Carl Dickson

The MustWin Process is designed so that information flows from its sources into the proposal. Along the way it gets assessed and converted into what it will take to win. That flow of information must not be broken if you want to win. Many post-RFP goals will be difficult or impossible to achieve if the Pre-RFP goals are not met first. When we coach people through the process implementation, we often see people have an epiphany when they realize that if they hadn't skipped something or done a better job of it, they would have the information they need at that moment instead of having to work around it. Part of what the MustWin Process does for you is tell you what information you need to gather and what questions you need to be able to answer. Pre-RFP Release Goals Post-RFP Release Goals Collecting the intelligence about the customer, opportunity, and competitive environment needed to win Staging the Intelligence you collected for use in the proposal Positioning your company to win Identifying your competitive advantages and win strategies Defining what it will take to win Being ready to quickly start the proposal Being able to demonstrate an understanding that goes beyond the RFP Writing to the customer’s unwritten requirements Being able to make trade-offs that reflect the customer’s preferences Defining quality criteria based on what it will take to win Building what it will take to win into the proposal from the beginning Validating every attribute of the proposal against the quality criteria, which are based on what it takes to win

The MustWin Process defines specific goals to be achieved prior to RFP release, so that when the proposal starts you will already have a competitive advantage. You must have specific goals that you seek to accomplish before the RFP is released. Otherwise, the time will likely be wasted. Here is a list of pre RFP goals recommended by the MustWin Process: See also: Information Advantage Collect intelligence about the customer, opportunity, and competition so that you will know what it will take to win Track measurable progress towards collecting the intelligence that will enable you to answer the questions the proposal writers will need answered in order to write a great proposal Develop an information advantage Grow the customer relationship Develop your win strategies and position your company to win Lay the foundation for any teaming with other companies that may be necessary to win the opportunity Identify all of the internal resources that may be able to contribute to the proposal effort Prepare for an accelerated start to the proposal Prepare people to fulfill their roles in supporting the proposal Begin to set expectations for all stakeholders The Readiness Review process provides an approach for ensuring that your goals are accomplished. Achieving your pre RFP goals is what makes achieving your post RFP goals possible to achieve. Many businesses struggle with finding out about opportunities before the RFP is released. Here are 11 ways to get ahead of the RFP. Doing so is not only critical for development an information advantage, it's also when you have the best chance to influence the RFP. We recommend implementing Readiness Reviews to bring structure to the pre-RFP phase. Without this structure, too many businesses waste the time they have before RFP release and end up unprepared when the RFP hits the street. Lead qualification is key aspect of the pre RFP process and built into the Readiness Reviews. Readiness Reviews also provide a means to achieving effective bid/no bid decisions. Guidance for Pre-RFP Activities: Responding to Requests for Information (RFI) or Sources Sought notices Checklist for responding to Draft RFPs Checklist for customer site visits Determining whether the RFP is wired for someone else The MustWin process guides you through discovering what it will take to win and using that to drive your bid and proposal strategies. Return to the Figuring Out What it Will Take to Win Starting Point.

See also: Proposal outlines When you have completed your proposal outline, you can use the following checklist to validate it: ❏ Does the outline comply with the RFP instructions for the outline? ❏ Does the outline provide one place where the customer will expect to find the response to each and every requirement? ❏ Will it be easy for the customer to evaluate? ❏ Will it be easy to navigate? ❏ Are there any topics missing that should be added to the outline? ❏ Is there any redundancy or ambiguity regarding the topics? ❏ Does the terminology in the outline match the terminology of the RFP? ❏ When you scan the outline, does it tell your story? Return to the Topic Hub for Creating Your Proposal Outline, or return to the Starting Point for Figuring Out What to Say in Your Proposals.

