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Notes on winning public work

What actually disqualifies a bid, how to decide which tenders are worth chasing, and how public buyers in Canada and the United States structure the work they put out.

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An Offra card reading "The five documents that sink a public tender"
Compliance

The five documents that sink a public tender

Most disqualified bids are not lost on price. They are lost on a missing form, an unsigned page, or an addendum nobody acknowledged. Here are the five that come up most.

Read 3 min read
An Offra card reading "Why Offra shows you what it is unsure about"
Product

Why Offra shows you what it is unsure about

A tool that hides its uncertainty is asking to be trusted where it should not be. Every extraction carries a source and a confidence, and both are shown on purpose.

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An Offra card reading "Making the bid/no-bid call in twenty minutes"
Bidding strategy

Making the bid/no-bid call in twenty minutes

Estimating capacity is the scarcest resource in a construction firm. A short, honest triage on day one protects it better than any amount of effort in week three.

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An Offra card reading "When the subcontractor quotes arrive last"
Bidding strategy

When the subcontractor quotes arrive last

Sub quotes land in the final hours and always will. The fix is not chasing them earlier — it is structuring the estimate so a late quote drops into a prepared slot.

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An Offra card reading "How a weighted evaluation grid scores you"
Public procurement

How a weighted evaluation grid scores you

When quality is scored separately from price, the lowest bid stops winning automatically. What the committee is actually permitted to reward, and what it cannot.

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An Offra card reading "The dates in a tender that are not the deadline"
Compliance

The dates in a tender that are not the deadline

Every bid team tracks the closing date. The dates that actually constrain a bid are the four or five before it, and they are rarely on anyone's calendar.

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An Offra card reading "The quantities to re-check before you price"
Estimating

The quantities to re-check before you price

There is never time to re-measure a takeoff before close. There is always time to re-check five categories of quantity that go wrong far more often than the rest.

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An Offra card reading "Bidding across the border"
Public procurement

Bidding across the border

Canadian firms bidding US public work usually over-prepare for the wrong differences. What actually changes, what does not, and where the lead time really goes.

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An Offra card reading "When the drawings and the specifications disagree"
Estimating

When the drawings and the specifications disagree

Every tender set contains contradictions. The order of precedence decides who absorbs them, and it is written down somewhere most estimators never look.

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An Offra card reading "What to ask for in a bid debrief"
Bidding strategy

What to ask for in a bid debrief

A debrief is the cheapest competitive research a firm can buy, and most never request one. Four questions worth asking, and what the answers are actually for.

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An Offra card reading "Bid security: the four ways it gets rejected"
Compliance

Bid security: the four ways it gets rejected

Bid security fails on the amount, the form, the validity period, or the delivery. Each fails independently, and all four land in the last hour before close.

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An Offra card reading "Unit prices, lump sums, and where the risk sits"
Bidding strategy

Unit prices, lump sums, and where the risk sits

Whether a tender is priced by unit rate or as a lump sum is not a formatting choice. It decides who absorbs a quantity that turns out to be wrong.

Read 3 min read
An Offra card reading "How to read instructions to bidders"
Public procurement

How to read instructions to bidders

The drawings tell you what the job is. The instructions to bidders tell you how to stay in the running long enough to price it. Most teams read them in that order.

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An Offra card reading "What an addendum actually changes in your estimate"
Estimating

What an addendum actually changes in your estimate

An addendum changes the work and the paperwork at the same time. Repricing the line items it names is the easy half — here is the half that gets missed.

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An Offra card reading "RFP, RFQ, IFB: what each one is asking for"
Public procurement

RFP, RFQ, IFB: what each one is asking for

Three acronyms, three different competitions. Which one you are answering decides how the award is made — and what a strong response actually contains.

Read 4 min read
An Offra card reading "Your first ten minutes in Offra"
Product

Your first ten minutes in Offra

Account setup, the guided tour, a first tender uploaded and a task list that knows what is missing — what those ten minutes hold, plan gates included.

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