I have never found anyone, neither from industry nor Government, who disagrees with this thesis—in fact, everyone to whom I have shown this, have agreed wholeheartedly. If this, in fact, describes the Government Proposal Manager’s job, then he must implement ways to meet these requirements. The following sections provide one way of accomplishing this.
The Requirement:
Direct 30 to 50 authors and volume managers who don’t want to be there, and probably have other jobs they had rather be doing.
The Problem:
Authors may or may not be knowledgeable or capable in the proposal areas assigned, or know how to respond to RFP requirements, and may try to “get it over with as quickly as possible.” Their work might not be of winning quality.
The Solution Approach:
Apply proven management concepts for effective delegation of tasks:
1. Define specific, measurable results to be done.
2. Appoint one and only one individual responsible.
3. Establish and enforce a calendar date and time of day for accountability.
The Solution Implementation:
1. Establish reasonable proposal schedule and enforce compliance.
2. Track accomplishments to this schedule.
3. Identify each specific RFP requirement and each win strategy for response and tracking.
4. Assign each RFP requirement and win strategy to a specific proposal paragraph that complies with the RFP Section L.
5. Assign one author responsibility for each paragraph.
The Requirement:
Respond to several thousand specific RFP requirements.
The Problem:
Your authors may address the requirements they believe to be important, and overlook or ignore the others, especially in view of painful page limitations.
The Solution Approach:
Identify each RFP requirement to be addressed, and assign each one to a specific proposal paragraph and author. Also identify how each requirement will be addressed by the author.
The Solution Implementation:
1. Identify each RFP requirement that must be addressed in the proposal.
2. Assign each one a unique number, tracking the RFP Section L proposal paragraph numbers and titles exactly.
3. Enter each RFP program and proposal requirement, and your win strategies and win themes, into the RFP Requirements and CDRLs data bases.
4. Assign each requirement and win theme to at least one top-level proposal paragraph (RFP Section L, Section M, SOW/SOO, in that priority order).
5. Use Missed Requirements checks to ensure that no RFP requirements are missed.
6. Provide to volume managers and authors printouts of RFP requirements “cut & pasted” (i.e., mapped) to paragraphs where they should be addressed
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7. Have authors expand the top-level outline to a Detailed Outline to address all requirements.
8. Use Storyboard Outlines for author/proposal management understanding and approval of, and commitment to, the way authors will respond to RFP requirements.
9. Use a Pink Team Review, composed of the future Red Team Reviewers, to confirm that your proposal outline, and requirements mapping to it, meets all RFP requirements.
The Requirement:
Respond to RFP requirements with which you or some of your authors disagree.
The Problem:
Your opinions will show up in your proposal, and you may be judged non-responsive or non-compliant with critical customer needs. You may be perceived as uncooperative and your customer won’t want you.
The Solution Approach:
Identify all RFP requirements with which you take issue, and resolve among authors, proposal management, and company management how you will address those requirements. If you cannot comply, then demonstrate how your alternative approach benefits your customer more than the RFP requirement.
The Solution Implementation:
1. Identify controversial issues in your Competition Data Base.
2. Formulate strategies for addressing these issues. If for any reason you cannot comply, or prefer not to comply, develop convincing reasons why your alternative approach benefits your customer. These should relate to lower price or costs; improved performance, reliability, or availability; or lower risk.
3. Assign these strategies to specific proposal paragraphs for response.
4. Distribute these strategies to your authors.
5. Use Storyboard Outlines for author/proposal management understanding and approval of, and commitment to, the way your authors will treat these issues in the proposal.
6. Have your Pink Team evaluate your alternative approach at its early review, and again at proposal Red Team Review.
The Requirement:
Find all of the RFP requirements scattered through several hundred pages of RFP.
The Problem:
Volume managers and authors may not find or recognize all of the program and proposal requirements from the RFP Section H – Schedule, Section L – ITO, CDRLs, SOW, SOO, Specifications, Attachments, Annexes, and Amendments.
The Solution Approach:
Identify and provide to your volume managers and authors a listing of all of the RFP requirements to be addressed in your proposal.
The Solution Implementation:
1. Have an experienced proposals expert read the entire RFP, identify every requirement to be addressed in your proposal, and mark each one for entry into your RFP Requirements data base.
2. Do not risk your proposal and your career on so-called “automatic requirements identification” software.
3. Include every statement or demand that might require a proposal response to show your “understanding of the problem,” “compliance with requirements,” “soundness of approach,” “quality of substantiating data,” “risk assessment,” or other general or assessment criteria identified in RFP Section M – Evaluation Factors for Award.
