Understanding the evaluation criteria
Most bidders open a tender document and go straight to the questions. They start thinking about their approach, their processes, what makes them good at what they do. And then they write. The problem is that none of that matters if you haven't first understood how your response is going to be scored.
What the evaluation criteria actually tells you
Every tender has a scoring methodology. Each question has a score, and each score has a descriptor that explains what a response needs to include to achieve it. The top mark descriptor is your benchmark. Everything you write should be aimed at hitting it. This sounds obvious but in practice, most responses don't do it.
I want to give you a real example of why this matters. I was working on a bid for a major framework, and when I looked at the scoring matrix for one of the quality questions, it included a requirement to demonstrate innovation and added value. That requirement didn't appear anywhere in the question itself. It wasn't in the guidance notes either. It was only in the scoring matrix.
A bidder who read the question and the guidance notes and went straight to writing would have had no idea that innovation and added value was being scored. They could have written a perfectly competent response and still scored lower than they needed to, not because their answer was wrong, but because they missed something the evaluator was specifically looking for. That's why you read the evaluation criteria before you write a single word.
How to actually use it
Start by reading the whole evaluation criteria section before you look at any of the questions. Understand the weighting, what carries the most marks, and what the scoring descriptors say for each question.
Then go back to each question and read it alongside its criteria. Dissect it. Link it back to relevant sections of the specification. Ask yourself what evidence you need to include to hit the top mark, not just to answer the question adequately.
The criteria varies from bid to bid so don't assume what worked last time will work here. Each buyer sets their own scoring methodology and what scores top marks in one tender might not be what's required in another.
And once you've drafted your response, go back to the criteria again. Read your answer against the top mark descriptor. Ask yourself honestly: does this hit every element? Where are the gaps? Sometimes you'll find a gap you can fill with more evidence or a stronger example. Sometimes you'll find a gap that reflects a genuine weakness in your position, and knowing that before you submit is still valuable, it helps you make a clear eyed decision about whether this bid is worth continuing with - or whether you still go ahead because you are stronger in all other areas.
Fresh eyes before you submit
One of the most useful things you can do before submission is get someone who hasn't been involved in writing the response to review it against the evaluation criteria. Not necessarily to score it but to review it against the top score descriptor and provide an objective view on whether it meets that mark. When you've been close to a response for days or weeks even, you stop seeing it clearly, you know what you meant to say. A fresh pair of eyes reads only what's actually on the page, the same way an evaluator will. They'll spot the gaps you've stopped noticing. They'll find the sections where you've assumed something is implied when it needs to be stated explicitly.
This is something I offer as part of my bid support work, an independent review of your response against the evaluation criteria before it goes in. It's one of the most straightforward ways to improve your score.
After the result
Understanding the evaluation criteria doesn't stop being useful when you get the result. If you're unsuccessful, your scores should make sense to you. You should be able to look at what you were given and check it against the scoring descriptors. Does that score match the descriptor? Is the feedback consistent with how the criteria was supposed to be applied?
I want to tell you about a real situation that shows why this matters. A contract worth several million pounds was awarded to one supplier. Another supplier queried their scores during the standstill period. Not through solicitors, not through a formal legal challenge, just a letter raising specific concerns about how certain criteria had been applied to their response.
That query triggered a review. The review found that the scoring had not been applied correctly. The decision was changed. The supplier who raised the query was awarded the contract. If they hadn't sent that letter, they would have lost a multimillion pound contract they had actually won.
That's not an extreme case. That's the process working as it should. Buyers are human. Errors happen. The standstill period exists precisely to allow for scrutiny before a contract is formally awarded. Use it - scrutinise your scores, check them against the criteria and if something doesn't add up, raise it. You don't need a legal team to ask a question. A well reasoned, specific query is often all it takes (although depending what happens next you absolutely might want to take legal advice).
What this means in practice
Before you write: read the evaluation criteria.
While you write: keep the top mark descriptor in front of you.
Before you submit: get review your response honestly against the criteria.
After the result: scrutinise your scores and query anything that doesn't stack up.
Everything I share in this series is based on my own experience on both the buyer and the bidder side. I'd love to hear your views too. If something resonates, or if you see it differently, tell me in the comments.