Project Experience Sheets: What They Are and How to Create Them

What Is a Project Experience Sheet?

A project experience sheet is a one-page or multi-page document that summarizes a completed or ongoing project for use in proposal submittals. It includes the project name, client, cost, dates, scope of work, and your firm's specific role. In AEC proposals — SF330s, SOQs, and RFP responses — project sheets are how you prove to an evaluation committee that your firm has done work like the project they are hiring for.

Other names for the same thing: project sheet, project description, project profile, project summary, or (in SF330 terms) Section F entry.

Why Project Experience Sheets Matter

Project sheets are often the heaviest-weighted section in an AEC proposal evaluation. When an agency scores your submittal, they are asking one question: has this firm done this type of work before, and did they do it well?

Your project sheets are the answer to that question.

• They are required in nearly every AEC submittal. SF330 Section F, SOQ project experience sections, and RFP past performance requirements all ask for the same thing — documented proof of relevant work.
• Evaluators spend 30-90 seconds per sheet. If the relevance and quality of the project are not obvious in that window, the evaluator moves on and scores you accordingly.
• They directly affect shortlist scores. In qualifications-based selection (QBS), project experience typically accounts for 25-35% of the total evaluation score. A firm with five highly relevant project sheets will outscore a larger firm with generic ones.
• They are the bridge between your firm's resume and the client's project. Staff resumes show who can do the work. Project sheets show that your firm has already done it.

What to Include on a Project Experience Sheet

Every project sheet should include these elements. Missing any of them gives evaluators a reason to deduct points.

Required Elements

1. Project name and location — City, state, and specific site if relevant.
2. Client or owner name — The entity that hired your firm. For subconsultant work, name both the client and the prime.
3. Contract value or construction cost — Use the metric the solicitation asks for. Some agencies want your fee; others want total construction cost. If the solicitation does not specify, use construction cost — it provides better scale context.
4. Dates — Start date, completion date, or duration. Match the format the solicitation requests. For SF330 Section F, the form specifies completion date.
5. Your firm's role — Were you the prime, a subconsultant, or a JV partner? Be specific. If you were the subconsultant for drainage design on a highway project, say that — do not imply you led the entire project.
6. Key personnel who worked on the project — List the specific people from your proposed team who were involved. Include their roles on the project. This connects your project sheets to your resumes (and in SF330 terms, supports the Section G matrix).
7. Project description — Scope of work, challenges, and outcomes. This is the narrative core of the sheet. More on how to write this below.
8. Relevant features — 3-5 bullet points connecting this project to the pursuit you are targeting. These should change per submittal.

Optional but Valuable

• Project photo or rendering — A single image that gives evaluators a visual reference. Especially useful for vertical construction, facilities, and environmental projects.
• Awards or recognition — If the project won an ACEC Engineering Excellence Award or similar, include it. Awards are third-party validation.
• Specific metrics — "Delivered 15% under budget." "Completed 3 months ahead of schedule." "Zero change orders during construction." Numbers make claims credible.
• Client reference contact — Name, title, phone, and email. Some solicitations require this; even when they don't, it signals confidence.
• Subconsultants or partners — Useful when the solicitation evaluates team composition or past teaming relationships.

How to Write a Strong Project Description

The project description is the section most firms get wrong. They default to vague, passive language that could describe any project. Here is how to write one that scores points.

1. Lead with what is most relevant to the current pursuit

If you are pursuing a stormwater management contract, the first sentence of a drainage project sheet should mention stormwater — not the roadway widening that happened to be part of the same contract. Evaluators scan from the top. Put the relevant scope first.

2. Quantify everything

Weak: "Provided civil engineering design services for a roadway project."

Strong: "Designed 2.3 miles of urban roadway reconstruction including 4,200 LF of storm drainage improvements, three stormwater detention basins, and ADA-compliant pedestrian facilities. Construction cost: $14.2M."

Quantified descriptions give evaluators something concrete to compare against the scope of the project they are hiring for. Numbers create credibility that adjectives cannot.

3. Highlight challenges and solutions

Evaluators want to know that your team can handle complexity. A project that went smoothly is less impressive than a project where something went wrong and your team solved it.

Example: "The project required relocating an active 36-inch water main within a 15-foot utility corridor while maintaining service to 2,400 customers. The team designed a phased relocation sequence that avoided any service interruption during the 8-month construction period."

4. Use the solicitation's terminology

If the RFP uses the term "complete streets," use "complete streets" — not "multimodal corridor." If they say "owner's representative," do not say "construction management." Match the client's language so evaluators see alignment without having to translate.

5. Keep it to 150-250 words

Project descriptions are not essays. Evaluators skim. A tight, specific paragraph with quantified outcomes is more effective than a full page of vague narrative. If you need more space, use the relevant features bullets to add detail.

6. Skip generic language

Avoid: "provided professional engineering services," "managed all aspects of the project," "coordinated with stakeholders." These phrases add no information. Every engineering firm on the shortlist provided professional engineering services. Say what you actually did.

Project Experience Sheet Template

Here is a standard layout that works for SOQs and freeform RFP responses. For SF330 Section F, use the form's Block 24 structure instead.