When you receive a proposal, what information do you need in order to decide whether to approve it? The decision maker starts with questions and looks for answers. They don’t read your proposal. They look for answers. When you are the decision maker, your questions might include: See also: Proposal outlines What am I going to get or what will the results be? What do you want (from me)? How much is it going to cost and is it worth it? What will it take to make it happen? What could go wrong? Why should I believe you? What alternatives do I have? Now pretend that you are receiving a proposal from someone who wants you to do something, approve something, or buy something. Think about the first thing you want to read. If you weren’t expecting to receive a proposal, it might be “What do you want (from me)?” “What are you asking me to do?” or “What do I have to decide?” If you were expecting the proposal, then the first thing you'll probably want to know is “What am I going to get?” “How much better off will I be?” “Did they get it right?” or “Is it complete?” This is closely followed by “What do I have to do to get it?” “What’s it going to cost?” “Is it worth it?” and “Can I afford it?” If you agree that it’s worth it and you have the budget, you’ll want to dig deeper and find out what it will take to make it happen. At that point you start looking for things that could go wrong and will want to make sure you can trust the person or company who brought you the proposal to deliver what they promise. You’re asking yourself “Will they deliver (completely, accurately, on time, and within budget)?” and “Can I trust them?” Once the decision maker has answers to all those questions, they still need to consider whether there are alternatives. That’s when they ask questions like “What if I don’t do what they want?” “Is there another approach that better meets my needs?” “What if I pick someone else?” and “What makes this proposal the best alternative or selection?” Finally, the decision maker must be sufficiently motivated. Otherwise they might ask “What if I do nothing?” “What if I wait?” or “What if I ask someone else (for input, for a proposal, for help deciding)?” If this is what the decision maker is looking for, then your outline should provide the answers they are looking for. You can build your outline around these questions. But it's even better to use statements that summarize the answers. When you do that, your proposal headings will directly answer the questions the decision maker has in mind, before they even read the text. If you're writing a proposal in response to a written RFP that specifies how they want the proposal organized, you must follow their outline. However, the evaluator still has the same questions and they still need to find the answers in your proposal. An excellent way to exceed the RFP requirements without increasing the cost of your solution is to do a better job of answering these questions, especially the ones they forgot to ask. Even if you don’t use these questions to build your outline, you can still use them to plan the content of your proposal and use them to assess the quality of a draft. If you decide that it is better to organize your proposal headings another way (geographically, in sequence, etc.) you should still make sure that the proposal reflects the customer’s perspective and answers their questions. To win your proposal, you need to anticipate the questions that will matter the most to the decision maker and then motivate them to accept your proposal.

If there is no RFP, then it’s up to you to figure out how to organize your proposal. When there is an RFP, it sets the customer's expectations regarding how you should organize your proposal. But it may only do so at a high level, leaving you to organize things at the detail level (provided you remain compliant with the RFP). Here are some ways to organize your outline when it is up to you: See also: Proposal outlines Expectations. By far, the most important consideration in organizing your proposal is to fulfill your customer’s expectations. If you don’t know what they are, you should ask. If you can’t find out, you should guess. Questions and Answers. Q&A formats are often used because they are easy. But it’s also easy to slip into formulating questions that are based on your perspective instead of the customers’. It can also be difficult to formulate your questions consistently and to ensure that you address everything you should. Results/achievements/goals. Since the customer is most interested in what they are going to get if they select you, organizing your proposal around the results you will deliver, what will be achieved by selecting you, or goals you will fulfill can reinforce the message. This works best when there are deliverables, and not as well for on-going service or maintenance proposals. Alternatives or Recommendations. If you are providing the customer with choices, you can organize your proposal around the alternatives. Customer Concerns. If the customer is aware of issues and has concerns, you can organize your response around them. This can work well for high risk projects, or proposals where the customer may choose to do nothing instead of accept the proposal. Customer Priorities. Organizing your proposal around the customer’s priorities can make it easy to see how your proposal matches up. Graphically. Stop thinking about an outline, and draw a picture instead. Then organize your proposal around it. If you can visualize your offering, then you can make a huge leap in the customer’s perception about your proposal using this approach. Sequence. If there are steps or phases to what you are proposing, you can organize your proposal around the sequence. Calendar. If your proposal revolves around a plan that is based on the calendar, then you can organize your proposal around the dates. Work Breakdown Structure. If your offering will be based on a work breakdown structure, then it may make sense to organize the text that way too. This works best if the customer understands what a WBS is and is expecting to see one. Participants. If your proposal is about what people will do, then you can organize it around the participants. This will make it very personal, which could be a good thing or not. Resources. If your proposal is about resource allocation, then you can organize your proposal around the resources. Geographically. If your proposal covers a lot of ground (whether physical or virtual), and what will happen at each location matters, then you can organize your proposal around the locations. Hierarchy. If there is a top-down structure to what you propose (whether chain of command, logical, general to specific, or anything else), then you can organize your proposal around it. Functionally. If the proposal is about a process or doing things, then you can organize your proposal around the activities. Problem/Solution. If the proposal solves one or more problems or expects to encounter problems, then you can organize your response around them to reinforce the purpose of the proposal. And a bonus tip If you are not trying to match the wording of the RFP, then word your headings to your advantage. Don’t make them merely descriptive of the section. Use them to say something about what the evaluator is going to read. Use them to state the conclusion you want the reader to reach. Word them so that the Table of Contents tells your story. Word them so that someone who skims your proposal will know why to select you just from reading the headings.

