>>
I'm managing a substantial digitisation / web project at the Ashmolean Museum,
we've recently gone live with a small publicity site about the project and its
progress to date
 >>

You need to decide pretty early on the basis on 
which you're going to run the tender. There are two basic approaches:
1) Choosing a contractor on company experience 
and accounting criteria such as turnover etc. You 
can invite tenders from anyone and then choose 
the lowest quote. This type of tender is 
typically used for projects such as new 
buildings, buying IT and office furniture. QA 
types tend to recommend this approach because its 
what they're used to from the building profession.
2) Choosing the contractor on the quality of 
their creative approach to what your web site 
needs to do. For this type of tender you don't 
invite tenders from everyone. You choose 3-4 
companies and give them a fixed budget. This type 
of tender is typically used for projects such as 
advertising and design. Design Directors tend to 
recommend this type of approach because its what 
they're used to from other design projects.

In my experience both types of tender fit the 
regulations for "competitive tendering" for public projects.

Web sites fit somewhere between the two stools. 
Sometimes you don't want anything very creative 
or innovative so the first approach is right. 
Other times you want something new and exciting 
so the second is the way to go. Usually you'll 
combine the two approaches but don't let one 
dominate too much. So for example if you stress 
approach 1) too much you may end up with the most 
boring, clueless contractor just because their 
turnover is over £1m and if you stress approach 
2) you could end up with a teenager in their 
bedroom who happens to have some great ideas.

The important thing to remember is that the more 
hoops you make the contractors go through to make 
their submission the more likely they are not to 
bother if they don't think they're likely to get 
the job. Sometimes this is good for you as it 
cuts down the number of bad submissions, however 
it can also have the effect of screening out the people who you want to apply.
I was recently asked to tender for contract. This involved:
- Filling in a qualification questionnaire (no problem)
- I was then directed to an impenetrable EU site 
for more information. I couldn't find it at 
first, but after exchanging several emails I 
managed to find the information which gave me 
another email address to apply to.
- This email address let me register with an 
organizational tender website. This site didn't 
work with my browser but I was able to download a 
new browser which it did work with. This site had 
another qualification questionnaire (ok) lots of 
other questions which I didn't understand (?!).

At this point I gave up. It was looking like the 
contractors would be selected on the basis of 
turnover  and as a small company I was unlikely 
to qualify so I decided it wasn't worth my time. 
I then passed the information to another much 
larger company who had done several national 
museum web sites. They said "We like to be able 
to present our creative ideas in person at a 
pitch meeting, however we think the contractors 
for this project are likely to be selected on 
lowest quote which is too much of a lottery for 
us so we won't take the time to put together a bid".

If you decide to go down the "creative approach" 
route there's a guide to writing a creative brief on my site at:
http://www.joecutting.com/creativebrief.php
Its mainly aimed at gallery exhibits but you might find it useful
There's links to advice on developing heritage 
web sites towards the bottom of the advice page:
http://www.joecutting.com/advice.php


Best of luck with your project

Joe

**************************************************
For mcg information and to manage your subscription to the list, visit the website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
**************************************************