Latest / Identity at the Center / #298 - Avoiding Common Pitfalls in IAM RFPs

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#298 - Avoiding Common Pitfalls in IAM RFPs · Identity at the Center

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You have to actually understand the area before you can put
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together a good set of requirements.
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And so I think that's where maybe that RFI really can help
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because you don't know what's out there.
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You don't know what are the standard set of requirements.
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Obviously if you start putting the other requirements like the
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system must be able to levitate above the ground, like no system
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showing to meet that. So you have to have.
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But it's in the cloud, it levitates automatically.
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Yes, this is identity at the center.
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If it has anything to do with IAM, this is the go to podcast
0:43
now your hosts Jim McDonald and Jeff Steadman.
0:53
Welcome to the Identity at the Center podcast.
0:55
I'm Jeff, and that's Jim. Hey, Jim.
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Hey, Jeff, how are you? Oh, not so bad yourself.
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And it's been quite a week and it's only Monday already.
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It's been quite a day. It's I'm on mountain time.
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So part of my challenge they off the bat is that 6:00 AM is 8:00
1:15
AM. And by the time that I get
1:18
everything together, it's like 7:00 AM and the world is like
1:22
full speed and I'm not ready. Well, here's a pro tip for
1:27
consulting. Don't live in the West Coast
1:29
because everything's going to be done in Eastern Time.
1:32
Or just embrace the early life and the early release, I guess,
1:36
right. People kind of disappear
1:38
probably around 3:00 PM, you know, for, for folks on the West
1:41
Coast. But yeah, that's that's life.
1:44
Yeah, exactly, Exactly. I don't think I could do it.
1:47
You know, I thought about, you know, moving to Hawaii or
1:51
something and it would be great, but you'd have to get up so dark
1:56
early to have like 2:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the morning,
1:59
That's not going to work for me. Well, if you're moving to
2:01
Hawaii, you you probably can just set your own schedule at
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that point. Yeah, right.
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You've saved up your pennies. Exactly.
2:08
So you have a little bit of different background.
2:10
You're, you must be travelling right.
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You said you're. Travelling.
2:13
I'm in Sturgis, SD and so my partner Denise direct here.
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This is actually her family home and you know, this house he
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built in the 60s, late 60s. And yeah, I mean, so it's, you
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know, 8 foot ceilings and everything and, and it's a it's
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a great home. I feel really comfortable here.
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And then of course, what's going on in surgery, South Dakota is
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they have the big motorcycle rally every year and it's pretty
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crazy, man. I have a motorcycle I ride, but
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there are motorcycle enthusiasts here who, you know, come from
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all parts of the world. Most of people come in from the
2:59
United States and ride their bikes, and it's pretty crazy,
3:04
man. There's like hundreds of
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thousands of motorcycles here. Sounds very loud.
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It's super loud. It's super loud on top of all
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the rock'n'roll music that your heart could desire.
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And there's a big concert right too, that kind of goes along
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with this bunch of. There's a lot of big concerts.
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Yeah, Last night we saw someone named Elle King.
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Oh yeah. That's functional.
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Yeah, she's like a country star. She's really good.
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Jelly Roll's going to be here this week.
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Travis Trait is here last night. Is anybody good going to be?
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There Kid Rock was he's going to be here.
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I like Kid Rock. I like Jelly Roll.
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I like Travis Strait. It sounds like.
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Country, but well, there's a lot of, you know, cover bands, Bret
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Michaels is going to be here. So it's a lot of like there's
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just like that would appeal to like motorcycle folks and a lot
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of the people I think could ride motorcycles.
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Well, there's, there's really a big age range, but there are
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definitely a lot of people with, you know, Gray hair.
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It sounds it sounds like a very interesting event.
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Are there any electric bikes? That's what would interest me.
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Any E bikes like electric motorcycles?
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A single one. I haven't seen a single one.
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Is that interesting? The bikes, the bikes I like a
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lot are the custom bikes where people go and like, you know.
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They can put the handles out like like this, but I don't get
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that like that doesn't seem very comfortable.
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We're safe, right? Yeah.
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I don't know, man. That's why I don't have time
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riding my regular motorcycle. I don't think I can ride
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something like that. I'm not a gear head, so I'm more
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interested in the technology sides.
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That's why I asked about the the electric, you know, bike meaning
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like the electric motorcycle. That seems like that'd be
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pretty. Cool.
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Yeah, I did see a a Tesla charger somewhere.
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And of course, that'd be immediately like Jeff be hanging
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out there. Wait, you have to have a place
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to charge? You know what you gonna do?
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All right, so you're in Sturgis, you're on the road.
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I'm on the road like every day for this month, if you like,
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except for maybe a couple. So it's made scheduling this
5:15
podcast extremely challenging. So hats off to you for pulling
5:19
this together. We're going to try and make this
5:22
show a little bit shorter, just the interest of time and making
5:25
sure that we put something out that's quality.
