We used this proposal worksheet to assist us in determining the best laptop to use for our organization. We have learned that this evaluation worksheet is similar to the weighted scoring model we were introduced to in Chapter 4. Interesting enough when faced with decisions, experts in source selection highly recommend that buyers use formal proposals evaluation sheets during source selection of many products. (Schwalbe 2010).
The book’s author recommended that a good decision maker would take criteria attributes like:
- Technical approach
- Management approach
- Past performance
- Price
Our team added two more criteria that we felt was important, warranty of the product and deliveries (shipping) of the product were added to the decision matrix. We decided to use three of the top selling laptops from HP, Dell and Panasonic. We created a column on the left side of the spreadsheet in which we entered all the criteria attributes we wanted to include in our decision process. After defining the weights of each of the criteria attributes, hopefully with the input of many if not all stakeholders within the organization, each vendor is rated against them and a total score is calculated. We then added two more columns to it and we assigned to each factor a value from 1 to 3. The value of 3 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. We then multiplied the rated score by the weighted value of each criteria attribute to determine the total score. The author