Prepare requests for proposals or statements of work.

Before I publish this RFP to vendors, make it easy for procurement to score. Put the evaluation criteria and the mandatory documents on page one, surface the top three disqualifiers at the top, make pricing submission a clearly labeled table, and flag anything that would make a bidder hesitate to respond.

Procurement emailed asking me to add an indemnity clause that our finance director says could expose the clinic to unlimited risk. I don’t have in-house counsel and the bidding deadline is nine days away. What is the likely trade-off here and what concrete wording change should I propose to keep bidders comfortable without increasing our exposure?

Over the last four procurements we’ve rewritten scope and scoring after proposals come in, costing time and damaging vendor trust. I want one change to our RFP drafting habit that stops scope creep and speeds award decisions. What recurring mistake are we making and what habit should we adopt to fix it?