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But I do want to give a shout out a gentleman by the name of
5:30
Ron sent in an e-mail or Ronald sent in a contact form to us and
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notice there was a bug at our website.
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I've been chasing this bug for a long time and if I was like I
5:41
thought, I thought I had it fixed, well now I think I have
5:44
it fixed again. So if you have been using our
5:46
listen page on our website and then you would refresh, what
5:50
would happen is you'd go to a four O 4 page because for some
5:53
reason it kept looping around to a page that no longer existed as
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I was doing some work on the site.
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I think I have fixed it again so we'll see how it works, but
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shout out to Ron for noticing the bug and actually taking the
6:05
time to send in a a, you know, a message to let us know about it
6:09
and I will cross my fingers. Hopefully it is now fixed again.
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My shout out to Ron is like, I just heard that bug like six
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months ago, Jeff, and I told you about it and.
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I thought I had to. Fix it.
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It's my fault, yeah. It's it's, it's usually, it's,
6:25
it's, it's usually the user, right?
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ID 10 T probably or PEP CAC, right, something like that.
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So, OK, well, shout to him. Let's see what else we got.
6:33
Identity Week coming up. You and I are going to be there.
6:35
We're starting to figure out what that plan is going to look
6:38
like. I'll be hosting sort of a hour
6:41
long panel talk, question and answer type thing for the future
6:47
of identity and access management.
6:48
So you'll see that that session is now up on the Identity Week
6:51
America agenda. So hopefully people will come
6:53
out and check that out. If you do, we have discount
6:56
code. So if you use the code Ida C30,
7:00
they get you 30% off of your identity week registration.
7:03
And that's good for both the America Conference which is
7:06
September 11th and 12th in Washington, DC and the Asia
7:10
conference which is in Singapore, October 22nd, 23rd.
7:12
So Ida C30 type that in you get 30% off and shows support for
7:17
shows support for the show. Easy for me to say and I
7:20
appreciate that. Same thing for the Authenticate
7:22
conference that's coming up. Also, October.
7:24
It's going to be a very busy couple months for you.
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For you and I, Jim, October 14th through 16 in Carlsbad, CA Love
7:30
it. Great spot.
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ID AC15, you get 15% off of your Authenticate registration, so we
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will be there. We originally were going to
7:39
record a session with Andrew Schickier.
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He had some travel things pop up over the weekend, so if you saw
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his notes on LinkedIn, I was like, oh, oh, that might be a
7:49
problem for us. But we're going to have him back
7:50
on here in the next couple of weeks and get something out to
7:53
kind of talk about the the next authenticate conference in a
7:56
little more detail with him. So with that business out of the
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way, I think the other thing we want to take today was we got a
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really good question from a listener and we're basically
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going to take this entire talk. The rest of the time we have to
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talk about that one question and maybe get into a little bit more
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detail, but try to keep it sort of on rails for us.
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So that's where we're at. Anything else you want to get
8:18
before we get to our? Question.
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No. Just thinking of something now
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with all the the trouble nightmares moving on.
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Just, you know, 4th, 3rd wall or third wall or 4th wall.
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Anyway, 4th wall hurricane moving through the southeast as
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we speak. Right now it's getting very
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close to Augusta, GA, which is right there.
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HomeAway frame. It's where I live now, so we're
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right on. The edge, like I looked at the
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path today and it's like you're just outside of it and I'm just
8:51
outside of a Nashville. We're kind of like 2 hours apart
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from that same size. Depending on the trajectory, we
8:58
could either totally miss it, totally get hit, or somewhere in
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between. Yeah, and I've been lucky for
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the past few years here. I haven't gotten hit by one, but
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yeah, but the I haven't been watching it all day.
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It's been one of these things. But I, yeah, I think at one
9:14
point it was like we're in the dead on center path.
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Yeah, Well, hopefully we'll see. I mean, I'm flying out to New
9:21
York tomorrow night. And so this is, let's see what's
9:24
what's today. Today is Monday the 5th and so
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I'm flying out Tuesday the 6th. To where am I going?
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Minneapolis. And so as long as my flight
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leaves on time, I don't care at that point.
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Then you're happy and then I'm happy to get there first thing.
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Yep, got to get that for a couple days and then headed to
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Dallas for this weekend for some fun personal time with friends
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and then, yeah, back to reality Monday or Tuesday next week.
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So kind of all over the place this week.
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But let's get to our question. How about that?
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Yeah. OK, this came from Alfred from
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Canada. It didn't specify where, just
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Canada. So Canada at large, I'm about to
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issue an RFP for an IAM system. What are some tips or tricks to
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make sure it goes smoothly? I love and hate this question.
