How to shred an RFP: a reading order for small-business bidders

Proposal managers use "shredding" for a plain job: taking a long solicitation apart sentence by sentence and turning it into a list of things your proposal must do, show or contain. Done well, it takes a document that was written for contracting officers and turns it into a working plan for your team.

This guide covers how to do it when you're a small team without a proposal department.

Step 1: get every document

Before you read anything, make sure you have all of it. A federal solicitation on SAM.gov is often a base document plus attachments, and attachments are where a requirement hides. Check for:

• The solicitation itself (SF 33 or SF 1449 and everything attached to it)
• The statement of work or performance work statement, if it is separate
• Wage determinations, price schedules, past performance questionnaires, forms
• Every amendment (usually on an SF 30), and any posted questions and answers
• The solicitation notice itself, which sometimes holds instructions the PDF doesn't

When the government changes its requirements or terms, the contracting officer has to amend the solicitation (FAR 15.206(a)). So the document you downloaded on day one may not be the one you're judged against on the due date. Check for amendments every day until you submit.

Name the files with the solicitation number and keep a folder of originals you never edit.

Step 2: read for the big picture

Spend the first hour reading, not tagging. You're looking for the things that decide whether to bid:

• Who is buying, and what. The agency, the work in a sentence, and the period of performance including options.
• The set-aside and NAICS code. A set-aside means only certain businesses can win: small businesses, or a subset such as 8(a), HUBZone, women-owned or service-disabled veteran-owned. The size standard that applies comes from the NAICS code.
• The contract type. Firm fixed price, time and materials, cost reimbursable, an indefinite-delivery contract with task orders.
• The due date, time and time zone, and how to submit.
• The basis of award. Best value tradeoff, or lowest price technically acceptable (FAR 15.101-1 and 15.101-2). It changes how you bid.
• Hard requirements that you may not be able to meet: a clearance, a license, a certain number of years of experience, past performance of a given size, a limit on how much you can subcontract.

If you can't meet a hard requirement, you've saved yourself the next 40 hours. If you can, you've learned enough to decide whether the work is a fit.

Step 3: decide whether to bid

Answer these before you shred:

• Are we eligible, and will we still be at the time of award?
• Can we meet the experience and past performance requirements with real examples?
• Can we do the work at a price that fits the likely budget, and on the terms in the contract?
• Do we have the people to write a good proposal before the deadline?
• Is the evaluation approach one we can win? An LPTA award favors the lowest price among acceptable offers. A best value award rewards a stronger technical case.

A clear no is better than a rushed yes. See Section L vs Section M for how to read the evaluation approach.

Step 4: set up the matrix and the markers

Create your compliance matrix before you start, so every requirement lands in one place with a source: the section, the paragraph and the PDF page.

If you work on paper or in a PDF viewer, mark up by type, with one color or label per kind of requirement: instructions, evaluation, forms, dates, "shall" statements. Colors make it easy to see what you have missed.

Step 5: shred in this order

The order matters. It puts the deal-breakers in the matrix first.

1. The solicitation form and the front matter. Due date, set-aside, NAICS code, blocks that must be completed and signed.
2. Section L (or the instructions to offerors). Every instruction about what to submit and how. In commercial solicitations, read the standard provision at FAR 52.212-1 together with any addendum to it. Agencies often change the defaults.
3. Section M (or the evaluation provision). Every factor and subfactor, its importance and the way ratings work. For commercial solicitations, that's FAR 52.212-2 and its addendum.
4. Forms and certifications. The representations and certifications, any past performance questionnaires, the price sheets, the signature blocks.
5. Pricing instructions. CLINs, rates, options, the wage determination, assumptions.
6. The statement of work or PWS. Section by section, picking the requirements that set a minimum, a deliverable, a limit or a standard.
7. Special requirements and clauses. Insurance, reporting, payment, the few clauses that change your cost or risk.

The words to hunt for

Use search to catch what your eyes miss, but never use search instead of reading.

Two warnings. "Will" is sometimes written for the contractor ("The contractor will deliver..."), so read the subject of the sentence. And "shall" isn't used consistently, so don't skip a requirement because it doesn't use the word.

What one shredded paragraph looks like

Take a fictional instruction in Section L:

The technical volume shall not exceed 15 pages, excluding the cover page and resumes. Each resume shall not exceed two pages. Offerors shall submit all volumes as searchable PDFs through the agency portal no later than 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time on the due date.

That is one paragraph, and in a matrix it is four rows:

Splitting the paragraph isn't pedantry. Each piece has its own check, and sometimes its own owner.

What to leave out

A good shred is selective. A compliance matrix with 600 rows isn't a tool: it's another document nobody reads. Leave out:

• Definitions and boilerplate that ask nothing specific of you.
• The government's own obligations, unless they set a date or a rule you need ("The government may award without discussions" belongs in your notes: it means your first proposal is your best and final).
• Clause tables, line by line. Federal solicitations incorporate dozens of clauses by reference. Most are standard terms. Pick the few that change your cost, risk or workload, such as the limitation on subcontracting that applies to small business set-asides (FAR 52.219-14), labor standards, cybersecurity and data rights.
• Every task in the statement of work. Capture the deliverables, the minimums and the limits. Use the PWS itself, paragraph by paragraph, as the outline of your technical approach.

Traps in the details

• Attachments with their own rules. A price schedule may have its own instructions. A past performance questionnaire may have to be sent to the reference, and the reference may have a separate deadline.
• Conflicts between sections. Page limits that differ, dates that don't match, a volume named in one section and missing from another. Write them down and ask a question. After the solicitation is released, the contracting officer is the focal point for exchanges with offerors (FAR 15.201(f)).
• Amendments that replace text. Don't just add the new rows. Mark the old ones N/A, with the amendment number.
• Pages that don't copy. Some PDFs are scanned images, and search won't find anything in them. Run OCR, or read them in full.
• Time zones. "Local time" and "Eastern Time" may be different things depending on the office. Check the solicitation form and Section L, and ask if they disagree.
• Late is late. Late proposals generally aren't considered, with narrow exceptions (FAR 15.208(b)). Aim to submit a day early.

Step 6: check your work

When you've finished, test the shred:

• Have a second person read Sections L and M cold, and compare their notes with your matrix.
• Search the PDFs once more for "shall", "must", "required" and "will not be considered" and tick each hit against a row.
• Check that every factor in Section M has at least one proposal section assigned to it.
• Check that every form, certification and signature has a row, an owner and a status.
• Check that every date has a time and a time zone.

Then freeze the matrix and start writing. Use it every day.

Skip the shredding

Shredding a 60-page solicitation by hand takes hours, and the cost of a miss is a rejected proposal. FileAI's RFP compliance matrix reads every page of your PDFs and amendments and builds the first draft for US$99 per RFP: each instruction, evaluation factor, form, eligibility condition, deadline and requirement, with the quote and the page it came from, plus a bid/no-bid summary. The preview is free. You review the rows, add owners and proposal sections, and start writing.

For the template to keep it in, see how to build an RFP compliance matrix.

Sources

• Federal Acquisition Regulation, 15.206 Amending the solicitation, 15.201 Exchanges with industry before receipt of proposals and 15.208 Submission, modification, revision, and withdrawal of proposals
• FAR 15.101-1 Tradeoff process, 15.101-2 Lowest price technically acceptable source selection process, 52.212-1, 52.212-2 and 52.219-14

This guide is general information, not legal or procurement advice. Always follow the instructions in the specific solicitation you're responding to. FAR text is current as of the date above; the FAR is being revised, so check acquisition.gov for the version that applies to your solicitation.