There are three competing interests when wording headings for a proposal, and they are listed in priority order: Making it easy for the customer to find things in your proposal. Telling a story through your headings alone. Logically organizing what you have to say. Making it easy for the customer to find things in your proposal, means: See also: Proposal outlines You must give using the customer’s wording the highest priority. If they have specified an outline, use their wording exactly. When you parse headings out of a paragraph, try to preserve as much of their wording as possible. Avoid abbreviating or shortening their wording to make smaller headings. Only do it if you have to. When possible include RFP paragraph number references at the end of the heading. If possible, use the same numbering system that the customer uses and make your heading numbers match theirs. Because doing that usually results in descriptive headings that don’t tell a story, we recommend that if the RFP permits it, include a theme statement under each major heading that states the conclusion you want the customer to reach when they read that section. You have to decide whether to do this for all headings or just the major headings, and what heading level to take it down to. Sometimes you can even include the theme statements in your Table of Contents, so that the Table of Contents alone tells your story. Unfortunately, the last priority is organizing the material in a logical way. It is dangerous to try to be more logical than the RFP. The customer expects to find things in the order of the RFP and using the RFP’s terminology. When you deviate from this, you will at minimum make it hard to evaluate your proposal, and could even get your proposal thrown out for being non-compliant. After following the instructions in the RFP, in the order of the RFP, and using the same wording as the RFP, then you are free to organize the material in a way that you feel is logical. Return to the Topic Hub for Creating Your Proposal Outline, or return to the Starting Point for Figuring Out What to Say in Your Proposals.

Ambiguity in the language of the RFP can make it difficult to determine what the customer’s expectations are and how you should structure your proposal to fulfill them. Often an RFP will describe in a narrative what they want you to address in your proposal. To prepare your proposal you have to create an outline based on what they have described. You have to decide what topics should get headings and what topics should be addressed under the headings you identify. Doing this will involve making judgment calls. To help you decide, consider the following: See also: Creating a compliance matrix and proposal outline What will their evaluation forms look like? When they score your proposal, it should be based on the structure they tell you to use. So if you were writing the RFP and preparing forms for someone else to use to perform the evaluation, what fields would you have on the forms? Some of the words in the RFP will be headings on the form and some will be clarifications. You want them to be able to easily complete their forms, so you should have the same headings you envision them having. Look for words that indicate requirements. RFPs often use words like “shall, must, will, have, include, required, etc.” to indicate specific requirements. Often a paragraph can be broken down into several line items marked by these words. Be careful with lists in the RFP. Whether a list of requirements gets separate headings or one heading for the whole list depends on whether you think the customer is looking for a single collective response or whether they want to see compliance with each one individually. How can you make your compliance with the RFP more visible? You want them to see, ideally from the Table of Contents without even reading anything, that your proposal addresses everything in the RFP. Put as many keywords from the RFP in your headings as you can. Too many headings are better than too few. Documents with lots of headings are generally easier to read than documents with few headings. This is especially true for proposals, which aren’t read like a book, but rather scored by someone who probably doesn’t want to read it at all. How do you handle redundancy and overlap? Often the RFP will describe things in more than one way, with a series of words, or with layers of clarification. You will need to decide which words will go into the headings and which words should go into the narrative. If the RFP requires it, you may have to address the same subject matter in more than one place. If possible, make the context different (for example, addressing “risk mitigation” should be different in the management plan than it is in the technical approach) so that the actual redundancy is minimized. Use section cross-references. Unless the RFP says not to, then you should use something like “please see section X for more detail about…” wherever you need to. This helps eliminate redundancy. How do you handle things that are missing? Sometimes responding fully will require addressing something that they didn’t mention in the RFP, or to substantiate, clarify, justify, preserve a sequence, etc. You may need to add a heading, or try to address it under one of the existing headings in order to accommodate the topic. How many levels deep should your headings go? While you want to avoid five, six, or more levels of headings, if the RFP drives you to it then it’s acceptable. But do try to avoid going more than a level or two deeper than the RFP itself. Use unnumbered headings. If you want to give something visibility, but don’t care if it shows in the Table of Content, you can use unnumbered subheadings. How to cope with contradictions and conflicts. Sometimes an RFP will contradict itself. Some conflicts are more subtle. If you can’t resolve these by asking questions, then you’ll have to deal with them in writing. Try to avoid contradictions in the headings by moving them to the text where you can explain things in more detail. In the text you can make assumptions, offer options, promise both sides of the contradiction, or simply say that you’ll seek the client’s guidance after award. Don’t forget the unwritten requirements. If you have followed the Readiness Review methodology, then you will probably have information about the customer and the opportunity that goes beyond what is in the RFP. This information needs to figure prominently in your proposal, even though it is not mentioned in the RFP. Depending on the nature of the information, you may decide to incorporate it in the narrative response under an existing heading, or you may wish to create a heading to focus attention on it even though the heading is not mandated by the RFP.