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Let me start. First, I'll say I like it
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because I think this is an opportunity to maybe help people
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out there figure out how to do a good RFP, especially from the
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customer side. And I've been on the customer
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side, so I kind of know how it works.
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Now I'm on typically the respondent side, right, the
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vendor side, whether it's implementation or advisory
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services or whatever it may be. And so on that side, I am really
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not a fan of RFPs because I feel like they are a lot of work for
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very minimal value. Because here's the secret.
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Every RFP answer you're going to get is going to say yes in some
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way, shape or form. Of course it can do that.
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And so I feel like it's, I think it's a little bit of an art to
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make sure that one you've got appropriately faced questions,
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but that you don't get lost in, I don't know in Ministrata when
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it comes to RFP. So that's my initial thoughts
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when I hear RFP for IM system. What do you think?
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Yeah, yeah, my, I think those are great points.
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I think my initial thought is, you know, what seat do you have
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in the organization? I think if you're the person
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who's like the I am practitioner of your organization, you have
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to ask the question, how objective or subjective do I
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want this to be? You want it to be a very much an
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objective exercise where it's like rate certain points and
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certain requirements and things like that.
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It doesn't give you a whole lot of leeway to, you know, direct
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your decision toward a vendor that you're really impressed by.
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Or maybe you've gone to the conferences and you really think
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that one system or one generator is going to give you a better
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end product than another. Or I'm not going to get change
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order to death and things like that.
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So I, I think that's a, a big key actually put the change
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order piece aside because I think it's totally separate
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exercise. But you know, me personally, I
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like to allow for more subjectivity when it comes to an
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RFPI. Think this price aspect is a
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very big one because I've seen some RFPs where it's like submit
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the price and there's not much specificity in terms of how much
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the price influences the decision or it's set to a a
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smaller percentage. I've seen it where it's been a
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very high percentage of how an RFP response gets created.
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And when it's a very high percentage, everyone's motivated
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to give you a better price. Sounds great, right?
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But I think most respondents, whether they're consultants or
12:52
software firms, you know, they're not going to like give
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away their services or give away their software, right?
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They're they're going to try to wizzle down enough to to extend
13:05
a a very good price. So I think that there's a danger
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in putting too much weight in the price, especially early on.
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So I think you have to ask yourself too is what is what is
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it you're looking to get out of this RFP because you know, tips
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or tricks to make this run smoothly?
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Like why are you doing it? Do you are you doing it because
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you have to do it right? Is it some sort of like internal
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organizational government step that because this is expected to
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be X number of dollars, you must submit to RFP and have X number
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of minimum, you know, responses, right?
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That sort of thing. You know, government definitely
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does it like this pretty much all the time.
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But I think you need to understand like, what is the end
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goal? Like what are you hoping to get
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out of this RFP? Is it find a solution?
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Is it determine pricing? Is it you don't know what you're
13:55
looking for and you're hoping that somebody out there has a
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solution that kind of meets the needs that you've put onto a
14:01
piece of paper. So I think the first thing is
14:04
make sure you know what you want to get out of the RFP, because
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then you can start to figure out what are the questions you want
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to ask? What's the questions you don't
14:11
want to ask? You don't care about, right?
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Don't waste time for things that aren't relevant to your output,
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or at least your your intended outcome anyway.
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Yeah, You know, I, I also think that if you're very early in the
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process and you have the time to do it, you can start with an RO
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5 request for information and then come to some kind of come
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forward and start to understand your requirements a little bit
14:33
better, tell you about their software and our services and
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you can start to get a feel for the landscape.
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Now, I think if you're a company that does not have to go through
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a formal RFP process and RFI might be preferable where you go
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out and you use it as a tool to gather information.
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The RFP then gives you kind of a structured process for selecting
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a final and a final bidder, if you will.
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And that's the pair where I usually see the hang up where
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it's like, you know, if you're not setting up your RFP in a in
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a strategic way and getting pricing set in, in central or
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using pricing in such a way that it doesn't become on something
15:22
where it's like, OK, we're going to kind of narrowly meet your
15:27
requirements, but very narrowly just so we can get the lowest
15:30
price so that we make the finalist list.
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I think you bring a good point there, like not everything has
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to be an RFP. Maybe you are more interested in
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an RFI because you do want that information or an RFQ request
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for quote. You just want pricing
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information based on certain information.
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You know, if I think there are options here, but I think the
15:48
first question to ask yourself is what do you want to get out
15:50
of this and make sure you tailor the RFX.
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You know, I QP, whatever are the letters there are to make sure
16:01
that you're using the appropriate vehicle to get that
16:03
information. So, OK, so now we've kind of
16:07
figured out, OK, what are we trying to get out of?
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It what are? You know, for an IM system,
16:12
there's probably some technical requirements, but it's probably
16:16
more focused on business requirements is what I'm
16:18
thinking. Or functional requirements.
