Please, answer the question posed.
By Frosanna Kelso, Tender Specialist (Sydney)
Politicians have a reputation for not answering questions. Peter Bull, a British specialist in the study of language and communication has developed an ‘equivocation typology’ to identify the different techniques politicians use to avoid directly answering a question. He has established no less than thirty-five techniques including re-phrasing the question, acknowledging the question without answering it, giving an incomplete answer, or providing a non-specific response to a specific question. While these techniques might work well for politicians they should be avoided when writing a tender.
A basic rule of tendering is ‘answer the question asked’. To do that you need to read the question carefully and make sure you understand what is being asked of you. Tender questions can be lengthy and comprise several components so you should consider reading the questions thoroughly; don’t assume you know what the question is asking. You should also carefully read the specifications and evaluation criteria in the tender request as it may contain essential information that you should consider in your response.
Take the time to carefully consider just what is being asked of you. Unpack the specifics, ensuring you know and fully understand what is required so that your answer is directly related to the question. The tender evaluators do not want or need to know everything you know. Be selective; reflect on what's truly important and avoid flooding your response with unnecessary content. Information for information’s sake is pointless. If it’s not what the tendering organisation has asked for, then it doesn’t add any value.
Stay on topic and focus on what that the tendering organisation requires. If the tender organisation is seeking particular information on how you will do something then be specific. Avoid general and/or vague statements. If you say you can do something then provide relevant examples to demonstrate this and make sure you address all parts of the question; don’t provide an incomplete answer.
If you copy and paste an answer to a similar question from another tender, make sure you edit and refine the answer. The answer you copied may be relevant to the substance of the question, but you need to make sure that it answers the question. It can be tempting to overlook what the question is asking and answer a similar, though not identical, question but it won’t win the tender.
To avoid doing this, follow these steps when copying and pasting:
Read and Analyse: Read the response (to be copied) closely and analyse what it is saying, make sure the content is relevant to the new question.
Copy and Paste: ‘Ctrl+C’ and ‘Ctrl+V’
Customise and Contextualise: Identify and remove any irrelevant text from the copied response and fill in any gaps so that it answers the new question in full.
Create new content that effectively answers the question, addresses the tender specifications and evaluation criteria, and demonstrates an understanding of the tender requirements.
Avoid equivocation; answer the question asked!