Ionrock Dot Org

Today I am working on a RFP (Response For Proposal). The world is full of masochists.

The biggest pain when working with an RFP is there is no conversation. There is no discussion of how a solution would really work within an organization and this makes extremely hard to make a good decision on either end of a deal. The organization needing a solution has to become pseudo experts before writing the RFP or else the vobaulary is off. Often times organizations don't really understand what will help their situation. You can't blame them for this of course, because if they knew exactly what they needed, there wouldn't be an RFP.

For those having to implement the proposal, it is a shot in the dark that the system will work. And when I say "work", I mean function appropriately for the organization that requested it. This is never easy and never cheap, so it is a wonder that large systems (such as the proposal I am looking at now) ever succeed. Of course, a few must or else everyone would never try to implement huge systems.

It is also reasonable to assume that these large systems never really do succeed. The folks who said they needed some huge application or system want it to work. I am sure that after a few million dollars and months of migration, when things are finally done, anyone would be happy to raise a glass to praise the new systems merits. Unfortunately, no one sticks around to see mumblings after toast from those who actually use the system every day.

I should mention that this is my own hypothesis that has absolutely no research behind it. I could be wrong that these systems don't work and in fact I hope I am. What does shine a little light on the entire situation is that I get to work on making the systems work together instead of creating the actual systems. I get to see all the cool features and technology of different systems while making it easier for folks to get real work done. Sure, I may not have created some insane new technology or changed the way computers work. But having the chance to make other products and smart people gets me pretty excited about my work nonetheless.