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Performing a Proposal Premortem - Strategies for Winning Bids

Dive into the concept of conducting a project premortem for proposals to boost chances of success. Gain insight on identifying potential pitfalls and developing actionable plans to enhance bid competitiveness.

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Performing a Proposal Premortem - Strategies for Winning Bids

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  1. Performing a Proposal Premortem Marina Goren, President/CEO of Smart Bd consulting, inc.

  2. Introductions • Proposal industry thought leader, active APMP member • Presenter at the last APMP Conference in Chicago, in May of 2014 • Taught many Capture/Proposal Courses • President & CEO of Smart BD Consulting, Inc. – BD/Capture/Proposal Development firm in MD/DC/VA area • Extensive BD, Capture and Proposal experience with a background at IBM, Raytheon, ASRC, SRA International and numerous other companies • Directly responsible for capture of over $4.5B in new business over the course of last eight years • Was instrumental in growing a company (ASRC Primus) from 2 FTEs to over 1,500 FTEs and over $60M in annual revenues over the course of 5 years

  3. Agenda What is a Project Premortem? Applying This Idea to Proposals Conducting a Proposal Premortem (4 Steps) How is This Approach Different From Brainstorming? Some Reasons of Why Proposals Lose and How Can We Increase Our Chances of Winning? Group Exercise Group Discussion Questions?

  4. What is a “Project Premortem”?

  5. What is a “Project Premortem”? “A premortem is the hypothetical opposite of a postmortem. A postmortem in a medical setting allows health professionals and the family to learn what caused a patient’s death. Everyone benefits except, of course, the patient. A premortem in a business setting comes at the beginning of a project rather than the end, so that the project can be improved rather than autopsied. Unlike a typical critiquing session, in which project team members are asked what might go wrong, the premortem operates on the assumption that the “patient” has died, and so asks what did go wrong. The team members’ task is to generate plausible reasons for the project’s failure.” – Gary Klein, Harvard Business Review

  6. Historical Background Information • Research conducted in 1989 by Deborah J. Mitchell, of the Wharton School; Jay Russo, of Cornell; and Nancy Pennington, of the University of Colorado, found that prospective hindsight—imagining that an event has already occurred—increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%. • Gary Klein outlines a process to conduct a project premortem in his article “Performing a Project Premortem” in Harvard Business Review. • According to Wikipedia: “A premortem — is a managerial strategy in which a manager imagines that a project or organization has failed, and then works backward to determine what potentially could lead to the failure of the project or organization. … Management can then analyze the magnitude and likelihood of each threat, and take preventative actions to protect the project or organization from suffering an untimely "death".

  7. Applying This Idea to Proposals • People are usually unwilling to confront the failures • We always believe that our Team is the Winning Team • Yet more proposals lose than win • We often do a “postmortem” – after the debrief, but then it’s too late to fix anything • Premortem allows us to create a plan for circumnavigating the challenges

  8. Conducting a “Proposal Premortem”

  9. Step 1: Imagine a Loss • Convene all of the right stakeholders: everyone with a significant Capture or Proposal role on the bid should be invited • Set aside a 3-4 hour time period • Appoint the right facilitator • Brief the team that they lost the bid • Ask the team “What could have caused this?”

  10. Step 2: Generate the Reasons for the Loss • Ask each person to write down why the proposal lost • Tap into people’s intuition (the inner voice) • Leave no stone left unturned • Reward thinking out of the box • Encourage to voice issues, typically left unsaid • The goal is to create an exhaustive list of things, everyone should feel uninhibited, this is the brainstorming session • Do not think about solutions during this Step, rather focus on identifying the problems

  11. Step 3: Consolidate the Reasons • Go around the room and discuss each reason at a time • Review all of the reasons as a group • Group reasons by related topics • Focus on most likely causes of failure/loss • Discard any problems you may not have any control over

  12. Step 4: Develop an “Actionable Plan” • Generate ideas for avoiding or minimizing the problems • Come up with Capture actions to neutralize the threats • Develop and revise Proposal artifacts to counter the impact of the risks • Assign the Action Items to specific team members to complete • Sometimes the right plan is to “no bid”

  13. How is this approach different from brainstorming? • Most of us restrict our thinking when imagining “things that can go wrong” • We want to believe our proposal will win • By starting with a strong assertion – “we already lost” – we are encouraged to identify flaws that otherwise we would ignore • The strategy is to “trick our brains”

  14. Some Reasons of Why Proposals Lose - And How Can We Increase Our Chances of Winning?

  15. Exercise – Background Information • Customer: Department of Energy • Scope of Work: Large Commodity IT job (Helpdesk, Data Center, Desktop Support, App Dev, Networks) • The incumbent is no longer eligible to prime, not too well liked, but the people on the contract have close ties to the customers • We have some incumbent subcontractors on our team • Lots of capture information was gathered, Key Personnel brought on board early (from the current incumbent), lots of customer meetings • Right before the RFP release – the customers changed, some SEB members and SSO – new players • RFP calls for innovations, improvements, cost efficiencies. Also stresses the importance of “keeping the train on the tracks” – in support of critical operations • The customer is undergoing significant budget cuts – pressure to do more with less and cut costs • It’s an FFP contract, but the Government provided a GPM with hours for each labor category • Past Performance Volume score is equal to the Tech Volume in the evaluation criteria

  16. Why Did We Lose?

  17. Reasons for Losing – And Counter-Actions

  18. Open Discussion • What techniques do YOU use during to increase the probability of winning?

  19. Questions

  20. Contact Us APMP PO Box 77272 Washington, DC 20013-7272 Phone: +1 - (202) 450-2549 www.apmp.org Marina Goren President/CEO Smart BD Consulting, Inc. (410) 456-9993 Marina.Goren@ smartbdconsulting.com www.smartbdconsulting.com

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