Tender patterns: Where construction tenders go wrong
Six free one-page notes on where construction tenders most often go wrong, one for each role on the bid team.
Key takeaways
Six one-page notes, one for each role on the bid team.
Seven checks per role, before problems reach the price.
Built on problems that recur across tenders, not one-off mistakes.
Tender patterns is a series of six free one-page notes from Volve on where construction tenders most often go wrong. Each note covers seven recurring problems for one role on the bid team, and what to check before they reach the price.
The series is organised by reader because the same tender breaks in different places depending on who is looking at it. The estimator meets the problem as a quantity that doesn’t match. The commercial lead meets it as a clause that moved risk. The project manager meets it months later as an assumption that never reached site.
The six notes
Cost and estimating
Where the bill, the drawings and the model stop matching before the price is set, starting with a bill measured from a revision the tender has since replaced.
Top 7 quantity gaps in construction tenders
Contract and risk
How clients move risk through deletions, additions and unselected options in FIDIC, NEC, JCT and the Nordic standard forms.
Top 7 risk shifts in construction contracts
Technical and design
Where scope falls between the documents, from “by others” to a design stage that isn’t what the label says.
Top 7 scope gaps in construction tenders
Bid development
What separates a compliant bid from a winning one, drawn from published scoring models and evaluation reports.
Top 7 reasons compliant construction bids lose
Procurement
Why the lowest subcontractor bid is rarely the lowest price, and how to level bids before you compare them.
Top 7 gaps in subcontractor bids
Project delivery
What gets decided in the tender and comes back on site, from assumptions left in the bid file to notice deadlines the site team never saw.
Top 7 tender issues that surface in construction delivery
These problems recur because they sit between documents and between people, which is where a tender is hardest to check.
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