16:20
Meaning I'm looking for a system that can do this right.
16:24
I want to onboard an identity from, I don't know, work day
16:29
into my Active Directory or into my SAP or, you know, name
16:34
whatever applications is that. Does that ring a bell or does
16:38
that resonate with you all? Because they feel like most RPS
16:41
are really kind of focused on sort of the requirements aspect
16:44
of things. Right.
16:45
They're definitely, it definitely seems like
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requirements of the driver and kind of the waiting for most R
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PS I think a good process for gathering, documenting these
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requirements is, you know, the the activity of going through
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developing a strategy. So if you have a strategy and
17:04
say for I am, we're talking about a single sign on system,
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it could be a customer sign on system, it could be an employee,
17:13
it could be your IGA system or privilege access management, or
17:17
maybe you're getting into identity proofing.
17:19
But it's some area. You have to actually understand
17:22
the area before you can put together a good set of
17:25
requirements. And so I think that's where
17:28
maybe that RFI really can help because you don't know what's
17:32
out there. You don't know what are the
17:34
standard set of requirements. Obviously if you start putting
17:37
the other requirements like the system must be able to levitate
17:42
above the ground like no system showing to meet that, so you
17:44
have to have. But it's in the cloud.
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It levitates. Automatically, yes, potentially
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you could get lucky. And I think what you want to do
17:53
though is like understand how what's out there in the market
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now. Now, I'm not saying you should
17:59
build your requirements to steer your RFP one way or the other,
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but you have to actually know, like say you're interested in
18:08
ITDR, like what are the use cases that are solved by ITDR?
18:12
And I think when you go and you research ITDR, you're going to
18:16
find that the set of use cases that different vendors provide
18:21
can be quite different. I think when you look at access
18:24
management for customer identity and access management, you're
18:29
going to find that most of these cases are very similar.
18:34
Similar but different because there's always some weird
18:37
wrinkle that's like, OK, well, we want a customer identity and
18:40
access measure platform that does everything ACIM platform
18:43
does. And we also want to do this
18:45
other really weird custom thing. It could definitely be the
18:49
custom thing or it could even be just like what the approach is,
18:53
you know? I remember with customer
18:55
identity and access management, Austa used to go up gives Alt 0.
19:00
Now they're in the same company. But Optus focus was a a tool
19:04
focus for I think like the engineering community, you get
19:09
into the system and configure it using the UI.
19:15
Alt Zero was very much focused on the developer community.
19:18
So we give you a lot of code samples and ways to integrate it
19:21
with the using AP is. And so you see those two
19:25
systems, basic functionality was very similar, but the approach
19:30
to integrating and operating those tools is very different
19:34
and you may have a comfort level with one over the other.
19:38
Yeah, that's true. I think that's again probably
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one of the good requirements is, you know, do you need things
19:42
like AP is and other sort of dev friendly tools or are you
19:45
looking for something that is configurable right
19:48
out-of-the-box theoretically and try to stay within that?
19:53
You know, sometimes with RFPs, you find that it's just like a
19:58
grab bag of every requirement out there.
20:01
And I think that's a a very immature way to approach it
20:05
because, you know, having every feature, like if you went and
20:10
you bought your Tesla and you got every feature engines on
20:14
every feature that was available to it, but you didn't even know
20:16
that you had those features or how to access them and you
20:19
didn't have any reason to use them.
20:22
What good would they do? You just be spending money for
20:24
something that you didn't need. And I think that.
20:27
And sometimes you're a practitioner secretary, I don't
20:31
know all of what I need, so I'm going to ask for everything.
20:35
And I think that that ought to trigger the thought that, well,
20:40
maybe I need to put more thought of research into this rather
20:43
than just keep things. And I know we're all dealing
20:46
with deadlines and things like that.
20:48
But you I guess the the end summary from my perspective is
20:52
that you really need to know what you're asking for.
20:56
Yeah, that's a really good point, because if you don't know
20:58
what you're asking for, you're going to get blinded or
21:00
distracted by something shiny or something that is really not,
21:05
you know, something that you even care about from a from a
21:07
capability standpoint. I think like I, I've been on
21:10
this soapbox about AI for the last couple years and I'm I'm on
21:13
record, right? I love AI, think it's awesome.
21:16
But there's a lot of companies that get distracted like, oh, we
21:17
can do AI this and that. They're still like haven't
21:20
gotten the basics down. You really can't do some things
21:23
until you do the basics well. And this is an area where you
21:25
want to be very careful you don't get distracted, especially
21:28
for an area or a subject matter that you're not really an
21:32
expert. If you haven't taken the time to
21:35
build up expertise, I would say go find someone who is to help
21:38
you with that. Because I said at the very
21:41
beginning, every vendor is going to say yes, we can do that and
21:45
then twist the answer. So it makes it makes it sound
21:47
like they're yes meets meets your need.
