Handling the not-yet-decided in an RFP

What makes this hard

When you start writing a request for proposals, more is undecided than decided. The budget is in negotiation, the schedule depends on the budget, and nobody has asked whether consortia are allowed.

Hand that state to AI and the undecided gets filled in as if decided. Sentences like 'total budget not to exceed $200,000' or 'six months from contract date' appear naturally — with no source behind the numbers. The reader can't tell confirmed values from examples, and if the notice goes out as is, those numbers become facts.

Make every item carry its own status

The fix is not removing blanks but naming them. Have every item labeled one of three ways:

• CONFIRMED — a settled value with a basis
• PROVISIONAL — under review; may change
• [INPUT NEEDED] — not yet known, plus one line on what fills it

That 'what fills it' line is the most useful part in practice. [INPUT NEEDED: total budget] alone tells nobody who fills it or when, but 'to be entered after finance sign-off' turns the blank into a to-do list.

Name the regulations; don't let it interpret them

Public procurement may fall under the FAR in the US, or your jurisdiction's procurement law. But don't let AI explain what those rules say — invented clause interpretations are the most dangerous failure in this document.

Write it like this: name which regulations may apply, and mark applicability as something the responsible office must confirm. The document then reads 'FAR applicability to be confirmed' rather than 'under this clause…'. The former is correct.

Checklist for writing it yourself

1. 1Did you separate confirmed from undecided values in the request first
2. 2Did you explicitly say 'don't guess the undecided'
3. 3Did you require a 'what fills this' line for every blank
4. 4Did you tell it to name regulations without interpreting them
5. 5Did you state whether the buyer is public or private — this one fact changes the document's structure