TEAM BUILDING AND TEAM INTERACTIONS
6.8 PROPOSALS
The matter of handing out hard copy also has advocates on both sides.
This author favors delivery of hard copy of your slides at the end of the presentation. People might be given three-by-five index cards to make notes on questions they might have during the presentation. The problem with the audience having hard copy in advance is that some people will leave you and go on the slide journey themselves. They can be ahead of you or backtrack to earlier slides. In either case, they’re not likely to be listening to you. Under group pressure from the audience, however, it is difficult not to hand out the slide package when requested to do so.
Giving presentations represents a special skill that has to be mastered by the PM, CSE, and other key members of the project team. It is worth the time to take this activity very seriously, especially if the presentation is made to a customer or a large audience. The PM and CSE have the responsibility to maximize the positive impact of all presentations. Usually, this involves dry runs and supportive coaching. Paying a lot of attention to these matters will pay worthwhile dividends.
a well-developed campaign with its own rather sophisticated plan. Because there is so much at stake, the preproposal work is dealt with as if it were a separate project that culminated in the customer’s formal release of an RFP.
A summary of key points relative to the preproposal phase is provided in Exhibit 6.5. This is a minimal set of activities that should be undertaken in order to be successful with a proposal.
Exhibit 6.5: Recommended Preproposal Activities
1. Visit with the prospective customer to understand his or her needs and requirements.
2. Write think pieces and “white papers.”
3. Present your company’s capabilities.
4. Investigate alliances and teaming possibilities.
5. Identify and activate the proposal writing team.
6. Obtain internal corporate support.
There is no substitute for truly understanding what it is that the customer really wants. The best way to do this is to visit with the customer and talk through his or her various needs and desires. Find out what the customer is looking for—what the key issues are from the perspective of the customer.
This notion applies as well when there are several customers, which is usually the case. In other words, the customer often consists of several people, all of whom are looking for one or more pieces of the puzzle known as customer requirements. If you have not spent the time necessary to visit across the table with your potential customer, you may have a “no-bid” staring you in the face.
In response to what you find out in your face-to-face meetings with your customer, seriously consider writing one or more think pieces or white papers.
These are short (five- to ten-page) descriptions of your approach to the prob- lem, as expressed by the customer. They are very specific as to what the key issues are, how you would develop a solution, and what the final product or service might look like. You are also requesting feedback from the customer as to whether or not you are on the right track. Therefore, after the customer has read these inputs, follow-up meetings are suggested in order to fine-tune your approach. You are also demonstrating your interest and responsiveness and, to the extent possible, preselling your approach to the customer. This spade work will not be lost on the customer when it comes time to evaluate your formal proposal. You will also be in a better position than your com- petitors because you will have had the benefit of this interaction with the customer.
As part of your meetings with the customer, you should also present the broad as well as specific capabilities of your company. This can take the form of a stand-up slide presentation in front of several people in your
customer’s organization. Such presentations involve corporate strengths such as personnel, facilities (e.g., special laboratories or test chambers), history of work with other clients on similar requirements, software already written, and so forth. In addition to “telling” your customer what you have to offer, try to “demonstrate” special capabilities. These can be expressed by software packages that you have developed that apply directly to the problem at hand.
Instead of talking about the software, bring in a computer and illustrate the use of the software, in real time, on the screen. “Showing” is always better than simply “telling.”
As you gain an understanding of the customer needs and requirements, you may find that your company does not possess all the required skills, ca- pabilities, and experience with the knowledge domain of the customer. Both strategic and tactical alliances and teaming should be considered to make your team a winner. Many large-scale contracts cannot be won without teaming, thus requiring filling in all the gaps in capability and understanding by mem- bers of the team. You may be the prime contractor in such an arrangement or you may ultimately decide that a subcontractor position is the better part of valor. In the latter case, you must then try to determine who has the best chance of winning, and then do all of the preceding in attempting to sell your company to the prime.