21:50
And so you want to really be able to understand the nuances
21:52
between OK, does that make sense?
21:55
Or did they, you know, did it twist it around into a
21:58
convoluted answer, right or, or something on those lines.
22:00
So I would definitely recommend at least know something about
22:03
your subject. If you don't know about it, go
22:05
find someone who does, right, whether it's some internal or
22:08
read a book or watch a video or hire a consultant, right, that
22:10
knows that kind of area. I think that would pay off in
22:13
the long run. Yeah.
22:15
You know, I as you've been having this conversation, I've
22:18
also thought about the positive aspect in RFP.
22:22
So I generally don't like RFPs. I kind of tend towards what you
22:26
said earlier, but I just put on the cap of trying to be
22:30
positive. You know, one thing that we've
22:33
seen over time is that people want to take the top leaders in
22:37
the Magic Quadrant and picking on the Magic Quadrant because so
22:40
many people rely on it. But they say that that the space
22:44
is just the, the leaders. I think by putting an RFP out,
22:49
you may get a response that surprises you from a vendor that
22:53
maybe you're not familiar with or maybe a service provider that
22:56
you haven't done business with in the past comes along and just
23:00
like, wow, they actually pack their stuff together and they
23:04
have a solution that's a better fit and they understand my
23:06
industry better than maybe the incumbents or the leaders in the
23:12
space. And I think one thing that I'm
23:16
not saying it's the case now, but I think it's traditionally
23:18
happened over time in this space is that sometimes the the
23:23
leaders, they get, I don't know if lazy's the right word, that
23:27
sounds very negative, but they get so big that they don't
23:31
innovate as fast any of these up and comers that are innovating
23:35
like crazy. And I mean, you've seen it with
23:39
some of our sponsors spotlight episodes where some of these up
23:42
and coming vendors are coming out with features that nobody
23:45
else has. And I'm thinking of, you know,
23:48
little security with that feature around, you know, you
23:51
can kind of like point and click on a cloud application to kind
23:55
of train its AI on how to than an excess certification.
24:01
It's like that's innovative, man.
24:03
I haven't seen that anywhere else.
24:05
So I think, you know, looking down market sometimes can be a
24:09
a, you can be forced to do that by RFPs.
24:13
But I also think if you make your RFPs so difficult to
24:16
respond to, it's going to turn those, those vendors off for
24:21
even trying. Yeah, I please if you're if
24:24
you're putting an RFP out there, make it reasonable.
24:28
And there's people who spend a lot of time on these, I feel
24:30
like I do one to two of these per month it seems like and a
24:34
lot of them ask similar same questions.
24:37
So that's, you know, kind of whatever.
24:39
But that idea that you mentioned about down market I think is a
24:43
really interesting one because there are a lot of good products
24:46
that are not yet Gartner Magic Quadrant, right.
24:51
They just started out, of course, they're not up in the
24:52
upper right yet because they don't have any market share,
24:54
they don't have customers, you know, etcetera.
24:56
So there's some really good products there.
24:58
They're also hungry for customers.
25:00
So you may get better pricing or better terms on a contract or
25:04
maybe even influence the direction of the product to, you
25:07
know, to some degree. So it's definitely worth, you
25:09
know, really kind of shaking the bushes a little bit and seeing
25:11
what's out there before you just say, OK, well, we know it's
25:14
going to be, you know, this solution or this is the type of
25:17
IM system we're looking for and we know about the big two or big
25:20
three in the industry. We'll just send it to them and
25:23
you know, you end up with just those.
25:25
And that's how it kind of self feeds stuff, right?
25:27
They keep getting bigger and bigger and it's becomes harder
25:30
for the smaller, more innovative companies to do it on their own.
25:33
And then eventually they get bought out by somebody and
25:36
become part of the Borg as a bigger company.
25:38
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, another thing I would
25:43
recommend doing in like some, like the biggest thing, the
25:46
obvious is combining software and services into a single RFP.
25:52
And the reason I think to do that is it's a time saver.
25:56
I don't think you'd want to go out and select technology and
25:58
then say, oh, how are we going to implement this now and have
26:03
to go either get any other RFP or I mean, if you're, if you
26:07
have to do RFPs, I guess that's what you would do.
26:10
And or if your plan is to just go to software vendors
26:14
resources, I don't generally find that that's the optimal way
26:19
to go about implementing, you know, commercial self or
26:26
software as a service products. Yeah, there's very few software
26:31
vendors that really want to stick around for a, you know,
26:35
long term implementation. They might help you out with
26:38
like, you know, a first phase or kind of getting up and running,
26:41
but that's not their business model.
