A public-health agency's leadership asks the AI strategy team to define selection criteria — feasibility, mission impact, data readiness, and risk — before soliciting any vendor proposals for a new AI initiative. Why does this sequencing matter?

Defining selection criteria before soliciting vendor proposals protects the integrity of the evaluation process: feasibility, mission impact, data readiness, and risk become the yardstick every proposal is measured against, keeping the agency's own priorities in the driver's seat instead of letting a compelling sales pitch quietly redefine what the agency thinks it needs. Treating this sequencing as mainly an audit formality understates its actual function — audit compliance may be a side effect, but the real purpose is preventing vendor influence from shaping requirements that should originate from the agency's own mission. Believing that defined criteria let the agency skip competitive bidding confuses having evaluation standards with having a fair selection process; criteria are what a competitive process is measured against, not a substitute for running one. Framing the benefit as mainly a faster procurement timeline captures a plausible side effect, but it misses that even a fast process that lets vendor pitches define requirements has already lost its own priorities to the market. Caveat: criteria should still allow for vendor-proposed alternatives the agency hadn't considered. Operational check: confirm the criteria document is finalized and signed off before the RFP is published, not drafted alongside proposal review.