Early identification and activation of at least part of the proposal team is mandatory. A proposal manager should be designated, along with at least a few key players of the proposal team. They need to be part of the preproposal campaign and play a role in preparing all written materials. In this manner, the learning curve is minimized when it comes time to actually respond to an RFP. All players are up-to-speed and understand what has transpired prior to the formal proposal preparation. Failure to make this investment will often lead to a disconnect between the preproposal and proposal phases, resulting in a poor written proposal.
Last, but by no means least, support has to be obtained from various people and departments in your organization. This includes marketing, contracts, hu- man resources, matrixed managers, and your own line management. Although you may not have made a firm “bid decision,” you have to give an early alert to all these other players so that they understand the program you are seeking and its unique requirements. For example, you may have to find certain key personnel to handle special technical areas. The human resources department and various matrixed managers may be able to help you in this regard. The contracts department needs an early alert so that it can review the terms and conditions of work done previously with this customer as well as get ready for the preparation of extensive cost estimates. Finally, you need support from your boss and other levels of line management in terms of concurrence with the bid as well as putting forth the resources necessary to prepare a winning proposal. This includes funding, but it also means making the right people available at the right time to contribute to a winning proposal.
6.8.2 The Proposal Phase
The proposal phase is entered when the RFP is formally issued and your company has made a decision to bid the contract in response to that RFP. How to write a winning proposal is a subject that itself represents a niche market for companies, so that what is recommended here is but an overview of key points in this regard. However, ten such points that are distilled from many years of experience are listed in Exhibit 6.6.
Exhibit 6.6: Ten Key Points in Writing a Winning Proposal 1. Develop a winning strategy.
2. Document winning themes.
3. Outline the proposal in detail, to the one-half page level.
4. Develop a detailed proposal schedule.
5. Discuss and confirm the preceding with your proposal team as well as management.
6. Interact efficiently with all support departments.
7. Use the best writers.
8. Confirm that all risk areas have been minimized.
9. Review and make changes in the “Red Team” context. (“Red Teams”
are explained later in this section.)
10. Assure proposal readability and appearance.
Developing a winning strategy is more easily said than done. The issue here is complex, dealing with each and every key area in the RFP and how your approach can be distinguished from the competition. This is known as finding “discriminators” that place your proposal ahead of those of your competitors. Discriminators have to be found with respect to your technical proposal, management proposal, and cost proposal, with emphasis on the first and last. If you are operating in the domain of “best-value” contracting, you do not necessarily need to be the lowest bidder, but the overall value of your proposal must be as high as possible. Discriminators should be determined through a team approach, eliciting ideas from all members of the proposal team. Clear discriminators often can be found in cases for which your company has actually performed work sufficiently similar, so that the effort required is substantially less than that of your competitors. This can be embodied in software, for example, that is reusable and transferrable from a previous project to the one at hand. The bottom line is that if you cannot be positively distinguished from your competitors, you are not likely to win the contract in question.
Given that the team is able to find the necessary discriminators, they then should be converted into written themes that basically and convincingly
answer the question: Why we should win this contract? These need to be mapped against the evaluation criteria of the RFP so that scoring is maximized.
In other words, for each and every element of the evaluation criteria, it is desirable to document a theme that will score high. Scoring high involves bringing forth your discriminators in these areas and convincing yourself (and ultimately, your customer) that you have the best approach possible.
Next, the proposal has to be outlined, in detail, following precisely the ground rules provided in the RFP. Often, the RFP defines the proposal pieces (i.e., technical, management, and cost proposals) and their sections. These must be meticulously followed. At times, a dilemma is presented whereby the evaluation criteria are not easily mapped against the prescribed proposal outlines. In general, both should be accommodated. It must be evident to the evaluator as to where to find the material that is responsive to the evaluation criteria. If the evaluator has to struggle to find such material, a low score is inevitable. The mapping of the mandatory outline and the evaluation factors takes imagination and can be the most important determinant of a winning or losing proposal. After this is done, the outline should be divided into sections and subsections, with a page count for the smallest subsection. Page counts should be designated to the one-half page. Then the entire proposal should be reviewed for balance of coverage in relation to the evaluation criteria.
The proposal schedule should define all milestones and should be viewed as inviolate. Times have to be set aside for detailed reviews and rewrites.
