Construction Tender Package Preparation Checklist

Write a short plain description of what you want built, as if explaining it to someone who has not seen the drawings, then check whether the pack actually says that.

If your own summary and the pack disagree, the pack is unclear, and it is far easier to fix that now than to explain it afterwards.

Decide and record which parts of the work sit inside this package and which you intend to arrange separately, and say so explicitly in the pack.

Work arranged separately has to be visible to everyone, because it affects sequence, access and responsibility on site.

Note whether you are asking for the work as drawn, or inviting alternative approaches to be described, since those are different questions.

Mixing the two produces responses that cannot be laid side by side, which is the most common source of confusion.

Record who is coordinating the package and who everyone responding should contact, and make sure only that route is used.

Multiple contact routes result in different people being told different things, which is exactly what a package is meant to prevent.

Ask what form of agreement is anticipated for this work and confirm the position with a suitably qualified adviser before the pack goes out.

The intended arrangement affects what the pack has to contain, so it belongs at the start rather than at the end.

The form of any agreement is a legal matter and must be settled with a suitably qualified adviser, not decided from a checklist.

List every drawing, schedule and note you intend to issue with its revision marking, then check the folder actually contains what the list says.

The document list is what everyone will refer back to, and it is worth checking against reality before it is issued.

Take superseded drawings out of the pack rather than leaving them in as background, and say plainly what has been withdrawn.

An old revision left in a pack will be worked from by somebody, and the disagreement surfaces at the worst possible moment.

Check that each drawing carries a revision reference and that the reference on the sheet matches the one on your list.

Mismatched revision markings are easy to spot before issue and very hard to unpick once several people hold different sheets.

Mark which documents are for information only and which describe the work to be carried out, so nobody has to guess the status of a survey or a report.

Reports issued for context are frequently read as instructions, and a single line of labelling prevents it.

Ask whether a specification or schedule of works exists, who is producing it, and whether it is being issued with the drawings.

Drawings show arrangement rather than quality, and the written material is where most of the difference between responses lives.

A specification is a professional document; ask your design team who is producing it rather than attempting to write one yourself.

Write down the things you are assuming are included, and ask that each response states clearly whether they are.

Assumptions written down become questions that can be answered; assumptions left in your head become disputes.

List what you intend to supply yourself — appliances, sanitaryware, lighting, ironmongery — and say for each one who is expected to fit it.

Owner-supplied items are a well-known source of confusion about responsibility, delivery and what happens if something arrives damaged.

Record what is to happen to everything removed, including anything you want kept, salvaged or reused.

Items an owner intended to keep are routinely skipped because nobody wrote them down before the strip-out began.

Note what site facilities you are providing and what you expect to be provided, including power, water and welfare arrangements.

These arrangements differ between projects and are usually assumed rather than stated, which is how they end up unresolved on the first morning.

Ask that anything excluded is listed explicitly in the response rather than simply left unmentioned.

Silence is not an exclusion or an inclusion, and asking for the list is the only reliable way to find out which it was.

Describe the access route as it actually is, including anything that restricts a vehicle, and invite anyone responding to see it for themselves.

Access is the constraint most often discovered on arrival, and it affects how nearly every part of the work is carried out.

Mark on a plan where materials could be stored and where they could not, including areas you need to keep clear.

Storage is negotiated on the first morning unless it has been described, and by then the options are whatever is left.

Record any restriction you already know about on working hours, noise, parking or deliveries, and confirm locally what applies.

Restrictions vary by location and by property, and they are far better raised in the pack than discovered afterwards.

Restrictions on working hours, parking and similar matters have to be confirmed with the relevant authority and any managing party.

State which parts of the property remain occupied or in use during the work, and what that means for access and separation.

Working around occupation changes how work is planned, and it must be in the pack rather than mentioned in conversation.

Record what is known about the ground, the existing structure and the services, labelling each item as documented, observed or unknown.

Honest labelling protects you, because a confident statement that turns out to be wrong is worse than an admitted uncertainty.

Anything stated about ground conditions or existing structure should come from qualified professionals and be issued as their document.

List every item that is genuinely undecided and say so in the pack, rather than leaving a blank that will be filled in by assumption.

A stated unknown can be handled; a silent one produces responses that differ for reasons nobody can see.

Ask by which stage of the work each outstanding decision would be needed, and record the answer against each item.

This turns an intimidating list into an ordered one and shows you which choices genuinely cannot wait.

Ask how items that are not yet chosen should be dealt with in a response, and make sure everyone is told the same thing.

If each responder handles the unknowns differently, the responses stop being comparable regardless of how good they are.

Record which choices you would be willing to leave to someone else within a described standard, and which you want to make yourself.

Being explicit about this reduces the number of items that have to be resolved before anything can move.

Note the items where a late change would disturb the most other work, and concentrate your attention on deciding those first.

Not all late decisions are equally disruptive, and knowing which are worst is a question the design team can answer.

Which decisions constrain others is a professional judgement; ask the design team rather than ranking them yourself.

Make sure everyone responding receives the same pack at the same revision, and record which issue each recipient was sent.

Different recipients holding different revisions is the most common reason responses cannot be compared at all.

Ask that responses follow the same structure, so that what each one includes can be seen without decoding it.

A common structure is a modest request that makes an enormous difference when several responses arrive.

Where a response describes something different from the drawings, record it as a difference to be discussed rather than assuming it is a mistake.

Differences often reveal a genuine problem with the pack, and treating them as errors loses that information.

Note every assumption a response states, since assumptions are where apparently identical submissions actually differ.

Two responses can describe the same work and mean very different things once their assumptions are read.

Ask a qualified professional to go through the responses with you, particularly where the package is substantial or technical.

Reading responses is a skill, and the differences that matter are often not the ones an owner notices first.

Evaluating responses is professional work; nothing in this checklist indicates whether any response or party is suitable.

Agree in writing how questions are to be asked during the process and who answers them, and state that route in the pack.

Without a stated route, questions arrive through whichever contact somebody happens to have.

Record every question asked and issue the answer to everyone who received the pack, whether or not they asked it.

This is the mechanism that keeps responses comparable, and it also gives everyone the benefit of the sharpest question.

Where a question reveals a gap in the pack, issue a correction to everyone rather than answering it privately.

A gap answered privately becomes an invisible difference between the responses that arrive.

Keep a numbered log of clarifications issued, so it is possible to establish later what was known and when.

This log becomes the record of what everyone was working from, and it is difficult to reconstruct afterwards.

Ask what happens if a drawing has to be revised while responses are being prepared, and agree that in advance.

Mid-process revisions do happen, and having agreed how they are handled avoids improvising under pressure.

How a revision issued mid-process should be handled is a matter for your professional adviser to guide.

Read the exclusions and stated assumptions in each response before anything else, since that is where responses differ most.

What has been left out shapes everything else, and reading it first changes how the rest is understood.

Note which responses answered the question you asked and which answered a slightly different one.

A response describing different work is not necessarily worse, but it must be recognised as a different proposition.

Ask any responder to explain in writing what a particular item covers rather than assuming you have understood it correctly.

Written clarification is quick to obtain at this stage and becomes part of the record of what was agreed.

Write down the reasons for your decision at the time you make it, in your own words, and keep it with the responses.

Reasoning fades quickly, and a contemporaneous note is useful both to you and to anyone advising you later.

Agree in writing exactly which documents form part of the arrangement that follows, including any clarifications issued.

Ambiguity about which documents apply is one of the hardest things to unpick once work is under way.

What forms an agreement and how it is executed are legal matters for a suitably qualified adviser.