Your team comes out of the tunnel and onto the field. It is lead by its defense-the most important players in the game. The crowd goes wild. They realize that, if the defense does an excellent job, the other team will not score on them. Think about this: if your defense shuts out the other team, the worst you can do today is tie. And, if your defense does a better-than-excellent job, it might just score, itself. Life is sweet with an excellent defense.
Throughout history, great defenses are legendary. Pittsburgh had the Steel Curtain. The Rams had the Fearsome Foursome. Likewise, our team defense has a name: RFI. Can you see it on the jerseys? It’s a proud group. But really now, what is the big deal about RFIs? Why should you care? How are they used? Can’t I just make a phone call? All of these thoughts may be going through your mind. It’s now time for the answers.
What’s an RFI?
Good question-glad you asked! An RFI is actually an abbreviation for Request for Information. You’ll also sometimes see the term RFC, which is a Request for Clarification. Same thing. For our purposes, we will just use the more prominent term, RFI.
What’s a “Winning RFI”?
A Full Contact PM only writes a Winning RFI. It is not done haphazardly. It is carefully crafted. It carries with it an expectation of winning. In this book, whenever we talk about writing RFIs, it is understood that we are talking about RFIs which win the point. They are the only ones worth writing, and the only ones being discussed on these pages. This chapter is critical to your success as a PM.
RFIs come about when there is a question on your project that the contract documents seem not to address. These are questions such as:
where do I connect/start/stop?
what color/shade/manufacturer is it?
how many/how long?
The list goes on and on, because each trade has its own, unique questions. Again, these questions are raised because the contract documents don’t seem to adequately deal with them. We’ll come back to this discussion in a moment, but first we need to talk a little philosophy about how, exactly, we raise an issue. And this discussion will make you a lot of money!
“Most people miss the great part mental outlook plays in this game.” Billy Martin
Coach’s Philosophy on Issues
Treat each issue, as it comes up, separately. Never, ever attempt to deal with two issues in one RFI. Likewise, every item of correspondence (letters, quotes, proposals, submittals, change order requests) should be as limited as possible-preferably, to only one issue per document. Admittedly, sometimes your client may force you to combine a couple of items because your client, say, sent you a letter with more than one point or issue on it. In that case, your own letter will have to deal with the points raised by your client. Your goal is to always have the last word on any issue, so when you answer that letter, address every point. That way, should you ever get to court or go to claim, you stand a very good chance of prevailing.
“If football taught me anything about business, it is that you win the game one play at a time.” Fran Tarkenton
Back to the RFI. What’s the big deal about single issues? Fair question. First, they are easier to deal with. Let me illustrate. Let’s say that you have two issues that just came up today-issues that will translate into extra work for somebody. You get a little lazy, and you write a single RFI, which we’ll call RFI No. 001. And on this RFI you say something like, “Ms. Client, what about A & B? What are we supposed to do? Your client writes back and says, “Do this with A.” And she says nothing about B. What happens? The short answer is that you have just caused yourself some extra hassle because you have to do this over again. Here’s why.
When you send an RFI, and ask for a response, the client is obligated to respond to it. If the client doesn’t respond, you have made your point that there is an issue and you can’t proceed until somebody gives you direction. If that RFI happens to say something like, “If we don’t have this dimension by tomorrow afternoon, we’ll have to stop working and the project will be on delay”, the client is allowing himself to be placed in a potentially dangerous and costly position.
“Most games are lost-not won.” Casey Stengel
On the other hand, if the client gives you any kind of an answer, or part of an answer, and you just accept it, the issue is over. In our example, the client gave you direction on A, and none on B. As far as the client is concerned, the issue is over-both of your issues have been resolved. The RFI log shows that the client responded.
Because you did not get an answer to B, you now have to write another RFI and get direction on B. How much easier would it have been to just write the two RFIs in the beginning, put the ball in the client’s court on both issues, and wait for responses?
There’s another reason, which is equally important. The short version is that, should you ever get to court or to claim, you want to be able to demonstrate that you asked the questions and awaited a response. That’s a great reason in itself. But more than that, let’s imagine that the project leads you into legal proceedings, and that one of your contentions is that the plans and specs were terrible-didn’t show enough detail. To make your case more solid, would you rather show an RFI log with one entry on it, or with one hundred entries? Lots and lots of RFIs seem to indicate that there were lots of questions which the documents didn’t address, and this leaves the door open for fair compensation to your company.
There’s another type of RFI which is equally important to your company-the pre-bid RFI.
Pre-bid RFIs
Pre-bid RFIs are generated by your estimators when they are looking at a project. They actually become a part of the project documents. Your estimators, as they look at a new project, often have questions as to what, exactly, it is that the architect wants. A good estimator will fire off a pre-bid RFI and ask that question. A smart architect or CM will do everything possible to answer the question, because there is money at stake.
Let’s say that your estimator asks the question, “Is such and such to be included in our base bid?” Let’s also say that this question is asked the day of the bid and that nobody answers the question timely. What happens? Your estimator might assume, rightfully so, that such and such must not be included, because nobody answered the RFI, and bid the project accordingly. You get the job. As the job progresses, the “such and such” question surfaces. You write a winning RFI, and you reference in it the fact that a pre-bid RFI was asked, but never answered. And you write your RFI asserting the fact that, “Of course it’s not included in our scope of work. Client never answered so we didn’t include it in our bid. How would you like us to proceed?”
“The key to any game is to use your strengths and hide your weaknesses.” Paul Westphal
Now, some people don’t believe in pre-bid RFIs. Their rationale is that they don’t want to tip-off the competition. They want to keep something as their very own secret. The Full Contact PM, on the other hand, is thrilled to know that his estimators asked dozens of pre-bid RFIs concerning the project and that not one of them was answered! What is comes down to, I believe, is this: more often than not, asking the question will work out for you. Worst case? You miss getting a job because you had some hunch, some inside information, that no one else had. The upside? Since the client will often times not even bother to answer pre-bid RFIs, particularly late ones, your estimators have just helped your PMs immensely.
Coach’s Tip. You can never have too many pre-bid RFIs.
A couple of more important points for you to consider: One, don’t see RFIs as a “hassle”. Instead, why not view each one as an indicator that your contract dollar value may increase; ultimately, that should mean more money going to the bottom line of your project and to your company. Two, remember that, once you have set up the first RFI template, each subsequent RFI takes hardly any longer than writing an e-mail to someone. And if you don’t know how to write an e-mail, then that subject will have to be addressed in another book!
For now, go to the sample RFI in Appendix C and bookmark it so you can refer to it often as we get more into depth on the workings of the RFI. It’s not mysterious. It’s not really even secret. The other team may know it’s coming, but they still can’t defend it. Likewise for your own team, you’ll discover that your own defense will score a lot of points for you, once you adopt the Full Contact PM philosophy.
Excited yet? Hope you are. So let’s go and watch our team as they play their first game.