What's missing?

Don't you hate getting to the end of a jigsaw puzzle and realizing that you're missing pieces?  It's frustrating, especially if you're a "type A" person, like myself.

It's even worse in a capture or proposal effort if you get to the end an realize you're "missing pieces."  That mean's your bid is possibly non-compliant in one or more ways and lessens your Probability of Win (P-win).

Behavioral science tells us that people often like to work the simple tasks first, getting "rewards" for their work and building momentum to handle harder tasks.  The downside of this can result in running out of time to handle difficult tasks.

This is why successful capture and proposal teams perform a thorough gap analysis as soon as possible with the specific goal of identifying crucial missing pieces or weak solution components that need strengthening.  If the team works on their strengths instead (the easier tasks), it can result in a total waste of effort if the crucial missing pieces cannot be successfully addressed and the bid is either abandoned at a late stage or results in a loss due to the problems.

To the extent possible, assess Request for Information (RFI) and Draft Request For Proposal (DRFP) documents for crucial requirements including:

• Evaluation factors (RFP section M):
• Evaluation process, scoring method, score weighting, past performance approach, and "best value" terminology.
• Preparation instructions (RFP section L):
• Page count, page layout (margins, fonts, page sizes), outline and/or content, submission deadlines and method(s).
• Statement of Work (SOW), (RFP section C): 
• Detailed requirements.  Are they clear, understandable, or are they ambiguous or contradictory (disagreements between L, M, and C)?  Are they feasible and do we have approaches that can differentiate our approach from the competition?
• Section J:  Attachments to the RFP:
• This can often include additional requirements that must be assessed. 
• Section K, Certifications and representations: 
• Sometimes includes things that might cause problems.
• Section H, Special Contract Requirements:
• Be sure to assess this section and see if there are any crucial requirements here, as they vary from RFP to RFP and client to client.  For example, this section may include special cybersecurity requirements not listed anyplace else.

Are there problem areas, including obvious show-stoppers for your team? What are they?  How shall you deal with them?

Very early in a capture, the full draft solicitation may not yet exist.  This means that while the requirements may exist (Section C) and planned attachments (Section J), other crucial sections may not (yet), including M, L, and H).  This is often the case with RFIs and sometimes with DRFPs also.

If the contemplated procurement is a follow-on to an existing contract, the capture team should use business intelligence web sites to get copies of the current contract and associated historic RFPs.  Analysis of these could be very instructive of what the follow-on solicitation might look like (e.g., L, M, H, K), give you a head start on proposal preparation and provide you with the opportunity to influence the RFP by providing feedback on the former solicitation.

Regardless of whether you're able to influence the ultimate RFP, or not, the more information you have early in the capture process can improve your gap analysis and help you identify possible missing pieces.

Capture management is about making sure the company is best positioned to win -- it's not about making sure every opportunity is bid.  Sometimes the best decision entails walking away from an opportunity and this is best facilitated through an honest assessment of requirements and whether the "missing pieces" can be found or mitigated somehow.

This is precisely why a thorough gap analysis is important and will help you identify missing pieces early to improve your chance of winning.