The clarifications trap
Estimating teams under pressure default to volume. Forty clarifications go in, half are duplicates, a third are answered in the BoQ if you read it carefully. The bid that follows reads as if it has not been studied, because it has not been.
What a disciplined approach looks like
- RTM-first - every requirement traces to an answer in the bid before any clarification is raised.
- Single clarifications log - one document, one owner, dedup at intake.
- Evidence index - every claim in the bid points at a document, a previous project or a named referee.
- Internal red-team - one estimator who has not written the bid scores it against the RTM before it goes out.