Small research proposals through large complex heavily regulated government contract proposals

• Capture Management Support including black hat reviews
• Proposal Team Management
• Writing of PM and SE volumes
• Development of Cost Estimating Models
• Pink team reviews
   

Capture Team Support

Capture team effort features business development activities well before a proposal team is convened. One of our specialties is competitive intelligence - understanding the customer, the industry, and competitors well enough to analyze what approaches they make take to bidding and how best our team might position ourselves in response. We also support strategic planning for pre-proposal research and development investments.
 

Proposal Team Management 

When building a proposal schedule, we are adept at "shredding" - going through all the details of the requirements and translating them into individual tasks and needed sequencing. Use of backoff dates and margin are very important in proposal schedules, as convening the groups of managers and executives needed for approval can be difficult to schedule and needs to be done early in the proposal development process to ensure their availability. 

Most proposal efforts draw from a large set of very part-time expert participants with a few personnel working to complete the products. As such, organization is the key to success. Our team not only lays out the schedule of what needs to be done by when in order to meet internal company review schedules - we help organize the efforts of part-time experts so the team can get the most value from their time. 

Proposal Writing

The most important aspect of proposal writing is actually writing something. Our team's approach is to get something on paper - it is easier for others to edit and add than it is to start from a blank page. So, getting a first draft written as early in the process as possible is one of our keys to success. Our experience with proposal writing centers on the management and systems engineering sections of the technical volume, as well as the risk management volume, key personnel, past performance, intellectual property with government rights assessment, and the cost volume. 

Management Volume: Program management approach, schedule, schedule margin management, configuration control, reviews and communication plan. 

Systems Engineering: OV-1 diagram, system overview, key aspects of how the system meets the customer need with influences from the capture management process, systems engineering approach, requirement management approach, design reviews, assembly/integration/test philosophy. We focus on ensuring 100% compliance with requirements, whether directly or through a proposed path to compliance. 

Risk Management: Risk and opportunity management process, Risk/opportunity review and control process, criteria for severity and likelihood ratings, analysis of risks and opportunities within the proposed solution.  

Key Personnel: Writing experience summaries to highlight experience with respect to the customer, the mission, and their role in the proposed effort.

Past Performance: Diligence in collecting complete information for the customer's ratings of past performance relevance, quality of delivered products, and cost/schedule performance.

Intellectual Property: For proposals, it is critical to clearly call out Background Intellectual Property that the company will leverage in the work and continue to assert rights over, both with respect to teammates/primes and customers. For government proposals, it is imperative to justify where unlimited rights will not be granted.

Cost Volume: Many competitions are judged on "best value" - which is frequently lowest price for a technically compliant solution with a reasonable risk posture. This means it is necessary to employ scope assumptions, the risk process, and other analyses to ensure the cost quoted for each level of the project is realistic and executable while not overstated. Review Basis of Estimate forms for completeness in the description of the scope as well as costing accuracy - all numbers must tie out accurately throughout the cost volume.

Development of Cost Estimating Models 

Our team has experience with developing contractor cost models as well as with the assessment practices and models used by government customers. We understand how critical the base data is for a cost model, since it must stand up to detailed audit in order to support the Basis of Estimate forms. We have experience building cost models for Level of Effort and Discrete Effort WBS, including program management, systems engineering, software development, hardware installation, and testing for both hardware and software.

Pink team Reviews

For proposal development, a red team is usually one of the last major gates before delivery - where senior personnel read the proposal cover-to-cover before sending it to company executives for approval. A pink team is generally held prior to that - a small team who reviews the products from the proposal team to ensure they meet the RFP requirements, show consistent quality, don't have copy-paste edits from rounds of edits, and so forth. Our team has experience with pink team reviews - employing our technical expertise, our experience both writing and receiving proposals, and our attention to detail to ensure the proposal team is putting their best work forward to the red team review.