For those not familiar with the term, Murder Board has its origins in the U.S. military. To be an instructor at a service school, e.g., the Infantry School at Ft. Benning, Georgia, can be a career-enhancing assignment.  Before you can teach a class, however, you must attend an “Instructor Training Course,” where you learn techniques for training adults. To graduate, you must teach a 50-minute class from the curriculum of the school.

Simply stated, the Murder Board is to the instructor-trainee what the flight simulator is to the pilot. As a result of this simulated presentation, presenters will (1) be more responsive to the informational needs of the audience, (2) develop answers for likely questions to be asked, and (3) enhance overall speaking confidence and competence.

How does the Murder Board work for an orals team? The key is to have knowledgeable colleagues role-play the evaluators. No group is better qualified to do this than the proposal manager and technical writers. They are the experts on the contents of the proposal. By playing the role of the evaluators, the authors of the proposal can determine if the presenters are faithfully translating the message of the written proposal in the oral presentations.
 
Evaluators from the government have a responsibility to get the “best buy” for the taxpayer’s dollar, and may, at least subconsciously, see a correlation between the effectiveness of the team’s presentation and how the company will accomplish the requirements stipulated in the RFP. They may view a disjointed and unclear presentation as an indicator that this team will be unable to perform the terms of the contract.

As the proposal managers/writers role-play the evaluators, they should observe through the eyes of the evaluators, trying to determine and document:

• What is the chemistry between and among team members?
• Does the team have a clear vision of what the Government wants accomplished, or does the presentation suggest the team is still trying to figure out what is required by the RFP?
• Do the skills of the different companies and/or individuals complement or clash?
• Is the prime contractor really in charge or do there appear to be some Prima Donnas   among the sub-contractors, suggesting later friction?
• Does the presentation demonstrate that the consortium has the experience to accomplish the project required by the RFP?
• Is there a willingness among team members to accept Government oversight, or an attitude of “give us the contract, then get out of the way??”
• Does the company/consortium seem genuinely interested in, and demonstrate proven capability to solve, the Government’s RFP-expressed problem?

The RFP generally calls for a Q&A session after the formal oral presentation. Consequently, a separate Murder Board should be conducted with the role-playing evaluators asking the questions the Murder Board believes will be asked. The team leader/presenter from the prime contractor should moderate this session, directing Murder Board questions to team presenters according to their respective expertise. The stress level will probably be less on presenters during the actual Q&A session because it will take place within a more familiar conversational context. They need to be reminded, however, that the Murder Board Q&A is still the “real thing.” The presenters will still be on stage. They should not be lulled into a false sense of comfort.

Some presenters will probably resist participating in such intense practice sessions, saying they do not require such play-acting. These confident (or fearful) people should be reminded of words of Albert Einstein: “What a person does on his own, without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of others, is, even in the best cases, rather paltry and monotonous.” Besides, a lack of intense practice probably will result in a lost contract.