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Tell us what needs to change

Three fields. The more concretely you describe the task as it happens today, the more useful the first reply will be.

Before you write

Six things that make an enquiry answerable

01

The task as it happens today

Not the software you are imagining — the job someone actually does. “Someone re-types delivery notes into the accounts system every Friday afternoon” is a better opening line than three pages of requirements, because it can be costed and the requirements cannot.

02

Who does it, and how often

One person once a month and forty people every hour are different pieces of software even when the task is word for word identical. Volume and the number of people involved move the cost more than the feature list does.

03

What goes in, and what has to come out

What someone starts with and what they have to produce by the end. A screenshot of the spreadsheet people really use is worth more than a specification; so is a photograph of the paper form it replaced.

04

How you would know it had worked

The test you would apply in three months to decide the money was well spent. Without it, scope has no edge, and a project without an edge grows until somebody runs out of patience rather than until it is finished.

05

Anything it has to talk to

Accounting, payroll, a supplier portal, a booking system, a machine on a bench. Name it, and say whether anyone in your organisation has working credentials for it. An integration nobody can get access to is what turns a scoped week into an open-ended one.

06

Whether something already exists

A half-finished build, an old system still limping along, a database nobody maintains, a developer who has stopped replying. Say who built it and whether you have the code. Inheriting something is a normal piece of work; discovering it in week three is not.

Start an enquiry

Describe what you want to happen, who does it today, what it has to work with, and whether anything already exists. A paragraph is plenty — you do not need a specification.

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After you send

What happens to an enquiry, and what it commits you to

There is no obligation on either side at this stage, and it is worth being precise about that rather than leaving it implied.

  • It commits you to nothing An enquiry is not an instruction, a signature or a budget. You can stop at any point, including immediately after reading the reply.
  • One of three useful replies Questions, because the description needs sharpening; an honest “this is not our work”, which is better said early than late; or a proposal to scope the job properly.
  • Scoping is the first real step It produces a written scope: what the software will do, the screens it needs, the questions still open, and a cost range rather than a number.
  • The scope is yours It describes the work rather than arguing for a supplier, so you can take it to somebody else and compare. That is a deliberate property of it, not an oversight.
  • No price before scoping Any figure offered before the scope exists is a guess with a currency symbol in front of it. The cost drivers on each service page will tell you more than a premature number would.