26:42
They don't really want to be in that mode of, OK, we know we're
26:45
deploying an IM system, it's going to be a three-year program
26:49
and we're expecting to introduce a bunch of different
26:51
capabilities. Generally speaking, you know,
26:53
the software vendors are not in that.
26:55
That's where partners come in, implementation partners,
26:57
etcetera. And that's where you definitely
26:58
want to make sure that you know you've got the right
27:01
implementation partner because they feel like that's one of the
27:03
most important decisions you can make is you can have the best
27:06
product in the world, but if you have a terrible integration
27:09
partner, you're going to have a bad experience with that.
27:11
That's then that's it. You can also have a product that
27:14
is considered maybe not as capable.
27:16
And if you have a really good partner that really understands
27:18
the tool and is, you know, innovative in the way they use
27:20
it, you can have a great experience better than if you
27:23
had bought the quote leader right in the space.
27:26
So there's a lot of calculus that kind of comes into this.
27:29
Absolutely, yeah. And I, you know, I think this
27:32
whole model of like one throat to shake.
27:36
I think that there's just as many tiers that get associated
27:41
with that idea as there are with we have so many vendors and
27:46
things like that. I, I think you made a point
27:49
earlier about smaller vendors sometimes going in exceeding
27:54
expectations to, it's not just smaller vendors, but just
27:58
sometimes it's vendors who you know, get an opportunity to and
28:04
associate their name with, with yours.
28:06
It doesn't have to be a small company, but just somebody who's
28:09
like hungry for your business rather than just handing the
28:14
business over to the biggest, biggest name on the block.
28:18
Yeah. I mean, I think it's it's
28:21
there's there's options out there.
28:22
I guess it's probably the best way to.
28:24
Put Yeah. The other thing that I find
28:26
interesting sometimes in these conversations is, and this tends
28:30
to come out more in the implementation side is what is
28:34
your experience, you know, deploying this product or
28:37
performing this service, whatever.
28:40
And I find a lot of companies struggle at least on the, on the
28:43
on the on the responder side around way.
28:45
OK, well, you know, collectively like, you know, Jim, you and I
28:50
have 40 years, 405050 years of experience doing IAM work.
28:56
That experience doesn't go away when you and I change companies,
29:01
right? We've been through Identity
29:02
Protiviti and now we're with RSM, and each of those companies
29:07
gained the benefit of our collective years of experience.
29:10
So even if you have a company that maybe is a newer maybe
29:14
identity for whatever it may be, don't discount the personal
29:17
histories of the people who will be involved with the project.
29:20
And the people involved with the project should absolutely be
29:23
part of the response. You want to know who's there,
29:27
you know, are they going to be assigned?
29:29
And you never know. A lot of companies will not name
29:31
resources because it's very difficult from the company's
29:34
perspective to say, well, we don't know if Jeff and Jim are
29:37
going to be here next year. They might win the lottery or
29:40
the podcast takes off and they get a Netflix special, right, or
29:42
something like that. Here's here's hoping, right?
29:45
Not going to win, but you definitely want to have a sense
29:49
of what are the people that are going to be involved with your
29:51
project? Are they experienced?
29:53
Don't discount personal experience is just what I'm
29:56
saying as part of that. That equation that applies to
29:59
vendors as well, because you could have a lot of really smart
30:01
people who maybe they did a start up and they're just
30:04
getting out the gates. But they spent, you know, 50
30:06
years building Watson at IBM and they know AI inside it out,
30:10
right? That experience didn't just go
30:12
away because they changed companies.
30:15
Right. And I think that if you're not
30:17
an RFP scenario, you can easily judge that for yourself.
30:22
If you if you are putting on an RFP, don't, don't make it so
30:28
objective and so tightly worded that you miss out on those kind
30:33
of things. I think that's the real key is
30:36
like, don't make your RFP so difficult to respond to that you
30:43
don't really get the right information.
30:46
I think just respond to Jim, but also free to make a selection.
30:50
I think what you said there is like T like don't make an RFP
30:53
that doesn't allow you to select the vendor you like because of
30:56
some scoring criteria that says they're not the best, right?
30:59
Or whatever it may be. Yeah, exactly.
31:03
So one last note that I had was the other thing is don't ask for
31:09
a response. That's going to get you 100 page
31:12
response and you're going to get 15 responses and now your
31:16
selection team has to review 1500 pages of documents.
31:21
So, in other words, don't ask for more than you care to
31:23
review. Scope it.
31:27
Don't ask questions you don't care about.
31:29
Ask the questions you do care about.
31:30
Ask For more information if you need it.
31:32
You know, I think if, if a company is taking time to
31:35
respond to this, chances are that of course they want your
31:37
business, right? And they want, they need
31:40
information to try and put together the best response as
31:42
possible. So, you know, if you're able to
31:45
take the time to answer questions, you know, a lot of
31:47
companies might have like, OK, we're going to open up our
31:49
bridge and we'll do a question and answer censor, you know,
31:52
session now. And people can answer questions,
31:55
right? Or ask questions or maybe.