Steps for creating a proposal outline: Create a Compliance Matrix based on the RFP. Create the outline as you parse the RFP requirements in the Compliance Matrix. Use the outline to begin Proposal Content Planning, where you figure out everything else that needs to go into your proposal in order to win. Creating the outline and the compliance matrix go hand in hand. You should start by following any instructions the RFP may contain regarding how to organize the proposal. Next, add items to the outline until you have a place for everything you need to address. Because a requirement or topic may impact the outline in multiple places, creating a compliance matrix can get complex. For example, if the customer asks you to address risk, but doesn’t provide a specific place to do it, you may need to address risk throughout the proposal in a variety of contexts (technical, management, staffing, etc.). See also: Compliance matrix Parsing the RFP for individual requirements and then using the matrix to allocate every single requirement to one or more specific proposal sections can be a daunting task ─ analogous to untangling spaghetti. Because of the vagaries of language, judgment calls may be necessary regarding where to put some items. As you complete the compliance matrix, you will modify your outline, probably many times, until you have the right balance of: Following the customer’s instructions regarding organization A rational organization of information that will answer all of the customer’s questions A clear, easy to navigate structure for the proposal document Complete compliance with all requirements An organization that is optimized against the evaluation criteria and procedures A presentation that best reflects your offering Your outline must accommodate all of the requirements and other topics you need to address in your proposal. Once the outline and compliance matrix are complete, you should validate them to ensure they can be relied upon. Instead of being a separate document, the Proposal Outline often becomes the first column of the Compliance Matrix. If you still have room on the page, you can even add a column for assignments and deadlines.

Starting the proposal outline The initial proposal outline should be based on the RFP. However, a complex RFP may need a Compliance Matrix to map the requirements to the outline. Ultimately, the outline is just part of what you need in order to be ready to start writing the proposal. See also: Goal: Prepare a proposal content plan for achieving what it will take to win The outline needs to reflect the structure that the customer expects and incorporate everything that the customer wants you to address. If the RFP is complex, then to create the initial proposal outline it is a good idea to create a Compliance Matrix. A compliance matrix is a tool that helps you align the relevant requirements from the RFP with the section of the proposal where it should be addressed. Creating the outline and the compliance matrix go hand-in-hand. The compliance matrix helps you parse the RFP into your proposal outline. For each item in your proposal outline, the compliance matrix shows which RFP requirements are relevant. As you read the RFP, you discover requirements and decide where to address them within your outline. As you go along, you modify the outline until you have a place to address every requirement. The result is both your proposal outline, and a tool that shows which RFP requirements to address in each section. Here is some additional guidance How to word the headings in your proposal outline. 16 Ways to organize an RFP, without any instructions from the customer The best proposal outline is written from the customer's point of view, and how to achieve that When your compliance matrix and proposal outline are complete, make sure you validate the outline before you start using it. Here is a checklist for validating your proposal outline. Creating an outline and a compliance matrix is the first step in creating a Proposal Content Plan. Neither the outline nor the compliance matrix is sufficient on its own to describe everything that needs to go into winning a proposal. But they are a good start. The outline provides the structure, and the compliance matrix helps you understand what you need to do to be compliant with the RFP. A Proposal Content Plan takes that foundation and adds to it everything else you need in your proposal in order to win.

