What Does your TxDOT Season Look Like? Top Three Activities to Add to Your TxDOT Playbook And Why You Should Do Them
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Football season is in full swing, and just like football, TxDOT construction has a season. Instead of 32 teams in 2 conferences pursuing the top spot in any given season, engineering firms pursuing TxDOT projects have more competition and, conversely, more opportunities to win.
What do football and engineering teams have in common? Winning teams implement strategy, discipline, and timelines.
We’ve heard time and again that firms are hesitant to start work on TxDOT proposals before the RFP drops. Do you think football teams start planning their game strategy the week before the game? No, they develop their strategies, train their players, and design game plays well before game day–all based on the information they know and can safely assume.
Just like a football season has its patterns and stats from which teams can draw information, so does TxDOT.
Things we know about all TxDOT proposals:
TxDOT releases RFPs in quarterly waves.
Projects are published on the TxDOT website ahead of each Wave.
Firms only have 21 days to submit their proposals from the RFP drop-to-closing date.
Firms are challenged to boil down years of technical expertise and solutions into a limited number of pages and prove they are the best selection for the TxDOT project.
So, what do we do with this information?
Firms know enough about the RFP to get started before the wave hits. The requirements in each TxDOT RFP are virtually the same. There are enough similarities to start work on your response before the 21-day proposal period starts.
For example, TxDOT RFPs have the same evaluation criteria:
Technical Approach
Project Planning and Management
Project Manager Experience
Key Staff
What are the three steps you can take to use the information you already know to develop your TxDOT Proposal Playbook?
1. Scout The Competitive Landscape
Do your business development homework to familiarize yourself with upcoming projects and understand which ones you’ll pursue in any given season. Pay close attention to the TxDOT site to see what projects are dropping in each wave. Sometimes, TxDOT moves scheduled projects from wave to wave. Don’t be caught off guard if the project you were pursuing moves from Wave 2 to Wave 4. Keep track of TxDOT waves and their respective projects here. Bookmark it!
2. Review Your Film
Pertinent content that answers future RFP questions exists in your past RFP response files. Just like football coaches review past games’ film, successful firms should audit their past proposal responses to mine for content to repurpose or strengthen. For example, if you’re pursuing a geotechnical project, review your past geotechnical proposal responses to find content to populate the new geotechnical RFP response.
Coordinating an RFP response is like putting the best players in the positions where they will have the most impact. You know who your star players are before the RFP drops. Use the knowledge gleaned in the scouting phase to write your key staff experience. Gather pertinent experience from similar past projects to begin outlining the new RFP Project Manager Experience and Key Staff Experience sections.
Did you know you can request copies of winning proposals from TxDOT? You can review past winners' proposal responses to audit for best practices. All you need to do is fill out a Public Records Request to get copies of past successful submissions at the site below. Request past proposals here. Bookmark this too!
Create an account and request the projects you want to review by solicitation number. Please note that firms have the option to redact their proposals. It is still worth it to review what content you can get
3. Develop Your Playbook
Build a Challenge/Solution/Benefit matrix (CSB) that outlines project challenges, technical approaches, results, and how they benefit TxDOT. Just like a football team practices a repertoire of plays; this exercise will give you draft-level content to pull from once the RFP is released. The team can then use the matrix to identify and select the most relevant details to efficiently meet the current RFP response requirements.
Why do successful firms do all of these things? While the TxDOT RFP evaluation criteria remain the same, their weighting changes. A robust draft-level playbook allows firms to dedicate the 21-RFP period to developing the proposal content.
Once the RFP has dropped and you know the evaluation criteria weighting, you can tailor and revise your response.
How HDB can help?
HDB can help you tailor your CSB content to the TxDOT RFP du jour. Your HDB proposal professional facilities workshops that will help you leverage your existing content and expertise to showcase benefits to TxDOT. Workshop activities include selecting which challenges, technical approaches, and project planning management write-ups will resonate with the TxDOT selection committee for that RFP.
Ready to Elevate Your Game Play?
We urge you to try this playbook approach to your following TxDOT proposal. Schedule a free discovery call with the HDB team today.
Looking for insider tips and strategies to create winning TxDOT Proposals? Click here to sign up.