31:57
But yeah, I mean, you know, I, I don't want to say be easy with
32:02
it, but only ask the stuff you care about and try to try to
32:06
look for reasons to say, why are we ask this question?
32:11
Is this mandatory or is this a nice to have?
32:14
Or is this just plain not not relevant at all and let's cut
32:17
it? Right, right.
32:19
And then try to design your questions that they're all not
32:23
all yes or no questions where you have very objective criteria
32:27
on, you know, whoever we get the most yeses from, they're going
32:32
to win the business. Whoever gives us the lowest
32:34
price, they're going to get the business.
32:36
Give people ask open-ended questions like we do on this
32:39
podcast. You're you're going to probably
32:42
learn a lot more and you'll see if people actually give thought
32:47
to your questions or if they just when you see the RFP
32:51
response database and pulled a bunch of stuff out and pasted it
32:55
in it, that's where you get back.
32:57
I mean, you did not get the A-Team from that, from that
33:02
respondent and look to the one where people put time into
33:06
responding. They need, they need or really
33:09
care about getting that business and then you'll get a better
33:12
product from now, I bet. And just like every other
33:16
industry, AI is impacting the RFP business just like anyone
33:19
else, you know, it's making it easier to write responses and to
33:23
have question banks of, you know, answers that you've
33:26
previously used and things like that.
33:28
So I the idea of an open-ended question is very is very good to
33:32
make sure that you're not just getting a canned response.
33:34
Some things will be can't you know, when was your company
33:37
formed? How long have you been in
33:38
business? Like that story doesn't change.
33:42
Think about the questions that really that you want to get more
33:44
of a, you know, less canned responses from and ask them in a
33:48
way that it is open-ended that they can't use.
33:51
OK, well, we use this answer for this one.
33:53
Let's copy paste it from there and put it here.
33:55
Good enough. All right, good luck.
33:57
Agreed. Agreed.
33:58
Yeah, great question on the candidate.
34:00
Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Alfred.
34:02
We spent 20 minutes talking about RFPs, which is generally
34:06
20 minutes more than I ever want to talk about RFPs.
34:09
So, so Jeff, I do have a question for you about an
34:13
upcoming trip for your before we do that, I wanted to mention an
34:17
update on my dad or actually it's a it's a really weird thing
34:21
that happened yesterday. Say wake up to the text message
34:26
from KD that my dad is on the way to the hospital and I left
34:31
you a voicemail. So I look check my voicemail.
34:34
So a female's voice saying, you know, this is Katie, your dad's
34:39
on the way to the hospital. I wasn't able, you know, to get
34:43
you or whatever after he get out.
34:47
So I call my dad and he's fine. And then I, I text this person
34:51
back. I'm like, I just talked to my
34:53
dad and he's not I'm sorry I texted you in person.
34:57
So I didn't know if it was like some kind of scam, but it was
35:00
kind of nice because the heck my dad for like 1/2 hour, they gave
35:04
me an update and we talked a lot about cybersecurity and how he
35:09
doesn't answer the phone and as he knows the number and stuff
35:13
like that say he's coming along. By the way, I figured I'd give
35:16
you that update. I don't think he's using a flip
35:19
phone anymore. And and I guess thank you to
35:24
Katie for getting me to call my dad, but also and I think
35:29
through the your heart is there. A spoiled word.
35:32
It was actually your dad pretending to be Katie on a
35:35
different account. He's gone beyond He's way more
35:37
advanced than he's letting on. Yeah, Yeah.
35:40
He's using AI, he's Simpson kind of bot to make sure that I call
35:44
him on a periodic basis. That's nefarious.
35:48
That could be nefarious, but that's interesting.
35:50
Well, I'm glad to hear your dad's good.
35:52
Yeah, yeah. So what are you, what are you up
35:55
to? You're going on a a surprise
35:57
50th birthday and party. And I'm wondering, what do you
36:03
think of surprise parties? You know, I don't, I don't think
36:06
I've ever been a part of one before.
36:08
So this is kind of my first time.
36:10
Yeah, it is a surprise birthday party.
36:13
A bunch of us are flying into Dallas from kind of parts
36:16
unknown. This is somebody that I've known
36:18
for three, almost 30 years, 25 years, met at Chili's in
36:24
Bolingbrook way a long time ago. And we're a crew that has been
36:27
very close kind of since them. And so it'd be good to, you
36:31
know, see folks that kind of came out of that cell.
36:34
You know, my friend Jeff, Jason, Chad, we're all getting
36:37
together. My wife is coming with me.
36:38
So we actually found someone to come and watch our dogs.
