Creating and Managing Ingredients (Best Practise)

Overview

Ingredients are key quality markers used to evaluate how well your bid addresses important areas. This guide explains what ingredients are, how to use them effectively, and best practices for ensuring your bids score well against ingredients.

What Are Ingredients?

Pre-defined categories representing important aspects of bid quality. Help evaluate coverage, quality, completeness

Understanding Ingredients Categories

Categories: group related questions under specific themes or areas of evaluation.
They allow assessors to analyse responses in detail and give structured feedback on performance.

Each category usually represents a dimension of quality or capability that evaluators consider important when scoring bids.

Using our default ingredients you can get analysis on:

Category	What It Covers
People	Skills, experience, roles, and qualifications of the delivery team.
Tooling	Software, technology, and systems proposed to support delivery.
Commitment	Demonstrated willingness to deliver long-term value and maintain standards.
Standards and Accreditations	Certifications (e.g., ISO, Cyber Essentials) that prove compliance and quality.
Overall Approach	Strategy, methodology, and clarity of understanding of the requirements.
Evidence	Tangible proof of competence — case studies, data, testimonials.
Solution, Products and/or Services	The actual offering — how it meets or exceeds requirements.
Added Value	Innovation, sustainability, efficiency gains, or other differentiators.

Creating Your Own Ingredients Categories

When to Create Your Own

Create when: Industry-specific needs, organisation standards, client-specific requirements, specific project types, success patterns

Use defaults when: Standard bids, starting out, general quality markers are sufficient, quick analysis needed

Hybrid (Recommended): Start with defaults, customise as needed, build library over time, reuse across similar bids

Example Categories you could add: Technical Approach, Project Management, Commercial, Risk Management

How to Create Custom Ingredients

Method 1: Start with Defaults

1. Go to the Report page for a bid question
2. Find Ingredients section → Create
3. Popup opens with default categories
4. Customise: Edit names, add/remove categories, edit/add/remove questions, adjust weightings
5. Enter the name for the ingredients set
6. Ensure all question weightings sum to 1.0
7. Click Save

Method 2: Create Custom

1. Go to Report → Ingredients → Create
2. Popup opens with defaults
3. Remove defaults: Click Remove Category for unwanted
4. Add categories: Click Add Category
5. For each category: Enter category name, click Add Question
6. For each question: Enter question, description, weighting (0-1)
7. Ensure weightings within each category sum to 1.0
8. Enter the name for the ingredients set
9. Click Save

Adding a Category

1. Click Add Category
2. New category appears
3. Click the category name to expand
4. Enter Category Name
5. Click Add Question to add questions
6. Repeat for all categories

Adding Questions to a Category

1. Expand category
2. Click Add Question
3. Enter: Question, Description, Weighting (0-1)
4. Fill all fields
5. Add more as needed
6. Ensure all weightings sum to 1.0 within the category

Editing Existing

• Category Name: Click and type new name
• Question: Click the field and edit
• Remove Category: Click Remove Category
• Remove Question: Click Remove

What to Include: Clear category name, specific quality questions, clear descriptions, appropriate weightings (sum to 1.0 per category)

Constraints: All question weightings per category sum to 1.0, at least one category, each category has at least one question, and must provide a name

Best Practices for Creating Rules

Guidelines: Be specific and measurable, cover key areas, match evaluation, appropriate weightings, and avoid overlap

Example Good: “Does the answer demonstrate a structured project management methodology with defined phases, milestones, and deliverables?” – specific, measurable, covers quality marker

Example Poor: “Is the approach good?” – too vague, not measurable, doesn’t help

Using Ingredients in Your Bids

Selecting a Category

1. Choose the Ingredients Category from the dropdown
2. Tells Bid Bot which ingredients to evaluate against
3. Select a category matching your bid type
4. Or select your custom category

How Evaluated

Bid Bot analyses:

1. Which ingredients are covered
2. How well they’re covered
3. What’s missing
4. Numerical scores for each

Best Practices

Comprehensive Coverage

1. Address all ingredients in the selected category
2. Be specific; don’t just mention—explain
3. Provide evidence
4. Use clear language

Quality Over Quantity

1. Depth matters: fewer covered well beats many poorly
2. Be thorough: address fully when you do
3. Use examples
4. Demonstrate understanding

Strategic Coverage

1. Prioritise important ingredients
2. Balance coverage across the range
3. Link to requirements
4. Relate to personas

Understanding Ingredients Reports

Reading Your Report

Shows: Overall score, category breakdown, individual scores, gap analysis

Interpreting Scores

• High (80+): Well covered
• Medium (50-79): Some coverage, could be stronger
• Low (<50): Weak, needs improvement
• Missing (0): Not addressed

Using Report Feedback

1. Identify weak areas
2. Address gaps
3. Strengthen coverage
4. Maintain strong areas

Improving Your Ingredients Coverage

Step 1: Review

1. Generate Ingredients Report
2. Review scores
3. Identify low scores or missing coverage

Step 2: Plan

1. List missing ingredients
2. Identify weak areas
3. Prioritise what to address first
4. Plan content to add

Step 3: Make Improvements

1. Add missing coverage
2. Strengthen weak areas
3. Be specific with examples
4. Link ingredients together

Step 4: Verify

1. Regenerate reports
2. Check if scores improved
3. Compare versions
4. Continue refining

Tips for Success

• Content Quality: Be specific, use examples, show evidence, be professional
• Strategic Thinking: Understand what each requires, ensure relevance, connect ideas, and balance coverage
• Continuous Improvement: Review regularly, track progress, learn from reports, and apply learnings

Common Mistakes

• Poor Coverage: Missing ingredients, superficial coverage, unbalanced coverage, vague content
• How to Avoid: Check reports regularly, be comprehensive, be detailed, and balance focus

Troubleshooting

• Low Scores: Review the report to see which scores low, add specific content addressing them, provide examples, and ensure relevance
• Missing: Check which is not covered, add content addressing them, ensure understanding, don’t just mention—explain how addressed
• Not Showing: Verify category selected, ensure reports generated, check sufficient content, try regenerating