As a contracting officer, I remember dropping RFPs on my way out the door for lots of holidays: 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and yes, gulp, even before the Christmas Holiday.
In my defense, I was doing what made sense to me (wrap up the work before I leave). I truly thought that the contractors who would respond to these RFPs would start working on them AFTER the holiday.
Why would they start now? I wasn’t planning on working on these over the holiday, why would my industry counterparts? I only released the RFPs before a holiday as a matter of efficiency… and so that I could tell my customers (the requirement activity) that we had reached that “RFP Release” milestone.
Now the other side of the story.
Now that I’ve been on both sides of the government market, I see that contractors absolutely work on their response to the RFP as soon as I released them. Put aside the logic that people “should” take the long weekend, the reality is that it is unnerving to know that a competitor will get a 3-day head start on the RFP if they let the RFP sit in their inbox unopened. Offerors are going to jump into the RFP as soon as they can because it’s tied to their livelihood. It’s a big deal.
For the government team – don’t post the RFP before a holiday unless you really need those offerors to tackle it over the holiday. Most of the time, those extra 3 days are not going to be the factor that drives mission success. Instead, prep the RFP and release on Tuesday morning when you get back. They will notice the difference.
For the industry team – don’t start throwing barbs at the contracting officer for posting the RFP before a holiday. They are not posting it to torture you. They are not trying to make you work the holiday – they likely, like me, didn’t realize that you would work the holiday weekend.
So, NO Pre-Holiday RFP releases. It can wait until Tuesday (and if those days are really that important, I posit that a more rapid acquisition strategy is a better option anyway).
Now, let’s all have a great time having a cookout this holiday weekend.
Happy Independence Day!
The RFPs can wait until Tuesday.
Kevin Jans
Bringing Context to both sides of GovCon, so we all #DoGovConWell
Great point added to this thread by Joseph Schumer:
“There is likely no perfect time to drop [the RFP], but there are bad times.”
The Friday before a holiday is one of those bad times.