4. Assign them to specific proposal paragraphs, check for any that are missed, and track their satisfactory completion.
5. Print these RFP Requirements and distribute them to your proposal management and authors.
The Requirement:
Structure your proposal in compliance with RFP Section L – ITO, even though it screws up the way you want to tell your story.
The Problem:
Proposal paragraph numbers and titles will try to deviate more and more from the RFP Section L as your authors develop their stories. If subjects are not addressed where specified, your proposal will not match the Government’s Source Selection Plan, and the evaluators might not find the answers to their questions. You may be scored “non-responsive” or “unacceptable.” Evaluators will not use your Correlation/Compliance Matrix to find your answers.
The Solution Approach:
Identify, publish, and distribute the basic proposal structure specified in RFP Section L – ITO, and maintain strict compliance. Allow authors to expand this as needed to address the requirements, but do not allow them to violate this structure.
The Solution Implementation:
1. Use the top-level proposal outline (which is IAW the RFP Section L proposal format specification) to establish and maintain 100% compliance with the RFP Section L requirements.
2. Allow small changes to the top-level outline only if necessary to interpret RFP Section L, but only with the Government Proposal Manager’s approval.
3. Unless the RFP specifies otherwise, use the following structural hierarchy:
a. Section L – Instructions to Offerors
b. Section M – Evaluation Factors for Award
c. Statement of Work (SOW)/Statement of Objectives (SOO)
d. Specifications, Appendices, Annexes, etc.
The Requirement:
Include several hundred Win Strategies in your proposal.
The Problem:
The many ideas and win strategies identified during brainstorming and planning meetings, and additional competitive issues identified throughout the proposal period, will be lost if not documented and controlled. If they are not written down, they don’t exist. Individuals usually remember their own ideas, but will forget the ideas of others related to their topics. Those win strategies that do make it unilaterally into your proposal may be inconsistent or contradictory.
The Solution Approach:
Implement a formal, continuing process of identifying competitive issues, and of formulating, approving, tracking, and inserting meaningful win strategies into the most effective places in your proposal.
The Solution Implementation:
1. As soon as you have a clear idea of a forthcoming solicitation, conduct a “Black Hat Review,” or a “Competition Data Base” (CDB) assessment of the Opportunity, your Customer, your Competitors, and Yourself.
2. Enter all competitive issues into the your Competition Data Base.
3. Use a Win Strategy Form method and discipline to formulate and approve win strategies that address the customer’s problem behind the RFP requirement; that are unique to you, important to your customer, and can be credibly described in your proposal; and that will benefit your customer’s end competitive acquisition objective.
4. Assign each approved win strategy to one or more specific proposal paragraphs.
5. Provide RFP Requirements printouts, to your authors, of these directions.
6. Have your Pink Team review these win strategies, your implementation of them, and where you include them in your proposal for the maximum benefit..
The Requirement:
Many Win Strategies are of no interest to your customer.
The Problem:
Many program characteristics touted as “Win Strategies” are merely program “features” rather than benefits to your customer. Using a computerized configuration management system, for example, is a feature, not a benefit. Your customer doesn’t care about your computers: He wants all of his fielded systems to be identical for cheapest operational and support costs.
The Solution Approach:
Continually ask “So what?” An example: “We have a computerized configuration management system.” “So what?” “It enables us to keep up to date on configuration changes.” “So what?” “It provides accurate and timely configuration control.” “So what?” “It helps maintain identical configurations of fielded systems with the same lot number.” “So what?” “It reduces the type and quantity of spare parts needed to be stocked in the field.” “So what?” “It reduces O&S costs.” “Great! Buy it!”
The Solution Implementation:
1. Use a structured Win Strategy Form and discipline for developing your Win Strategies.
2. Pay especial attention to defining the Customer Benefits during Win Strategy development and approval.
3. Differentiate between “features” and “benefits.” Features are product or service characteristics. Benefits address your customers end objectives for buying the product or service, generally meaning improved performance, reliability, availability, costs, or lower risk.
4. Provide Storyboard Requirements printouts to your volume managers and authors
5. Continually ask “So what?” of every element of your program.
6. Include this Customer Benefits in your Headlines that are printed boldface after each numbered proposal paragraph title.
The Requirement:
Your proposal must present one consistent story, even though you may be teamed with several companies that strongly disagree.
