THE RFP & Proposal Development

1. GCAP Presents: THE RFP & Proposal Development

2. 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 THE RFP & Proposal Development

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. Understanding cost factors: • Material Costs • Direct Labor Costs • Other Direct Costs – travel, and other items charged direct. • Indirect Costs • Profit considerations Pre-proposal activities

7. The importance of attending the pre-proposal conference: • If there is one….go, even if it is non-mandatory Pre-proposal activities

8. 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

9. 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

10. Pre-proposal activities (win strategy) Customer Worries/Issues EXAMPLES: 1. Accuracy and timeliness of collecting bioassay samples. 2. Technically Competent personnel 3. Accurate testing 4. Timely completion of Tasks 5. Environmental Considerations • Our Approach

11. 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 Pre-proposal: Go/No-Go decision

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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 Proposal development activities

15. RFP section: • Thesis of proposal module • 1, • 2 • 3 • Major topics of module (paragraph level) • A • B • C • Any tables or graphs needed? Storyboarding as a tool

16. 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

17. “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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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]) The Art of Strategic Communications

22. Evaluation Process • Individual team member scoring • Master scoring sheet • Written clarifications • Competitive Range • Oral presentations • Discussions • Site visits • Best and Final Offer Evaluation and Award Activities Optional

23. Final evaluation and tentative selection Contract negotiation Notice of intent to award Agency approval and contract execution Work begins!! Evaluation and Award Activities

24. 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) Post-Award Activities

25. Questions and answers