A Proposal Manager’s Wish List: Three Things to I’d Like to See Before the RFP Release
As we approach the holiday season, many of us are developing
our holiday wish lists. These lists might be filled with clothes, electronics,
jewelry, watches—lovely things we can unwrap in the presence of our family and
friends. However, this year, I am putting out there a simple proposal manager’s
wish list: three items that capture managers can give proposal managers to
support a much smoother proposal development process.
1. Key Personnel
Your key personnel are critical components to your solution.
They are the individuals with whom the customer is going to communicate
regularly, and they are critical to delivering the mission. When you wait until
after the RFP is released to identify your key personnel, you waste critical
time looking for and qualifying the right personnel. This leaves too little
time to develop the key personnel resumes in a way that best demonstrates their
strengths and the value they deliver to your customer. Delaying key personnel
identification also makes it difficult to weave key personnel strengths and
value-add into the proposal narrative.
Identifying key personnel early enables a stronger, more
detailed resume section and supports a more cohesive connection to the program
organization, technical, and management approaches.
2. Past Performance
References
Your past performance references are critical to
establishing your credibility with the customer. Past performance demonstrates
that you have performed similar work previously and that you have performed it
well. When you wait until after the RFP
is released to identify your past performance references, you waste critical
time looking for and qualifying the right references. This leaves too little
time to develop the past performance narratives in a way that best demonstrates
the similarities in scope and the value that this experience provides to the
customer. Delaying past performance identification also makes it difficult to
weave these past performance vignettes and value statements into the proposal
narrative.
Identifying past performance early enables a stronger, more
detailed, and better tailored past performance volume and supports a more
cohesive connection to the technical and management approaches.
3. Hot Buttons and Win
Themes
Identifying customer hot buttons and win themes helps the writing
team to understand what the customer cares about. When the writing team doesn’t
have a list of customer hot buttons and win themes before the RFP is released,
the first drafts must default to generic approaches that won’t resonate with
the customer or the color team reviewers. Going back to retrofit narrative to
address customer hot buttons and weave in win themes takes so much more time
than writing to them in the first place. In addition, this delayed approach
often results in awkward flow and stilted content.
Identifying hot buttons and win themes early enables the team
to develop approaches that directly address the customer’s concerns and
highlight the strengths of the team. This supports stronger content from the
beginning, saving time in the end and resulting in higher quality final proposal
content.
Final Thoughts
In an ideal world, my wish list would comprise a fully
developed capture plan, period. However, most of us understand that even in the
most rigorous of organizations, very rarely do we ever see a well-developed and
complete capture plan as we move into the proposal development phase. But even
if you don’t have time to hand over a fully-developed capture plan before the
RFP release, I urge all you capture managers out there to make time to identify
the following key solution elements: key personnel, past performance
references, customer hot buttons, and win themes. Documenting these elements
before the RFP is released will save valuable development time and support more
focused proposal content from the beginning. This will result in a smoother
proposal process and, ultimately, a stronger proposal in the end.
Written by Ashley Kayes, CP APMP
Senior Proposal Consultant, AOC Key Solutions, Inc. (KSI)
I always want more hot button issues! Why does articulating clear win themes seem impossible so often? Argh. As you wrote...”in an ideal world.” Thanks for this blog post.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting, Nichole! I know. It sounds so easy, but for some reason, it hardly ever plays out that way!
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