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