See also: Creating a compliance matrix and proposal outline While the instructions, evaluation criteria, and statement of work contain most of the requirements that the customer expects you to address, there may be other requirements in other sections of the RFP that need to be part of the proposal. There is no way to avoid it; you have to read the whole RFP in order to make sure that you have accounted for all of the requirements. Significant terms, conditions, and requirements that impact what you say in the proposal can hide in any section of the RFP and are sometimes mislabeled. The fourth step in building a compliance matrix is to incorporate any requirements from other sections. Do this by taking the foundation created in the first three steps, and then adding headings if needed to address the other requirements. If there is no logical place in your current outline to address the other requirements, then you need to create a place for them. For each item you add to the outline, make sure that you identify the RFP reference that drove it to be added. In order to demonstrate compliance with the RFP, you should make sure that all of the RFP requirements are accounted for in the Compliance Matrix. If the RFP includes a narrative description of the requirements, then you will need to decide whether to add new headings or add notes to make sure that your proposal is fully compliant. Navigation: Return to the previous step: Addressing the Statement of Work. Return to the Compliance Matrix topic hub. Return to the Starting Point: Figuring Out What to Say in Your Proposals.

In a US Government RFP, the Statement of Work (SOW) for what the customer wants you to do or deliver will typically be in Section C. If you do not have a Section C, you will need to look elsewhere to find what the customer wants you to propose doing or delivering. Sometimes the customer will use different terminology, and instead of calling it the “Statement of Work,” may refer to their requirements as a “Performance Work Statement” or something else. The name is unimportant. See also: Creating a compliance matrix and proposal outline The third step in building a compliance matrix is to incorporate the SOW. Do this by taking the foundation created in the first two steps, and then adding headings if needed to address the SOW. Some people find it counter-intuitive that addressing what the customer wants you to propose is the third step in building a compliance matrix, but until you have the high level structure of a document that reflects how you are going to be evaluated, you are not ready to incorporate the details of what you are going to offer. Depending on the RFP, you may find that the outline and evaluation criteria provide clear guidance regarding how to address the SOW requirements. If this is the case, you may not need to add any new headings, and can simply place the Section C/SOW references in the appropriate column, next to the corresponding outline item. However, most RFPs do not match up perfectly. If there is no logical place in your current outline to address the SOW, then you need to create a place for it. For each item you add to the outline, make sure that you identify the RFP reference that drove it to be added. In order to demonstrate compliance with the RFP, you should make sure that all of the SOW requirements are accounted for in the Compliance Matrix. If the SOW includes a narrative description of the requirements, then you will need to decide whether to add new headings or add notes to make sure that your proposal is fully compliant. Navigation: Go to the next step and address any other requirements from the RFP. Return to the previous step: Address the Evaluation Criteria. Return to the Compliance Matrix topic hub. Return to the Starting Point: Figuring Out What to Say in Your Proposals.

