An agile request for proposal (RFP) process

Abstract

The request for proposal (RFP) process can be agile and efficient. At a high level, the key to achieving this is to specify requirements just in time and containing just enough detail. We apply the following XP practices and concepts to the RFP process: acceptance tests, business value, iterative and incremental delivery, on-site customer, pair development, planning game, spike, story, velocity, and yesterday's weather. In addition, the following concepts are combined with those from XP to achieve maximal benefit: user-goal use case, context diagram, level of detail, and decision tree. The contributions to the agile community are two-fold: describing a practical application of XP concepts to a nonprogramming project; and making use case style requirements processes more agile.