I wrote in February about how I’d got angry about a tender opportunity which shifted, morphed and became something more than the sum of its parts. After some long consideration, we didn’t bid for the work – there were just too many red flags which didn’t ‘feel’ right.

It was possible the process had simply been badly managed; an organisation with little buying experience in L&D didn’t know how to specify their need. If this was the case, what would this organisation be like as a client? Having worked in the public sector – where the opportunity was based – this would be understandable and possible.

It was possible that this was a genuine attempt to test the market and get a sense of what’s really happening and working in L&D right now. For public sector organisations it can be challenging to innovate where traditional approaches are framed as ‘best practice’.

Although we weren’t bidding, we are still on the tender platform’s mailings and received the following message last week.

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Good Day

We regret to inform you that at this time we will not be awarding this opportunity as it has been decided to significantly overhaul the requirements for the management development programme.

All the work that has been put into the submissions is greatly appreciated and we thank you for the time and effort spent.

Best wishes

Procurement Team

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I truly feel for everyone who put time, energy, effort, and committed to producing outputs for this activity. I especially feel for people who have shared content, IP and the approaches they would recommend for no reward. Irrespective to the motives behind the decision, the organisation is question has received many thousand pounds’ worth of free L&D consultancy.

I’m disappointed because this could have been avoided.

When the original activity morphed from one thing to another, the decision should have been made to stop. Stopping the tender is inconvenient for the organisation but would have provided the necessary space to take stock and choose appropriate next steps. These might have included a small outlay for a couple of days to establish what was really needed. This direct cost would have been dwarfed by the indirect costs this organisation have suffered managing a process which they knew was failing.

Vendors should have been told to stop. The time saving and reframing of the future action might have been inconvenient, but much better than being tempted with work which was never going to appear in the original (or even amended) form. I know how long it takes to submit a ‘good’ bid and this will have been many days’ work for people chasing the opportunity to develop their business. All wasted time.

I’ll be writing to the organisation directly with an offer – a couple of hours for free to help them learn what they REALLY want and then understand how to engage to procure for that, not some made up learning theatre which doesn’t fit them or any vendors wanting to sell to them.

Many thanks to all the people who responded to the first message – it touched a nerve and I got some great advice from it. What I can’t do is let it go; this is bad practice which needs to be improved and hurts the L&D sector, providers, and the profession.

I have standards.