Many firms have three designated periods for rewrites, operating under the proposition that it is basically impossible to write a complex proposal without extensive rewriting. Times, of course, have to be allocated to the physical production of the proposal and delivery to the customer. In most government contracting, being even one minute late in terms of customer delivery will mean that your proposal will not be accepted. (This author has had this type of unpleasant experience twice in a period of thirty years.)
Given all of this, the next step is to brief the proposal team as well as man- agement on the basic strategy for winning. All key players have to understand that strategy and concur with it. Alternative suggestions are acceptable and indeed accepted if they represent improvements. This is a basic sign-off on the approach and a commitment to implementing it in the best possible manner.
All questions should be answered so that there is no misunderstanding of the approach.
Effective and efficient interactions with all supporting departments and people are mandatory to have a winning proposal. Contracts must handle the representations and certifications (reps and certs) smoothly and in conso- nance with the technical and management proposals. They must also provide cost spreadsheets that can be reviewed and concurred with by the proposal manager. Costing is often iterated numerous times, so that automating this process is essential. Matrixed managers must confirm the availability of key personnel. Human resource people must stoke up the machinery for hiring or establishing a hiring plan. The production department (including text and
graphics) should be aware of and be able to handle the peak load represented by a major proposal. The proposal manager must assure that all these pieces fall into place smoothly and with a lot of lead time.
The best writers should be assigned to the proposal. Many technically talented people are not able to write coherent proposals. Many imaginative people decide to apply their imagination by not following the rules established for the proposal. At the same time, there are usually some people who are very talented from a technical point of view and who are also wonderful writers.
These folks should be assigned to writing the proposal. The basic rule is to use your best technicaland writing talents to write all proposals, wherever possible. In addition, use many charts, figures, exhibits, and diagrams to explain your approach to your customer.
Most projects involve some type of risk (schedule, cost, performance) and all potential risks have to be examined in detail as part of the proposal process.
Some companies, of course, decide to “no-bid” when unacceptable risk levels are present. However, risk still needs to be double-checked and mitigated in the proposal itself. How you propose to minimize risk should be addressed in the proposal, so that you and the customer both know what the basic plan is. Two examples are worth noting. One involves the case in which the customer can review and reject documentation and reports indefinitely. Acceptance criteria have to be as explicit as possible so that this risk is mitigated. Another risk involves the warranty of software from “latent and patent” defects. Boundaries and criteria need to be established so that software improvements do not go on forever. In general, risk mitigation involves checking each and every documented requirement and setting forth a “buy-off” plan that is acceptable to your company as well as the customer.
Most large proposal writing efforts employ “Red Teams,” which are groups of senior people who review and evaluate proposals. These teams engage in a formal review, simulating the process of review that is expected by the customer. Such reviews not only score the proposal, section by section, they suggest specific ways and means of making necessary improvements. These reviews are often brutal in their candor, and the proposal manager must know how to assure that they are constructively expressed. Invariably, Red Team inputs lead to extensive rewrites that must be built into the proposal schedule.
Dispensing with Red Team reviews should be done with caution and is likely to be a serious mistake for large proposals.
Finally, the schedule should allow for a more than cursory review of the final product. This review usually involves overall appearance and readability.
The objective is zero defects, meaning that there should be no typos or pieces in the wrong place. The proposal should not only be good, it should look good. However, it should not be ostentatious so that boundaries of good taste are crossed. Some customers react very negatively to showy and expensive proposals. Here again, know your customer.
With respect to the last point made and how the proposal looks, this author experienced what might be called a four-sigma case in proposal preparation. A
proposal was sent out to a customer years ago but the xeroxing of the proposal was defective and resulted in the lack of fixing of the toner on various pages.
A sweep of the hand on a page resulted in the immediate disappearance of all text—a type of invisible ink if you will. Fortunately, this was discovered very early, and the customer allowed us to substitute good copies in place of the defective ones. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but it underscores the possible intrusion of Murphy’s Law. Take the time necessary for a final review that assures your proposal looks the way you want it to look in terms of overall presentation to your customer. A poor-looking proposal with lots of typos, in spite of the excellence of its technical content, is not likely to be a winner.