Review of Austin Website RFP

I have spent more time with the City of Austin RFP, specifically file MSO00360500.doc.  In spite of its billing as a requirements gathering project, the RFP has more to do with implementation than with requirements.

If you look at the deliverables, these are requirements work:

• customer profiles and personas
• content analysis – what will be used and what needs to be created
• gap between current and best practices

Though they talk about “content” analysis, it is surprising that there is nowhere in any deliverable for specifying the transactional functionality of the system, e.g. paying bills, filing forms, etc.

The rest of the deliverables I would consider design, development, and even implementation:

• information architecture and portal framework, including workflows, diagrams, and wireframes.
• branding and creative including logos, Web art, photos, icons, color palettes and related CSS files
• legal fine print: terms of use, privacy, etc.  (This shoud be done by the city’s legal department)
• technology plan with recommendations for development technologies
• implementation project plan (?!?) with milestones, timelines, and operational costs for first five years
• governance plan for how the portal will be managed by the city.  Also includes a Center of Excellence, whatever that is
• recommendations on use of social media

I did not find any verbiage yet that precludes the vendor of the RFP project from bidding on the implementation project.  In fact it seems that if this first project is going to set in stone such things as development technologies and CSS files, the only vendor who would be suitable to do the implementation would be the same one who does this project.

An interesting note.  In Section 1.3.3, Buyer’s Responsibilities, they do not list providing access to people and documentation of current systems as one of their responsibilities.  This is probably their most important responsibility.