How do you build winning proposals?

While software engineering practices have evolved over the years, some things remain consistent whether one follows a waterfall model, agile model, or some other variant. This includes allocation of the requirements, establishing a preliminary design, maturing the design into something more detailed, building pieces/parts, integration, and testing to ensure satisfactory results. Along the way, a variety of reviews catch “errors” early in the process. The earlier errors are caught, the cheaper and easier to fix! Reviews might include:

• Requirements Review
• Preliminary Design Review
• Detailed Design Review
• Unit Testing
• System Testing
• Acceptance Testing

In the proposal world, color team reviews perform similar functions by validating progress and catching correctable errors as early as possible!  In all cases, color team members are independent of the proposal architects and authors, experienced color team members, and commissioned to provide unbiased and helpful feedback!

In the very early days of building a proposal plan, the proposal team develops a proposal framework in the form of an annotated outline or storyboards (borrowing from the film industry).  This serves as the preliminary design and is generally accomplished before "real" writing starts.

Green team: Assess allocation of requirements and preliminary design. Are all the requirements allocated to proposal sections? Is the allocation responsive and does it optimize reviewability by the source selection team? Are win themes and value propositions present in all the sections? Are they sufficiently strong and differentiating?  What are the solution components? Are graphical concepts and ideas present (not finished graphics)? The green team participants document their findings and make improvement recommendations.

This is followed by a period of time where the proposal team builds the first draft of the proposal, accounting for green team feedback.

Pink team: Initial assessment of first draft proposal materials. Reviewed from the client’s perspective, considering known evaluation factors (section M in federal RFPs) and preparation instructions (section L in Federal RFPs). All the materials are supposed to be present, with no missing holes. The review is conducted from the customer’s perspective, as if the team members were the customer source selection team! The pink team documents their findings and make improvement recommendations.

This is followed by the pink team recovery period, where the proposal team incorporates pink team feedback and prepares the final proposal candidate for red team review. 

Red team: Painstaking review of what should be the ready-to-deliver proposal. Like the pink team, it is always from the client perspective! Is the draft compliant and compelling? Is it easy to evaluate? Are all the evaluation factors covered? Are all the preparation instructions satisfied? On more complex bids, the color team participants are often divided into teams to tackle specific volumes or proposal sections, with team leaders collecting feedback into the formal color team de-brief. The color team lead facilitates debriefing the proposal team for their final feedback as the proposal due date approaches.

This is followed by the red team recovery period, where the proposal team incorporates feedback and prepares the final version for delivery to the client.

Gold team: having taken corrective action from the red team the proposal is just about ready for delivery to the customer.  The production team creates the candidate proposal deliverable and sets them aside for one final “white glove” review. At this point, compliance, value propositions, win themes are all set and not really being reviewed. Instead, the gold team is a small group of people merely reviewing the candidate deliverable products for obvious errors, typographic mistakes, pagination problems, graphic problems, or any other mechanical problem.  Needed corrections are noted and handed back to the production manager for incorporation.

Due date: Submit the winning bid!

These are the basics and there is great skill required in setting the schedule and all the moving pieces, to include providing ample time between reviews while meeting the proposal due date!

Note, the proposal team is not obligated to implement all color team feedback, as color team members may get some things wrong due to their transient or very short-term engagement. Weigh their feedback carefully and thoughtfully. Engage color team members, perhaps during the recovery periods, to discuss and assess situations where feedback is possibly off-target.

Color team reviews are applicable for proposals of all sizes. They are increasingly important as proposal size and complexity grows!  Progressively build a winning proposal with planned checkpoints (color team reviews).

Do you need some color team support, or somebody to lead your color teams?  Click the "Contact" link and let us know, we're happy to help!