36:41
My brother's actually going to fly in, watch the dogs for us
36:44
for the weekend, enjoy Asheville and the Tesla, while my wife and
36:48
I are in Dallas with our friends kind of hanging out for this
36:51
surprise birthday party. It is being coordinated by his
36:55
wife, which is I find very cool. And so it's basically like we're
36:59
meeting at a hotel to get on a party bus and then drive to
37:03
their house and sort of surprise him at their house.
37:06
And then we're doing some sort of like escape room thing, I
37:10
think afterwards. So by the time this show goes
37:13
live, that event will have occurred.
37:15
So very much looking forward to it.
37:18
It's been a long time since we've kind of gotten the crew
37:20
back together. So I don't know what to expect
37:23
other than I'm sure he's going to be shocked if the if surprise
37:25
holds true because the number of people coming in is like 20 or
37:28
25, His parents. And we're flying in from all
37:32
over the place, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina,
37:35
Illinois, and they're in Dallas now.
37:37
And so, you know, people taking the time to come out and and do
37:40
this I think is very cool. That's really awesome.
37:43
So did your wife work at? Is she a chili head too?
37:46
No, she did not. We met at a different restaurant
37:48
because that's how I roll, moving around restaurants when I
37:51
was younger. No, she was not with Chili's,
37:55
but the Chili's crew was sort of like my college years.
38:00
And so, you know, we live together in a house, you know,
38:03
my friends, Jeff and Jason and Chad, we were basically
38:06
inseparable for many years. And of course, we got older and,
38:10
you know, families and stuff like that.
38:11
So it's been a little bit tougher to stay in touch, but
38:14
very much kind of the crew getting back together.
38:16
And every time, you know, it might be, you know, it could be
38:20
five years, 2 years, a year, 30 seconds since I last talked to
38:23
one of them. And it's like, you know, it's
38:25
what it's like that friendship group that's like you just pick
38:27
up right where you left off. Nothing has changed.
38:30
Everyone still has the same personalities and kind of
38:32
getting together. It's like no time has passed
38:34
when we get into a room together.
38:36
That sounds so cool, man. I had a great, great trip.
38:39
Yeah. I'm looking forward to it.
38:41
It's been a while since I had a vacation or like a real
38:43
vacation. So it'll be, you know, a day or
38:47
so, but we'll. Take a while to go on a real
38:50
vacation and you go to Dallas. Well, last year it's not.
38:55
The vacation capital of the world.
38:57
Well, this is a busy month, so I have that and then let's see the
39:01
weekend. So I get back from that on like
39:03
a Tuesday, couple days of working, and then I fly to South
39:08
Bend, I think it is to go to Michigan for my brother's
39:12
bachelor party kind of weekend. So that's another weekend after
39:16
that. We'll be like figuring that out.
39:18
And then I think I go to New York City the week after that.
39:21
And then the actual wedding for my brother is in Chicago at the
39:24
end of the month. It's like every weekend this
39:27
month I'm basically like busy. Get ready, you'll be watching
39:33
all the episodes of Identity Center seem to be just me and
39:37
our guest. Don't worry, I wouldn't put you
39:39
through just me. It's going to be me and the
39:42
guest that we're we're going to be missing out on Jeff for a few
39:45
episodes this month. We tried.
39:47
That's why I said like it's, it's been a lot of hassle trying
39:50
to coordinate schedules and stuff like that for this month.
39:52
So yeah, there will probably be a couple of episodes here where
39:55
I'm not able to make it, but I will be editing them so I can
39:58
make Jim say whatever I want to say to the power of cross
40:00
production. As you had done before.
40:04
All right, why don't we go ahead and wrap it up there?
40:07
Anything else? YouTube.
40:09
Go YouTube. Idacpodcast.tv will take you
40:13
straight to our YouTube channel. Hit that, like and subscribe
40:16
button. We're trying to grow the channel
40:18
and yeah, put a lot of effort into that.
40:21
See on the web, IDC podcast.com, Twitter X, whatever it's called
40:25
at IDC podcasts and yeah, LinkedIn.
40:29
Feel free to reach out to us, connect, send us ideas, send us
40:32
feedback on our website. You know, something's broken.
40:34
Let me know future episodes. What's that?
40:38
Be like, be like Alfred. Send us questions for future
40:42
episodes. Yeah, yeah.
40:44
Send us, you know, whatever maybe you know, whether it's I
40:47
am or not, We'll we'll try to find a time to answer it.
40:50
All right, let's go leave it there.
40:52
Thanks everybody for watching and or listening and we'll talk
40:55
with you all in the next one. You've been listening to
41:00
Identity at the Center. We hope you've enjoyed the show.
41:04
Make sure to like, rate and review, and we'll be back soon.
41:08
But in the meantime, hit the website at
41:11
identity@thecenter.com. See you next time on Identity at
41:17
the Center.