Canadian Association of Law Libraries Webinar on RFPs

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries is hosting a webinar on Building an RFP: Deconstructing the Process on Thursday, January 19 (1:00 - 2:30 PM EST):

"Buying technology is a major commitment - of time, money and credibility. Making sure you get the system that fits the needs of its users is an immense challenge, not only because those needs are so diverse, but because they can be difficult to articulate. In addition, you may have a specific process in your organization that you need to follow. Creating a successful Request For Proposals (RFP) is truly an art. David Whelan (Law Society of Upper Canada) and Paul Berry (Ontario Legislature) have each successfully lead a team through a technology acquisition, but the methods followed were quite different."

"David will be describing two different paths that he follows to create his RFPs - one formal, and one informal - eliciting requirements, documenting them in a way that is meaningful to vendors and selectors, and which accurately reflects what the users want to DO with the technology."

"Paul's approach to writing the RFP flies in the face of convention. Rather than coaxing stakeholders to describe their needs in product-agnostic terms, Paul’s cross-disciplinary team analyzed forty-eight software offerings and defined requirements by documenting each member’s reasons for rejecting a given product. In a series of meetings which resembled the panel discussions of "Canada Reads", a short list emerged containing seven products that each team member was willing to live with."

"Learn how to balance inflated user expectations and sales hyperbole - and keep your sanity."

Cost and registration information can be found on the webinar web page.