Length of a fee proposal 3

[Robbiee]

Hello all,
When I compared my 1.5-page fee proposal to the 10-page proposal of the other disciple, I thought he and I must be on two opposite extreme sides of conservatism. The job was only renovations to existing building for few thousand bucks. How many pages is your fee proposal? and when do you make it really long?
Oh, the ten pages were descriptions of the building, the systems in the buildings,..... and so many lines of fine print.

 

[ukengineer58]

brief description. scope items listed. what fee is based on such as meeting minutes drawings etc. assumptions. exclusions. rate for change of scope

 

[MiketheEngineer]

KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid or if talking to your wife - Keep IT Simple Sweetheart

 

[Hoagie]

I truly wish things could be kept simple...I'm a civil-site and we are directed by our O&E underwriters to cover all the bases...we have to include verbose sections like Contract-type, Scope, Fee, Schedule, Additional/Exclusionary Services, Payment, Termination, Standard/Conventions/Code definition. Then we attach the pre-written riders (hold harmless, indemnity, force majure, etc). On some projects, when our fees are expected to be more than $50K and when we don't know the client, I'm forced to write a novella..it's nuts.

I'm no Hemmingway, so the it takes me a couple days to prepare a 30+ page proposal while writing the monotonous crap. Then comes the re-read edits and the 'courtesy' review by the owner (who scratches himself (everywhere) all day with a red pen). By the time I'm done, I have to 'bump up' the fee to cover all the proposal preparation. Then I go home, have a shot and dream of being a toll collector.

 

[Latexman]

I'm from the other side of th fence, I sign proposals for my company to get the work done by contractors. They range from almost a blank single page for the occaisional emergency when the unit is down and our customers are yelling, to a lengthy tome on a well thought out project. Basically, it depends.

Good luck,
Latexman

 

[msquared48]

Ailmar:

"disciple"? Are you a preacher? If so, you should not be posting questions in this forum!

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[JAE]

Most of our moderately sized projects use a four page proposal comprised of two sections.

The first section is a scope/fee description.
In this section we include the following - usually in a bulleted format:
1. Project client, name and location
2. Information available and used to prepare the proposal
3. Brief description of the project and perhaps some words on the nature of the services to be provided.
4. Scope of services - listing all elements to be designed (structural frame, foundations, retaining walls, etc.), deliverables (plans, specifications, cost estimates, etc.), and activities (site visits, design team meetings, etc).
5. Services not included - helps clear up what will and will not be provided.
6. Assumptions (geotech report will be provided, client will provide background cadd files, owner will provide access to the site, etc.)
7. Fee information
8. Schedule as understood at time of the proposal.

This usually takes one or two pages.

The second section is the actual contract form that we put together - first page is the name of the parties, project identification, reference to the first section scope, fee information, special conditions, any upfront payments required, and the signatures of the parties.

The second page is the boilerplate Terms and Conditions that we base on from CASE documents.

On small projects we sometimes just use the second section and fill out the scope briefly on the first page - this still only takes two pages - the contract page an the Terms/Conditions.

For more significant projects we would use an AIA contract form or similar.

 

[msquared48]

For the record, my contracts are only two to four pages, depending on the size of the project dollar wise.

Both were formats drawn up by my lawyer 20 years ago and have worked just fine. Regardless what you do, do have a lawyer look at the wording. Leagalese, AIA generated or otherwise, is hard to descipher sometimes, and it is VERY important that YOU understand the jargon.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[Ron]

I use two types of agreements. The first is a formal proposal that covers the bases similar to what JAE described. Attached to that is my "Proposal Acceptance sheet" with all the terms and conditions for my practice.

The second is simply the Proposal Acceptance Sheet with a space to describe the scope of services and provide a fee schedule.

The first form can be anywhere from several pages to 8 or 10 pages, depending on the complexity of the project. The second form is 2 pages...short and sweet.

 

[Robbiee]

Mike,
I have no idea how "discipline" became "disciple" in my post. But, if one thing I would preach here; it is simplicity
Thanks all.

 

[IRstuff]

Depends on the audience, doesn't it? One Navy customer used to rake us over the coals, because we couldn't seem to put together a sufficiently bulletproof basis of estimate.

One of our subs came up with the notion of breaking tasks down to no more than about 16 hrs a task. That made it extremely difficult to argue about. One could argue that a 400 hr task should only be 360 hrs, but it's harder to argue that a 10 hour task should be 9. It's 10%, either way, but it's some much harder to attack a 10-hr estimate than it is to attack a 400-hr estimate.

At a previous job, we used to have general rule to have no single budget item be more than about 80 hrs. The tedium of trying to argue 100 80-hr items is much stronger than trying to argue 10 800-hr items.

So, it's possible that your counterpart is trying to ensure that his bid doesn't get cut by making it difficult to find any fat.

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[KENAT]

Or, maybe your competitor has been burned enough times - perhaps even by this client - that he's learned to be cautious?

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[jmcoope3]

The more you write the more you have to hide behind when something hits the fan... flip-side the more you have to get screwed by if you didn't do your homework.

Examples:

We got hit for materials and shipping on a low cost non-structural frame design because one of our estimators didn't add our "materials not included" paragraph.

On the flip side, on another project, we got knocked out of selling material on another job because on a longer scope (15~16 pages) the words "or equivalent" slipped through.

Process used to avoid these situations:

Make sure you have a list of what you're trying to provide, what you're trying to avoid having to do, and a strong knowledge of what you're capable of providing. Use this as a framework to write the quote, everything else is justification and assumptions. The building information is normally included in-case you run into changes in the field that effect your design.

"we quoted this on the assumption that there would be this type of deck/pad/system/piping... you have this type. We need to add $______". You cannot argue with that statement if it's clear on paper, and you don't have to eat any cost that it might create.