Gary Everett

OCI’s proposal management training class stresses many techniques and “to do lists” that will help you create a winning proposal. The six top takeaways presented below will help companies achieve a high win rate on proposals submitted to Federal Government agencies.

  1. The Proposal Manager (PM) must first create an effective proposal outline. To be most successful, the plan must keep the same numbering and titling schema as found in the Government Request for Proposal (RFP). This makes it easy for the evaluators to find what they are looking for. A compliant response must address the RFP requirements IAW the proposal instructions, evaluation criteria, work statement and all other relevant parts of the RFP, such as attachments and Sections D-K. The proposal response must be Word-searchable to allow the evaluators to find your response to all required elements in the RFP. If it looks like a requirement and sounds like a requirement, include it.
  2. Use Customer-centric language to develop good win themes. Always focus on the customer, telling him what results, benefits, savings and improvements he will get with your solution. You must give the evaluators, in writing, the reasons to pick you. The best win theme will provide a value and benefit that competitors do not offer. A good proposal will weave the top three win themes throughout the entire proposal, to provide consistent and convincing proof as why your company is the offeror to select.
  3. Implement proven proposal development processes. To avoid extreme waste, the PM must use an efficient development process for creating winning proposals.  Companies already know how to use proven ISO, SDLC, CMMI and ITIL standards to perform their core services better. Such is true for proposals. Our PM training uses a proven development process including checklists, templates, and examples to help authors plan and write their sections. This approach gives confidence to the authors because it includes tools and methods specifically designed to help them with their daily work. The course also includes seven practical exercises to reinforce the teaching points with hands-on experience.
  4. Closely manage author work product. A wise proposal manager once said, “you get what you inspect, not what you expect.” To get what you expect, you must first train the authors as to what their job is and how to do it. This training does not mean they are doing it. A good PM will perform a one-on-one review of author work product during the early planning and first draft writing stages. This will enable the PM to do early refresher training and to see if an author will be able to perform the work or not. Hand holding and accepting delays and missed milestones by an author is not a good management approach for successful proposal development.
  5. Conduct meaningful and effective in-progress reviews (Color Teams). Any good proposal development process will include periodic reviews of work in progress to ensure that quality proposal sections are being prepared on schedule. These in-progress assessments are called Color Team Reviews.  A popular approach is to hold three reviews.  First the Blue Team is a peer review in which authors check each other’s work.  Second the Pink Team involves review by well-qualified in-house corporate personnel not on the proposal team.  Third the Red Team is composed of well-qualified reviewers from outside the company.   The PM must ensure that the color team process, whatever it is, is functioning well.  A common cause for ineffective color team work is that the reviewers did not dedicate the proper time.  The PM must implement on-gong checkpoints to facilitate the work of the color teams. At least two formal milestones should be set up, including the Pink and Red team, as described here.  The key Red Team personnel need to be free from the constraint of reporting to an in-house boss.  The best reviews will simulate a review by Government evaluators and will also provide specific recommendations as how to increase the score of the proposal.
  6. Develop proposal sections that are easy to read, understand and evaluate. A proposal that is hard to read and understand will be scored low at best, but, most likely, non-compliant. This course teaches a method of writing called keep it short and simple (KISS) to make the author writing easy to evaluate. Concise proposal writing will use active voice sentences and will be organized around tables and graphics to enable the evaluator to “see” the response more clearly. The excellent proposal will have a high density of customer-centric versus company-centric wording and will use the RFP wording where possible. A good proposal response will tell how the work will be performed and will provide improvements and show work examples using proposed successful tools and techniques from other contracts. Our checklists and templates help authors prepare this better product. A successful proposal will have strong, professional editing performed before it is delivered to the customer.

Our instructor uses a 276-page handbook that describes the entire proposal development process in detail with samples, examples, checklists, and templates. The process is a result of his 35 years of successful experience using these same techniques and tools for creating winning proposals. The course has been taught over 160 times to more than 1400 students. Our instructor, as a proposal manager, has won more than $3B in contracts for the U. S. Federal Government for IT services and equipment.  The course includes an online copy of the handbook.