March 2013: Successful Proposal Execution With Less Experienced Leadership And Teams

Today's shrinking B&P budgets and the need to do more with less is driving companies more toward in-house personnel and away from reliance on consultant expertise for proposal leadership. To attain the same results as in previous business models, the need is even greater to arm these teams with proposal management systems such as Proposal Navigator®. Proposal Navigator® is essentially the "Proposal Manager's Toolbox"; it helps those new and possibly less experienced Proposal Managers with doing difficult things like shredding documents, building and maintaining the cross reference matrix, validating allocations of requirements, keeping the "Wall of Truth" baseline, etc....making those labor intensive tasks much easier and faster than before. It also provides a complete framework for--assuring discipline in--the basics of the proposal development and management processes. Proposal Navigator® likewise provides less experienced writers with Writers' Guides--complete requirements checklists organized by proposal outline element--of all RFP and other internal requirements which must be addressed in their sections. These top-down Proposal Architecture artifacts--developed by the Proposal Leadership--significantly simplify/clarify Writers' tasks, thereby reducing off-track adventures, lost time, and resulting rework. Further, unlike static proposal plans (e.g. PDWs), Writers' Guides remain fresh and up-to-date because they evolve with the Proposal Architecture as requirements mature during proposal development. Moreover, their alter-ego Reviewers' Checklists contain the identical information to Writers' Guides, which provides for a much more efficient review process. These key Proposal Navigator® features assure process discipline and support proposal development success--because of significant task simplification and rework reduction--throughout the proposal development lifecycle:

• Document Shredder - converts documents in minutes to sentence-by-sentence requirements structure

• Proposal Outline - maintains complete, detailed outline of entire proposal

• Proposal Status - Red, Yellow, Green, Blue status for each Proposal Outline element

• Extended References List, including L, M, SOW, CDRL, Strengths, Themes, Past Performance references, etc.

• Extended Cross-Reference Matrix- includes RFP required elements plus internal references such as Strengths, Themes, Must Haves, etc.; supports top-down Proposal Architecture approach

• Reverse Cross-Reference Matrix - provides full and simple validation of external and internal requirements allocation to proposal outline

• Writers' Guide - provides complete requirements listing from Extended References List organized by proposal outline element, available in Word format for quick-start to first draft

• Reviewers' Checklist - provides complete requirements listing from Extended References List organized by Proposal Outline element

• Proposal Calendar - day by day proposal plan in easy to use format

• Mine Acronyms - generates acronym list from proposal documents

• Update Don't Use - updates "Don't Use" words with "Use" words in proposal documents

Contact us to arrange your Proposal Navigator® system capability demonstration in 2013.

The Proposal Team's Mission

Synthesize and package the capture team’s vision into a compliant, convincing and compelling offering whose selection can be successfully defended ... without breaking the B&P “bank”...