The Problem:
Proposal sections written by different groups or different companies may be inconsistent or even contradictory. At best, the evaluators will be confused. At worst, they may interpret this as lack of control over your teammates, which means added program risk.
The Solution Approach:
Define and agree upon your overall program approach, and identify and resolve all areas of disagreement. Distribute this information on a “need to know” basis to key company and proposal management and authors, and secure their commitments. Track the proposal responses against these commitments.
The Solution Implementation:
1. Use a structured Competition Data Base and Win Strategy Form process to define and approve your overall approach, possibly related to major RFP requirements or evaluation factors.
2. Assign each Win Strategy to one or more specific proposal paragraphs.
3. Provide Storyboard Requirements printouts to your volume managers and authors.
4. Use the Storyboard Outlines for author/proposal management understanding and approval of, and commitment to, your proposal story.
5. Use the Storyboard Requirements printouts to track authors’ compliance to these instructions.
The Requirement:
Tell your story and respond to all RFP requirements in a painfully page-restricted proposal.
The Problem:
Proposal page limits are always too short. Furthermore, authors write 20 pages when they know 20 pages about something, but only a half page if that’s all they know. The length of their draft has little relationship to what the evaluators need to know, as indicated by clues in the RFP. First drafts include everything the author knows, can find, or can copy about the subject, are always too long, and are difficult to edit down to budget.
The Solution Approach:
Analyze the RFP for clues as to how many of the allowed pages should be apportioned to each numbered proposal paragraph, and establish these page budgets before the first draft is written. Do not allow the first draft to exceed these limits more than 30% —force your authors to start thinking “page limit” from the start.
The Solution Implementation:
1. Assign RFP page budgets to top-level proposal sections until Storyboard Outlines are done.
2. Prorate RFP specified section limits to proposal paragraphs based upon the number of RFP requirements assigned to each proposal paragraph.
3. Prorate RFP specified section limits to proposal paragraphs based upon the Section M evaluation criteria weighting and the evaluation factors matched to each proposal paragraph.
4. Make a judgment between these analyses, and enter the budget into your top-level proposal outline.
5. Negotiate these page budgets down to the detailed outline level during the Storyboard Outline Review, and secure the authors’ commitments.
6. Enter final page budgets in detailed proposal outline, publish, and enforce them.
The Requirement:
Meet an impossible but inviolable proposal submission date.
The Problem:
Once you decide to do Win Strategies, Storyboard Outlines, Pink Team Review, first draft, Red Team Review, etc., you really have no schedule discretion. Schedule too short, and authors will ignore it. Schedule too long, and you won’t make it. Periodic draft review is essential or you won’t know where you are until too late. Authors never meet their deadlines and everything slips to the right. The Red Team Review is wasted on a first draft, and a publication panic submits embarrassing errors to your customer.
The Solution Approach:
Prepare a realistic schedule and strictly enforce it. Schedule Red Team Review late enough to read second or third draft. Leave enough time for your publication professionals to do their job right.
The Solution Implementation:
1. Use proposal schedules proven in your company, and enforce meeting the milestones.
2. Set and enforce draft cutoff dates, especially the final draft cutoff date.
3. Meet draft review dates by defining “draft completion” by calendar date, not by completed material. A review volume will include Storyboard Outlines and handwritten draft, as well as fresh-typed and retyped material.
4. Schedule Red Team Review late enough to read second or third draft.
5. Ensure no major structural deficiencies at Red Team Review by an earlier Pink Team review of your top-level outline, Win Strategies, Storyboard Requirements, and approved Storyboard Outlines with page budgets.
6. For a 60-day proposal, start with “52 days to pubs” on your “Days To Go” chart.
The Requirement:
Structure and write a proposal that, in only three days, Government evaluators can score “Acceptable” or “Exceptional”.
The Problem:
Within limited Government Source Selection Evaluation Board (SSEB) time, it must read all proposals; score them against the Source Selection Plan (SSP); identify proposals within the “competitive range;” write narrative evaluations on each; and prepare DRs and CRs. Results must be justifiable to the losers. Frequently only three days are allowed—for example, if there are six proposals with three days each, this is three weeks out of the evaluators’ busy work schedules. Evaluators have no time to hunt for answers—if answers cannot be easily found, they will likely simply score you “non-responsive” or “unacceptable.”
The Solution Approach:
Follow the RFP fanatically. Structure your proposal to Section L. Answer all RFP “questions” where evaluators expect to find them, and in terms of the evaluation criteria.
