jeff.snider@redriver.com

The following scoring sheet summarizes the questions to be answered, action items to be accomplished, and goals to be achieved for this review. Each one should be assessed to determine if the pursuit is on track to be ready to win at RFP release. Question, Action Item, or Goal Guidance Score Opportunity Intel Do you know the final scope/customer requirements? Has anything changed? Time is running out to take corrective action, so you need to confirm that nothing has changed regarding the scope or requirements. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Have you staffed the key positions? If personnel are a key factor in the customer’s decision, you want to know you’ve got winners to staff the key positions with. The closer you are to being ready to start, and the more qualified your staff, the better you will look. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green What are you doing to monitor the procurement process? What are you doing to look for, prevent, or fix any potential show stoppers? Is the customer on schedule? Have they received all of the approvals that will be required? Have any changes occurred? Are there any problems that could lead to changes? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green What do you anticipate the evaluation criteria will be? Knowing the evaluation criteria tells you what you need to do to score well and ultimately win. It can also tell you what the customer thinks is important. If you can’t find out about the evaluation criteria directly, you may be able to find out about the procurement policies, past RFPs, and habits. At least discover what is important to them. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Are you sure about the value of the opportunity? Has anything changed? Anything that changes on the procurement (scope, budget, acquisition strategy, etc.) may impact the value of the opportunity. A change in the value can impact your pricing and pursuit. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green How do you think your pricing will compare to that of the competition? While it may be difficult to know the competitor’s pricing exactly, a lot of the time you can discover which competitors tend to have higher or lower prices by the outcome of previous competitions. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green What is your pricing strategy? What approach to pricing will be necessary to win? The lowest pricing is not always best. Also, the type of contract and the contractual terms can have a major impact. What pricing strategies do you recommend? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green What are your high level management and technical approaches? Are they enough to win? By this time, you should be able to articulate what your approaches are going to be, at least at a high level. This will help you to know what subject matter expertise you’ll need to write the proposal. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Is there anything left to do to influence the procurement? You should already have implemented your plan to influence the procurement by this time. However, there may still be action items remaining, and it’s important enough to pause and reconsider whether there is anything else you can do to tip the scales in your favor. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Articulate why your offering will be the best choice Why should the customer pick your offering? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Customer Intel What are you doing to maintain the customer relationship and monitor the customer? By this time, your customer relationship should already be established. But a relationship requires attention. What are you doing to ensure that the relationship remains favorable? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Articulate why the customer will want to select your company Why will the customer want to select your company? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Competitive Intel What are you doing to monitor the competition? Have new competitors arrived? Have any of your competitors teamed together? How are they positioning themselves? Have they done anything to give away their win strategies? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Is your team complete? What is the status of any teaming agreements? Has everyone you want agreed to be on your team? While the final teaming agreement may need to wait for the final RFP, have you begun signing non-disclosure agreements, letters of understanding, and other preliminary paperwork? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Business Line Specific Do you have all the information you need to design and price your offering? Do you have enough details regarding the scope and requirement specifications to know what to offer and to how to price it? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green What do you plan to propose that will be better than that of the competition? It is not enough to have something to offer. What you offer has to beat the competition. How do you plan to achieve that? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Articulate why the customer will prefer your company over the competitors Why will the customer pick you above the other companies bidding? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Self-Awareness and Resources Have you assigned a Proposal Manager and has he/she started? By the time of this review the Proposal Manager should have been assigned and be preparing to start the proposal. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Are you familiar with your proposal start-up and RFP distribution procedures? You should review these procedures so that when the RFP is released you are ready to start immediately, without having to ask what to do. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Other Intel Describe any additional intelligence collected Links, attachments, or external references to customer documents or other materials are encouraged. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Assessment Is the pursuit worth further investment? Is the lead promising enough to make it worth the investment of taking to the next Readiness Review? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Is this opportunity on track, for being ready to win at the time of RFP release? Since this is the first review, there is time to collect more information. Is it off to the right start? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Are you on track for developing an information advantage? You can measure the strength of your customer relationship by how much it provides an information advantage over your competitiors. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green What issues or challenges need to be overcome? Do you perceive issues that need to be addressed during future future Readiness Reviews? List or attach them so they can be tracked. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green What additional questions would you like answered before the RFP is released? List or attach any questions that you would like added to the list so they can be tracked. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green What action items do you recommend completing before the next review? List or attach anything you would like done before the next review so they can be tracked. ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Do you have any other comments, suggestions, guidance, or direction to offer? In addition to assessing progress, the purpose of Readiness Reviews is to help ensure that the pursuit is ready to win at RFP release. What can you do to help? ❏ Red ❏ Yellow ❏ Green Date Reviewed: Reviewed By: Return to the Introduction to Readiness Reviews Topic Hub or go to the next Readiness Review Scoring Sheet?