Having the best offering is a key part of what it takes to win. Another way to say this is that the most important ingredient in your proposal is what you are going to propose. When it comes to planning the content of your proposal, we advocate planning your offering and planning the writing of your proposal separately. When you do both at the same time, the risk compounds itself, and changes in the writing that result from a change in what you want to offer can cause a cascade effect that you might not be able to recover from. Designing your offering by writing a narrative about it is usually a poor way to approach design. So you need to think through what you are going to propose, validate it, approve it, and then integrate it into your proposal content. This is a complicated way of saying that you need to know what you are going to propose before you start writing about it. Having the best offering requires research If you think about what it takes to have the best offering, it depends a lot on research. What does the customer want? What are their preferences? How should you handle the trade-offs? Then there is the creative, innovative side of it, and the need to validate the feasibility of your approach. And let’s not forget pricing. What is the customer’s budget? Can you be innovative with the business model? How will your pricing compare with that of your competitors? Readiness Reviews provide a structured approach to getting ready to propose the best offering This is another example of why it is difficult to start a proposal after RFP release. Not only do you need to discover these answers, but you also want to influence the development of the specifications so that they are at least compatible with what you would like to offer, and preferably give you a competitive advantage. Readiness Reviews give you a structured approach to preparing for RFP release that facilitates achieving these goals. If having the best offering is the most important ingredient in your proposal, then being ready for RFP release means being ready to propose the best offering. Readiness Reviews are about getting answers to questions, and achieving goals through action items. We generally divide them into customer, opportunity, competitive environment, and self-awareness. With regards to the opportunity, it’s important to not just gather intelligence about it, but also to begin designing your offering. You need to know what your options are so that you can determine what the customer’s preferences are and influence the specifications before it’s too late. If you incorporate developing your offering into your Readiness Reviews, then when the RFP is released and you start planning the content of your proposal, you will already know what the right offering is to propose. Return to Proposal Content Plan Implementation Tips or the Proposal Content Planning Topic Hub.

Here are some things you can communicate visually using graphics: Arrangements Components Parts Lists Alignment Direction Contacts Collage Limits Boundaries Foundation Comparisons Relationships Hierarchies Ratios Matrices Tables Associations Change Sequence Process/Steps Construction Conversion Initiation Transition Completion Answers Who What Where How When Why Data Visualization Diagrams Blueprints Maps Data Charts Concepts Support Reduction Increase Improvement Togetherness Separation Inside/Outside Trust Risk Security Quality Abundance Time Speed Before/After Duration Actions/Verbs Metaphors (Like or As) Here are some types of charts and graphics that are often relevant to proposals: Area Chart Background Bar Chart Before and After Bridge Graphic Bubble Chart Building Block Graphic Calendar Candlestick Chart Chain Graphic Circle Charts Collage Conveyor Belt Graphic Cross Section Diagram Cutaway Diagram Dashboard Graphic DNA Graphic Dome Graphic Fishbone Graphic Floor Plan Funnel Graphic Gantt Chart Gauge Graphic Gear Graphic Icon and Symbol Illustration Line Chart Looping Graphic Map Graphic Network Diagram Organization Chart Peg Graphic Pie Chart Pipe Graphic Point Chart Process Diagram Puzzle Graphic Pyramid Graphic Radar Chart Risk Matrix Road Graphic Scale Graphic Spiral Development Graphic Stacked Diagram Stair Graphic Step by Step Graphic Table Temple Graphic Timeline Vee Diagram Venn Diagram Waterfall Graphic

Planning graphics: There is a difference between specifying a graphic and drawing it. You don’t have to be able to draw in order to identify and specify graphics. Graphics should be identified and specified as part of your Content Planning efforts. Graphics can be created from written instructions in a Content Plan, or can be created first and used to drive the instructions for what needs to be written. It is a best practice to use graphics to drive the text. Visual communication is more efficient and memorable than narrative. Instead of setting a target like “One graphic for every three pages” (which encourages people to make up graphics that don’t add value), your content planning and validation planning should include looking for every opportunity to communicate visually. Anything that is complex or contains a discriminator can be shown graphically. Any process, approach, relationship, sequence, or comparison is a potential graphic. You should note in the Content Plan every place where you could have a graphic, even if you don’t know what that graphic is (yet). Then, for each graphic, identify the: See also: Content planning best practices Primary objective. What is the goal of the graphic? What should the reader conclude after viewing it? What benefit will your audience receive? What problems does your graphic solve? Audience. Who will the reader be? What do you anticipate their background will be? Will the reader be a manager or a worker? Will they be technical or have some other subject matter expertise? Will they be military or private sector? What other attributes might be relevant? Questions that the graphic should answer. What questions will need to be answered to achieve the primary objective? Subject matter. Answer the questions. If these are not known when the Content Plan is developed, then you should add instructions for the section author to complete them. Your goal is to track all of the graphics that need to be created, enable graphics to be written about even before they are fully rendered, and to provide a set of instructions for the illustrator(s). When writing to graphics, you should not describe what is in the graphic in a way that is redundant. Graphics should stand on their own and replace text. When referring to the graphic, you should state the conclusion/primary objective that the graphic demonstrates, substantiates, or illustrates. Don’t forget that tables can be graphics too. Tables can make showing RFP compliance easier. In many cases you can look at an RFP requirement and determine that a table is the best way to present it. Why not put an empty table into the Content Plan as a placeholder for the Proposal Writers to complete? If you plan to use Feature/Benefits tables, you can also put placeholders into your Content Plan for them. In addition to illustrations and tables, you should also consider the use of visual enhancements such as navigation and scoring aids. These can include: Relevance boxes. Links the proposal section to the RFP requirements that it addresses. Sometimes this is done by citing the RFP paragraph number, heading, and/or requirement. Sometimes it is done by citing keywords from the RFP that are relevant. Pull quotes. A box highlighting a statement, story, or example. Typically rendered with large type in order to make it stand out on the page and bring it to the evaluator’s attention. Examples of relevance boxes:

