The Story Behind Storyboarding, and why it is Critical to Your Proposal Process
Storyboards have long been a part
of our standard proposal best practices. We all know that the proposal giants
include storyboarding as an integral part of the proposal development process,
but where did this concept of storyboards originate? Interestingly, the
storyboarding process, in the form we know it today, was actually developed at
Walt Disney Productions during the early 1930s!
Traditionally, a storyboard is a graphic organizer of
illustrations or images displayed in sequence for pre-visualizing a motion
picture, animation, or interactive media sequence. The purpose of the
storyboard is to visualize the storytelling, focus the story and timing in key
frames, and define the technical parameters (e.g., description of the motion,
camera, lighting, etc.). Because of the necessity for visual appeal, as well as
the desire to present a cohesive “story” in our proposal responses, we adopted
this process into our industry standard best practices.
Why Storyboarding is Important
Storyboarding is essentially
structured prewriting. The importance of prewriting has been studied and
established for many fields, including business, which routinely uses such
techniques as brainstorming, listing, and discussion to develop projects and
departmental evaluations (Winter). Prewriting increases efficiency by
helping writers understand the task, brainstorm, and then map and/or plan their
writing before beginning a first draft.
Understand the task. One key benefit of storyboarding is that
it helps authors understand the writing task. Before authors dive into writing
their assigned section(s), they should review the limitations of their assigned
task. They should make sure they understand the page limitations and the
relevant RFP sections to address. During storyboarding, authors should also
review and understand the proposal schedule and any major deadlines.
Brainstorm. Another key benefit of storyboarding is the
opportunity to brainstorm. This brainstorming provides an opportunity for
authors to analyze the customer, the competition, and the proposal strategy. When brainstorming, writers simply throw ideas out in
whichever order and form they come out. The idea behind this is that once the
writers get everything out their heads, they can more easily organize and
structure those ideas.
Analyze the customer. One important outcome of storyboarding
is gaining an understanding of the customer. Authors should work with the
capture team to gain an understanding of who will likely read each section of
the proposal. As a group, the proposal team should consider the following
questions: Who is the customer? What is important to this customer? What are
the customer’s major hot buttons? What
is their mission? What is the end-goal of the contract? What are current issues
they are facing? What are some things they really like or appreciate with their
current contractors? What is their biggest fear with the upcoming contract?
What problems do they anticipate? Is a technical person likely reading the
section or someone else?
Consider the
competition. Another important outcome of storyboarding is a greater
understanding of the competition. Analyzing the major competitors will help the
team identify areas to highlight team strengths that will “ghost” the
weaknesses of the competition. This will also help the team to identify areas
where the competition may have a leg up so that the team can proactively come
up with ways to compensate. As part of the brainstorming sessions, the team
should consider the following: What are the likely strategies of the
competitors? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How can we mitigate those
strengths and highlight the weaknesses in our proposal?
Consider your
position. Another key outcome of storyboarding is a stronger
understanding of your team’s position to win. This is especially important when
consultant writers are involved. As part of the brainstorming sessions, the
team should consider the following: What are the team’s strengths and weaknesses?
How can we mitigate those weaknesses and highlight the strengths in our
proposal? Are there any past performances or proof points to cite?
Define the section
strategy. Another key storyboarding outcome is defining the section
strategy. Authors should consider the following questions: What is your overall
solution or strategy? What are the major features of your solution that solve
the customer’s problems? What are the benefits the customer will receive?
Identify section
themes. One of the most important outcomes of storyboarding are the
section themes. Section themes should resonate with your overall win themes;
however, section themes are specific to each section. Section themes should
highlight a key feature of the section solution and the benefit that the
customer receives from that feature. You can read more on developing section
theme statements here.
Identify key
graphics. Finally, at the heart of the storyboard, is the
identification of key graphics and visuals for each section. Graphics serve to
visually break up the text and make the narrative more digestible for the
evaluators. If used properly, graphics can help you to more effectively
communicate information as well as save space.
Map/Plan Writing Before Beginning the First Draft. After you
brainstorm the information needed to create the storyboards, you’ll want to
structure the information in a way that starts to create the skeleton for each
section. Use the RFP or outline provided by your Proposal Manager to document
your section outline. Annotate the outline with the information you will need
to complete your section. List places where you can find information. Are there
past proposals you can use? Boilerplate? SMEs you need to interview? Document
these in your annotated outline.
Final Thoughts
Storyboarding is a critical planning process that increases
proposal writing efficiency by helping writers understand the task, brainstorm,
and then map and/or plan their writing before beginning a first draft. However,
as we’ve all experienced, storyboarding processes can be difficult to
implement, and when we do use them, they are often ineffective. But this isn’t
really a fault of the storyboard—it’s because many of us have been using
storyboards inappropriately! On October 3rd 2019, I will give a talk
about how to implement an effective storyboarding process at the FREE PriviaUsers Conference. And don’t
worry, if you are unable to listen to my presentation, I will cover my tips for
implementing an effective storyboarding process in next week’s blog post.
Cheers!
Written by Ashley Kayes, CP APMP
Senior Proposal Consultant, AOC Key Solutions, Inc. (KSI)
LinkedIn
Work Cited
Winter, Janet K. "Student Perceptions of the Value of a Prewriting Problem-Solving Plan." Business Communication Quarterly, vol. 59, no. 4, 1996, pp. 47-55. General OneFile.
Well written on Design Thinking @ashley! Infact there is lot of interconnection to value driven proposals and how we map them to customer pain points and apply Design Thinking!
ReplyDeleteThanks @karthik! I definitely agree!
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