Understanding Requirements

Overview

This guide explains what requirements are, why they matter, and how to ensure your bid addresses all requirements effectively. Learn how to use requirements to improve your bid quality.

What Are the Requirements?

Requirements are what the client needs to see in your bid:

• Customer Requirements: Overall requirements for the whole bid
• Question Requirements: Specific requirements for individual questions
• Must-Haves: Things the client must see addressed
• Should-Haves: Important things that strengthen your bid

Understanding Requirements Types

Customer Requirements

High-level requirements for the entire bid:

• Overall Expectations: What the client expects from all responses
• General Criteria: Standards that apply across the bid
• Strategic Needs: High-level strategic requirements

Examples: Demonstrate industry experience, provide references, demonstrate compliance

Question Requirements

Specific to individual questions:

• Question-Specific: Extracted from the question itself
• Answer Criteria: What your answer must address
• Evaluation Points: What evaluators will look for

Examples: Explain your methodology, provide examples, address specific technical points, demonstrate understanding

Why Requirements Matter

Evaluation Process

Requirements are used to evaluate:

• Coverage: Whether you address each requirement
• Quality: How well you address each
• Completeness: Whether you address all
• Scoring: Coverage affects the overall score

Winning Bids

Bids that address requirements well: Score higher, demonstrate understanding, show thoroughness, stand out from competitors

Working with Requirements

Creating Requirements

1. Go to the Report page for a bid question
2. Find the Requirements section and click on the eye icon to view/edit the reports
4. Click Create
5. Use either your bid files for requirements generation, paste in the requirements in the text boxes, or manually create them one by one in the manual input tab
6. Save

Selecting Requirements

1. Choose a set from the dropdown
2. Linked to your question
3. Use to guide your answer
4. Generate reports to see coverage

Generating Reports

1. Select the requirements set
2. Enable Requirements in report options
3. Click Generate Report
4. Review how well you address each

Understanding Requirements Reports

Reading Your Report

Shows: Customer Requirements Score, Question Requirements Score, Coverage (covered/partial/missing)

Interpreting Scores

• High (80+): Well addressed
• Medium (50-79): Addressed but could be stronger
• Low (<50): Poorly addressed or missing

Using Report Feedback

1. Identify Gaps: Find requirements not covered
2. Address Weak Areas: Improve low-scoring requirements
3. Strengthen Coverage: Enhance medium-scoring requirements
4. Maintain Quality: Keep good coverage of high-scoring requirements

Best Practices

Comprehensive Coverage

1. Address every requirement
2. Be direct: explicitly state how you meet each
3. Provide evidence
4. Be specific; don’t be vague

Quality Coverage

1. Don’t just mention; explain how you address
2. Show understanding
3. Provide sufficient detail
4. Link requirements together

Strategic Approach

1. Prioritise must-haves
2. The cover should have been thorough
3. Don’t ignore any
4. Balance effort across requirements

Improving Requirements Coverage

Step 1: Review Your Report

1. Generate Requirements Report
2. Review customer and question requirements scores
3. Check which requirements aren’t covered or score low

Step 2: Plan Improvements

1. List missing requirements
2. Identify weak requirements
3. Decide what to address first
4. Plan content to add

Step 3: Make Improvements

1. Add missing coverage
2. Strengthen weak areas
3. Be explicit about how you meet each
4. Provide evidence

Step 4: Verify Improvements

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

Tips for Success

Meeting Requirements Effectively

1. Read carefully
2. Be direct
3. Be specific
4. Show evidence with examples

Creating Good Requirements

1. Be clear
2. Be specific
3. Be actionable
4. Group-related ones

Using Requirements Strategically

1. Guide your answer
2. Check coverage regularly
3. Focus more on critical requirements
4. Balance coverage across all

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Poor Coverage:

• Missing requirements
• Vague coverage
• Incomplete coverage
• Unbalanced coverage

How to Avoid:

1. Regularly review requirements
2. Use reports to identify gaps
3. Explicitly state how you meet each
4. Address all thoroughly

Troubleshooting

• Low Scores: Review low-scoring requirements, add specific content addressing them, explicitly state how you meet each, provide evidence and examples
• Missing Requirements: Check uncovered requirements, add content addressing them, ensure you understand what each asks for, don’t assume implicit coverage
• Not Available: Check if requirements created, create if needed (see Requirements Management), use AI generation if available, contact support if missing