Don't use it without making sure it's fully optimized to win: If you think checking all of these will be time-consuming, you are right. Ask yourself which you can do without. This is why using boilerplate can take longer than writing what you need from scratch. See also: Reuse When using boilerplate or re-using past documents, make sure that you: ❏ Update the customer, project, and other names ❏ Ensure that any dates or numbers mentioned are accurate ❏ Check that it is fully RFP compliant and in the right sequence ❏ Add or delete relevant topics ❏ Edit it to use the same terminology as the current customer/RFP ❏ Validate that it reflects the approaches being proposed ❏ Validate that any trade-offs made previously(e.g. cost/performance) are still appropriate ❏ Emphasize the benefits that matter to this particular customer ❏ Research the previous bid strategies and evaluation criteria so you can undo anything no longer applicable to the current circumstances ❏ Substantiate the right win strategies and themes for this particular bid ❏ Optimize it against this particular evaluation criteria ❏ Ensure that any examples cited are relevant and up to date ❏ Has anything changed since the previous proposal for your company, projects, staff, technology, processes, etc. that should be incorporated? ❏ Ensure that it reflects your full awareness of the customer ❏ Check whether it includes any assumptions and if they are still relevant Return to Proposal Content Plan Implementation Tips or the Proposal Content Planning Topic Hub.

Using boilerplate in a proposal Careful thought is required before assuming you can re-use existing proposal content or “boilerplate.” People are often tempted to recycle proposal content from past proposals or “boilerplate.” Unfortunately, this only works for certain proposals. For others, it actually makes things take longer and reduces the effectiveness of the proposal. Boilerplate and re-use material can destroy your chances of creating a great proposal. When you make all the changes needed to customize it, you may find that re-using files does not save time and may actually introduce problems. In fact, improperly using boilerplate or even failing to thoroughly optimize it for the current proposal can cost you the bid. Whether it makes sense to use boilerplate in your proposals primarily depends on: The type of offering. If you are proposing a unique or engineered solution, you may not be able to employ re-use material effectively. Even if you are responding to similar requests, the number of edits required to adapt it may exceed the time it would have taken to write it in the first place. If you are proposing a product or a commoditized service, you may be able to employ re-use material effectively, if your customers’ concerns are also consistent. The consistency of RFPs. If your RFPs are very consistent, you may be able to use re-use material effectively. If your proposals don’t have a written RFP, then whether you can effectively employ re-use material will depend on the consistency of your customers’ concerns and evaluation processes. In addition, the following concerns can also impact whether or not using boilerplate works in your environment. See also: Content planning best practices The consistency of customer concerns and evaluation. Even if you are proposing the same thing, if your customers have different concerns or follow different evaluation processes, you will need to customize your response to reflect this. Since your proposal should show how your offering responds to the customer’s concerns, a difference in customer concerns can totally change the context and how you describe your offering. The strength of your writers. If you have weak writers, you may want to rely more on re-use material. Instead of training and guiding them through the process of creating winning proposal copy, it may be easier to write something good once and then re-use it often. However, this can be dangerous. Even if you provide detailed checklists and guidance, if the writers are weak to begin with, you may find that you are submitting proposals that are not customized and your win rate will suffer. The value of the bid. If the value of the bid will not cover a proposal customized to win, you may need to recycle your proposals. But then you should adjust your proposal process accordingly, because you are in a business where volume is critical. The evaluation criteria. If the evaluation criteria ignores value, then customizing around your value proposition is not needed. If the evaluation criteria focuses on price (i.e. Low Price Technically Acceptable), there is no point in customization beyond RFP compliance. The opposite of each of these is also true. When you look at the nature of your offering and the RFP, you can actually see where boilerplate might be applicable. This model shows us that: Boilerplate works best when you are offering the same services/products on every bid and the RFP is the same each time. Boilerplate requires time-consuming edits when you offer different services/products on every bid and the RFPs are different each time. In between these are two conditions where boilerplate may or may not be a good solution: When you offer the same services/products on every bid, but the RFP is different each time. When you offer different services/products on every bid, but the format, structure, and content of the RFP is the same each time. Another consideration is the strength of your writers. If you have weak writers, you may want to rely more on re-use material. However, this can be dangerous. Even if you provide detailed checklists and guidance, if the writers are weak to begin with, you may find that you are submitting proposals that are not customized and your win rate will suffer. The most important thing to remember when re-using proposal content is that there is a big difference between being similar and being the same. Most of your offerings and most of your RFPs will be similar. They may be about similar things. But unless they ask for exactly the same things, in the same order, using the same terminology, and evaluate them against the same criteria, the response will have to be different. The amount of that difference is what determines whether boilerplate helps or hurts. The Content Planning process will make it very clear whether the boilerplate meets your needs because it gives you a set of specifications you can compare the boilerplate against. After you copy the boilerplate into your Content Plan, you should note any deviations in the content from the instructions that are already there. Then you should add new instructions for how to correct them. If the goal is to win, you should be prepared to throw away the re-use material and write what you need to win. Having a comprehensive Content Plan will accelerate the writing even more than having the re-use material (once you consider how much time it will take to modify it).

