A proposal is a marketing document wearing a spreadsheet costume. Here is what to look for when you read one adversarially — which is the only way to read one.
Roles instead of names
“Senior FI/CO consultant” is a rate card entry, not a person. If the staffing plan has no names, the people have not been assigned — and the good ones may never be.
Round numbers everywhere
Real estimates are lumpy because real work is lumpy. A proposal where every workstream lands on a clean round figure was built top-down from the price you hinted you would pay.
The out-of-scope iceberg
Read the exclusions list twice. Data cleansing, custom-code remediation, end-user training, and hypercare are where the second invoice lives. If the exclusions are vague, the change orders will not be.
No assumptions about you
A proposal that demands nothing from your side — no named process owners, no data-quality commitments — is a proposal that plans to blame you later. Good partners are specific about what they need from your team, because they know the project fails without it.
