Download - THE RFP & Proposal Development
THE RFP & PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT
GCAP Presents:
THE RFP & PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT The Incredibly Important Pre-Proposal
Activities The Science of Proposal Development The Art of Strategic Communications The Anxiety of the Evaluation and
Award Post Award Happy Dance or Singing the
Blues
PRE-PROPOSAL ACTIVITIES Intelligence Gathering
Understanding your business capabilities Understanding your strengths and
weaknesses Know your competition Is there an incumbent contractor? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Primary, secondary, tertiary targets
PRE-PROPOSAL ACTIVITIES Reviewing RFP and Contract
Documents Read completely and thoroughly Make working copies Make sure you understand what the
Customer wants If you have questions…Ask Make sure you understand the contract
documents If you have questions…Ask
PRE-PROPOSAL ACTIVITIES Analyzing RFP components
Customer Concerns Scope of Work Process and Schedule Format and Evaluation Factors Annotate Issues Begin to consider how you match up
PRE-PROPOSAL ACTIVITIES Understanding cost factors:
Material Costs Direct Labor Costs Other Direct Costs – travel, and other items
charged direct. Indirect Costs Profit considerations
PRE-PROPOSAL ACTIVITIES The importance of attending the pre-
proposal conference: If there is one….go, even if it is non-
mandatory
PRE-PROPOSAL ACTIVITIES Creating Your WIN Strategy
The Driving Question: Why Us? This becomes the main proposal strategy
and theme This is the “Value Added” component to
your proposed approach, above and beyond “we will comply”
This drives your approach and should be infused throughout proposal
PRE-PROPOSAL ACTIVITIES Creating Your WIN Strategy
How? Taking stock of your intelligence gathering, RFP
analysis, pre-proposal conferences. Define the customer (agency) worries, issues,
problems, challenges, concerns. Indentify your strengths relative to these
issues. Indentify weaknesses and if/how to neutralize. Capture this strategy on paper
PRE-PROPOSAL ACTIVITIES (WIN STRATEGY)
Customer Worries/IssuesEXAMPLES:1. Accuracy and
timeliness of collecting bioassay samples.
2. Technically Competent personnel
3. Accurate testing4. Timely completion of
Tasks5. Environmental
Considerations
Our Approach
PRE-PROPOSAL: GO/NO-GO DECISION Use data collected from intelligence
gathering, analysis, and win strategy session
Step back: Objectively evaluate Always better to have more than one
person in the process (devil’s advocate) Balancing aggressiveness with realism
PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES Proposal development and delivery
schedule Work backward from due date Give yourself enough time for all
development components: Writing, reviewing, editing, graphics,
copies, delivery, etc.
PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES Proposal Outline and format
Follow format dictated in RFP Comply with page, font, binding ,
pagination, and printing requirements Address the issues raised within the SOW
within the framework of the evaluation criteria
Ensure complete compliance
PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES Brainstorming your Response
With your WIN strategy, SOW, Evaluation Factors
Begin to address each proposal module Better to be done with all authors,
managers, team members in room Gets everyone on same track Allows for technical interchange Ensures strategy infusion
STORYBOARDING AS A TOOL RFP section: Thesis of proposal module
1, 2 3
Major topics of module (paragraph level) A B C
Any tables or graphs needed?
THE ART OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS Improved “Writing Skills” do not
necessarily lead to better proposals The quality of your proposal is directly
realted to: The ability to manage the information flow The ability to provide a strategic response
THE ART OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS “We will comply” is the minimum
response The agency wants to know:
you will comply how you will comply and how your approach sets you apart
from your competition Your “approach” has to be a surplus
over simply complying…compliance plus strategy
THE ART OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS Your strategy for this proposal is the
“added value” of your approach. Your strategy is “discovered” as a basis
of: Intelligence gathering RFP analysis Q&A at pre-proposal conference
The strategy is infused throughout proposal
THE ART OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS Negative proposal factors:
Unproven understanding of agency’s requirements
Incomplete response: critical sections left out
Non-compliant Insufficient resources (time, personnel, etc)
to accomplish tasks Insufficient information about your
company Poor proposal organization: difficult to
correlate proposal content to RFP/SOW
THE ART OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS Negative Proposal factors:
Failure to show relevance of past experience to proposed project
Unsubstantiated or unconvincing rationale for proposed approaches or solutions
Wordiness Repeating requirements without discussing
how you will perform (the old parrot trick).
THE ART OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS The value of the Red Team Review
An important, but often neglected process Usually jettisoned due to time constraints Pick members for competence, knowledge,
honesty, and not intimately associated with this effort
Can annotate Q’s or flag (e.g. unclear, garbled, already stated, contradiction, “where did you go to school?” [managers only])
EVALUATION AND AWARD ACTIVITIES
Evaluation Process Individual team member scoring Master scoring sheet Written clarifications Competitive Range Oral presentations Discussions Site visits Best and Final Offer Optional
EVALUATION AND AWARD ACTIVITIES Final evaluation and tentative selection Contract negotiation Notice of intent to award Agency approval and contract
execution Work begins!!
POST-AWARD ACTIVITIES Debriefing (unsuccessful and
successful) Can reveal weak or deficient areas that
lowered score Cannot reveal other companies’ approach
or merits, or score Post Mortem and “Lessons Learned” file Electronic proposal files (don’t let them
become boilerplate)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS