How do you match referees to criteria?
Read the evaluation schedule first, then work backwards. A 25-percent methodology criterion wants a referee who watched your methodology perform: same scope, same complexity, recent enough to matter. A delivery criterion wants the client who lived through your delivery, delays included. Capability is demonstrated on the capability matrix; referees are the independent corroboration of that matrix, and the scoring happens on evaluation criteria and weightings.
Recency, relevance, and reachability, in that order. A five-year-old flagship impresses no one against a criterion about current capacity. An interstate success story answers a different question than local delivery. And a perfect referee on leave for the evaluation window is not a referee at all.
The evidence-readiness worksheet
- Criterion. Which scored item this referee evidences, and what share it carries.
- Project. Scope, value, dates, your role, matched to the criterion, not to firm pride.
- Referee. Named individual with title, organisation, and direct contact, not a switchboard.
- Consent. Confirmed for this tender, this scope, this evaluation window, dated.
- Briefing. What the criterion asks and which facts help, shared openly, never scripted.
- Backup. A second contact at the same client in case the first is unreachable.
What must you never do?
Coach, script, or fabricate. Briefing a referee on what the criterion asks is legitimate preparation. Telling them what to say is coaching, and evaluators who hear identical phrasing from three referees read it as exactly that. Naming referees without consent, or naming people who have left the client, converts evidence into embarrassment at the worst possible moment. Past performance is what happened, as the client remembers it. If the memory is mixed, know that before lodgement, not after award.
What does this mean for the bid/no-bid call?
A heavily past-performance-weighted tender without matching, reachable referees is a no-bid however strong the methodology chapter reads. Run the worksheet in week one: every criterion above 15 percent needs its referee named, consented, and briefed, or the gate records the gap honestly.