Hints and tips for stage six
Follow the six sections and the relevant headings provided in the outline template provided in this stage. Experience shows that all your requirements can be included in that format.
Do not to skimp on this stage. If you have worked through stages one to five you are in sight of the winning post now. Use all the data you have gathered to produce a clear and detailed Statement Of Requirements and you have then fulfilled a large percentage of your responsibilities as a project team. You can then move on to answer supplier questions and start the evaluation process. If you do not provide sufficient detail at this stage then you will need to do more work later on- answering clarification questions and having to go back to your notes at regular intervals.
Where you are uncertain about figures and do not have the time or resources to resolve the issues then go ahead and put down what you have with caveats and make it clear that they should be used by suppliers as a baseline on which to build their sizing and costing assumptions only. Specify that one of the required services you are procuring will be for the preferred supplier to work with you to agree more accurate figures which will form part of the specification.
Confine yourself where possible to specifying your requirements. Do not tell the supplier exactly how you want your requirements to be met. Leave some options open to the suppliers and let them tell you what is the best approach to meet your requirements. It is a fine line between being vague and being over prescriptive but if you focus on the requirements and leave the supplier to tell you how they will meet them then you should obtain the right balance.