[PROJECT NAME]                              [Project Photo]
[City, State]

Client:          [Client/Owner Name]
Contract Value:  [$X.XM]
Completion:      [Month Year]
Firm's Role:     [Prime / Subconsultant / JV Partner]
Key Personnel:   [Name, Role; Name, Role; Name, Role]

[2-3 paragraph project description: scope, challenges, outcomes.
150-250 words. Lead with the aspect most relevant to the
current pursuit.]

Relevant Features:
• [Feature that connects to the current solicitation]
• [Feature that connects to the current solicitation]
• [Feature that connects to the current solicitation]

A few formatting notes:

• One page per project unless the solicitation allows more. If you can not fit it on one page, the description is too long.
• Consistent layout across all sheets in the submittal. If your firm's project sheet uses one template and your subconsultant's uses a different one, it looks disorganized. Provide your template to subs and ask them to use it.
• Leave white space. A crowded sheet is harder to scan than one with clear sections and breathing room.

If you want a ready-made starting point, we have a free SF330 Section F project experience template in DOCX format with the standard fields already laid out. Download it, swap in your firm's branding, and adjust for your solicitation requirements.

How to Tailor Project Sheets Per Pursuit

The underlying project data does not change between pursuits. What changes is emphasis.

For the same highway project, you might:

• For a drainage solicitation: Lead with the stormwater management scope, highlight detention basin design, and list drainage-related relevant features.
• For a roadway solicitation: Lead with the geometric design scope, highlight lane configuration and traffic management, and list roadway-related relevant features.
• For a utilities solicitation: Lead with the water main relocation, highlight utility coordination, and list infrastructure-related relevant features.

Same project. Same facts. Different emphasis. This is the tailoring that separates firms that score well from firms that submit generic sheets.

The tailoring work is also where firms lose the most time. A mid-size firm with 50+ completed projects in its library, responding to 30-40 solicitations per year, is doing hundreds of project sheet tailoring tasks annually. The data itself is stable — what changes is the selection and presentation for each pursuit. Tools like RFPM.ai store project data in structured fields so you can select the relevant scope, adjust the emphasis, and generate formatted sheets without manually editing Word documents for every submittal.

Common Mistakes

1. Using the same generic project sheet for every pursuit. If the "relevant features" section is identical across every submittal, you are not tailoring. Evaluators can tell.
2. Including projects that are not relevant to the solicitation. A hospital project on a highway design pursuit does not help — even if it was your firm's largest contract. Relevance beats size.
3. Vague descriptions without metrics. "Provided engineering services" tells the evaluator nothing. Include dollar values, quantities, durations, and outcomes.
4. Outdated information. A project listed as "ongoing" that was completed two years ago, or a client reference who left that agency. Review project sheets at least annually.
5. Inconsistent formatting across sheets in the same submittal. Every project sheet should use the same template. If your subconsultant submits sheets in a different format, reformat them to match.
6. Exceeding page limits. If the solicitation says one page per project, do not submit two. Page limit violations can disqualify the entire submittal in some agencies.

Project Sheets vs SF330 Section F

SF330 Section F is a project experience sheet in a specific, structured format defined by the GSA. The content is the same — project name, location, client, cost, dates, description — but the layout follows the form's Block 24 fields.

If you maintain your project data in a structured system, you can generate both formats from the same source. The project description, metrics, and key personnel are identical — only the output format changes.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many project experience sheets should I include in a proposal?

Include as many as the solicitation allows or requests — and no more. Most solicitations specify a number (e.g., "Submit 5-10 relevant projects"). If no number is specified, 5-7 is a reasonable range for most SOQs. Every project you include should be directly relevant to the solicitation. Padding with marginally related projects dilutes the strong ones.

How long should a project experience sheet be?

One page per project is the standard unless the solicitation explicitly allows more. Within that page, the project description should be 150-250 words. Use the remaining space for project metadata (client, cost, dates), key personnel, relevant features, and a photo if appropriate. If you struggle to fit everything on one page, the description is probably too long.

Should I include projects from subconsultants on my project sheets?

Yes, if the solicitation evaluates the full team's experience and not just the prime's. Clearly label which projects were performed by subconsultants and identify the sub by name. For SF330 Section F, each project entry indicates which firm performed the work. Do not present a subconsultant's project as your firm's work — evaluators check, and misrepresentation is grounds for disqualification.

How often should project sheets be updated?

Review and update your project library at least annually. The best practice is to create or update a project sheet as part of project closeout — when the final cost, completion date, and outcomes are known. Waiting two years and then trying to reconstruct project details from memory leads to vague descriptions and missing metrics.

What is the difference between a project sheet and a case study?

A project sheet is a concise, structured document designed for proposal submittals — typically one page, focused on facts (scope, cost, dates, metrics), and tailored to a specific solicitation. A case study is a longer-form marketing piece (2-5 pages) designed for websites, brochures, or conference presentations — it tells a story with more narrative, photos, and context. Project sheets are for evaluators scoring your proposal. Case studies are for clients browsing your website.