the responses you received against the questions you asked. It cannot tell you whether the winning response will survive contact with delivery, because the claims it scores are written by people paid to write them well. When the top two scores sit close together, or the winner's margin rests on claims only lived experience can test, have the sheet and the shortlist read by senior operators who have run these vendors on the buying side. It is the cheapest point in the whole process to be told something unwelcome.