The Solution Implementation:
1. Use the top-level proposal outline to enforce compliance with RFP Section L.
2. Use an RFP Requirements process to identify and respond to every RFP “standard” (i.e., the minimum requirements to be met for your proposal to be scored “in the competitive range).
3. Formulate Win Strategies that benefit your customer’s acquisition strategy.
4. Define and implement a Strawman SSP to structure your proposal to Government’s scoring process.
5. Distribute Storyboard Requirements, with instructions to authors, for direction on what to address in each proposal section.
6. Use Storyboard Outline reviews to control author draft and keep it responsive to the RFP and consistent among the many proposal volumes, sections, and authors.
7. Conduct early Pink Team Review of your proposal structure (top-level outline and win strategies), plus later, 3-day Red Team Review of second or third draft. Require the Red Team to “score” your proposal against the RFP requirements. This scoring forces the Red Team to review your proposal against the RFP Section M, and not just how “good” is sounds.
8. Include Cross-Reference (Correlation/Compliance) Matrix printouts with your proposal submission.
The Requirement:
Submit a proposal that, within three days, 30 to 50 Government evaluators, who don’t want to be there, can score to your competitive advantage against hidden “standards.”
The Problem:
Government evaluators have other jobs that are piling up back at their regular offices. They are human, and don’t want to be there. They will score you down if your proposal is too wordy, difficult to follow or understand, has too many unfamiliar or complicated terms or acronyms, or doesn’t explain “how” you plan to complete complex tasks. Their sole job is to score your proposal against the “minimum acceptable level of compliance with a requirement that must be offered for a proposal to be considered acceptable.” These are the unpublished “standards” of the Government’s Source Selection Plan (SSP), against which they score your “understanding of the Requirements,” “Compliance with Requirements,” and “Soundness of Approach.”
The Solution Approach:
Follow the RFP. Be 100% responsive to all RFP requirements. Justify any noncompliance in terms of customer benefits. Answer all questions fully, concisely, and simply. Make your proposal easy to follow, easy to read, easy to understand. Do not worry about how your story “flows.” The evaluators will not read it in detail, and will only look for the answers to their questions.
The Solution Implementation:
1. Use RFP Requirements, top-level outline, Strawman SSP, and Storyboard Requirements to ensure 100 responsiveness to the RFP.
2. Follow the RFP paragraph numbering and titles in your proposal.
3. When expanding your top-level outline to your detailed outline, relate added titles to RFP subjects.
4. Use Headlines (short feature-benefit summaries just after the paragraph title) to summarize each section’s message and answer the question: “So what?”
5. Explain complex subjects simply, aim for a readability Fog Index of 12.0, match pace to subject complexity and expected subject familiarity of the evaluators.
6. Try for one illustration every two pages, and answer “So what?” in the captions.
7. Avoid pompous, general and vague claims, and minimize use of acronyms.
8. Write to three types of readers: the layman, the expert, and the alleged expert.
The Requirement:
Submit a proposal on which the Source Selection Authority (SSA) can make a decision that is the least risky to his/her career, and that they can justify to the losing bidders’ Congressmen.
The Problem:
For every DoD acquisition, there is one SSA who is solely responsible for the decision. Although advised by his Source Selection Advisory Council (SSAC) on matters such as political and international factors and other top level U.S. Government issues, he/she must justify the decision to Congress. A bad decision could limit or ruin his career. Opinions, and program features without needed benefits, are not justifiable. “Innovation” is spelled “r-i-s-k.” “Low LCC” is a trap: No U.S. Administration will spend more of its money so that some future Administration can save its money. In spite of the RFP Section M, the Number One criteria is always “LOWEST ACQUISITION PRICE.”
The Solution Approach:
Drive your whole program to lowest credible acquisition price. Prove that any lower price shows lack of problem understanding and unacceptable cost, schedule and performance risk. Also build in convincing proof of customer need for the unique benefits of your program. Make your customer want you. Give the SSA some ammunition for defending a decision in your favor even if your price is not the lowest.
The Solution Implementation:
1. Use your CDB, Win Strategies, and Storyboard Outline processes to identify and justify that yours is the lowest, credible price, without unacceptable cost, schedule, and performance risk.
2. Use CDB, Win Strategies, and Storyboard Outlines to identify and prove essential customer benefits. If SSA doesn’t select you, he won’t get the benefits he needs.
3. Make your customer want you and be armed and willing to risk his career, and fight the losing bidders’ Congressmen, to defend his decision in your favor. Why you?
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