See also: Content Planning Best Practices If you use the format for Proposal Recipes that we recommend, they can be easily integrated with your Content Plans. The recipes include a list of questions to answer and approaches and strategies you can take. Not only do recipes do a better job of inspiring and accelerating than recycling proposal narratives, but they also integrate with the planning process better. The questions to be answered can be dropped directly into your Content Plans. The approaches and strategies can be used to create instructions for the authors. Not all of the questions will be applicable to every proposal, so the person preparing the plan should either select the relevant ones, or instruct for the author to consider which questions are relevant as part of the writing. Using recipes can greatly accelerate things and increase the level of detail in your plans, and do it in a way that is safer than recycling narratives. By increasing the level of detail, you provide more inspiration to the authors and produce a more detailed, better quality proposal.

A few small things can make a big difference in the quality of proposal writing. And you can insert instructions and reminders into the Content Plan to help achieve them. For example, you can insert instructions into the Content Plan to: See also: Content planning best practices Make sure that the section starts with a statement about what the customer will get or receive as a result of awarding the contract to you. Write from the customer’s perspective, with the emphasis on results. Avoid describing yourself, and starting or making sentences about our company or team. Put descriptions of us or what we’ll do into a context about what matters to the customer. Start and end with something that matters to the customer. Make sure every sentence passes the “So What?” test. When addressing requirements, make sure that you address “who, what, where, how, when, and why.” Dropping a line or two like these into your Content Plan can make a huge difference, especially since the reviewers will see it when they evaluate the draft proposal. You can also provide other forms of guidance: If you want your proposal to tell a story, then explain your story to the authors and advise them how to incorporate it into their section. You can also guide them regarding what to put into the narrative, and what should go elsewhere. For example, you can separate simple facts and put them into a text box so that the narrative focuses on your story. You can even drop in text boxes as placeholders where you know they will be needed.

Two ways to accelerate your Proposal Content Planning: Cheat. Skip some of the iterations. The methodology was designed with this possibility in mind. Think "checklist" instead of "iterations." Do them all in one pass and then use the "steps" as a checklist to make sure you didn't overlook anything. Cheating is not only allowed, it's encouraged See also: Creating a proposal content plan If you skip some of the iterations, your plan will be not be as thorough, but will still add value. See the topic in the Knowledgebase titled “Scalability and Schedule Issues” to see how Content Planning was designed to degrade gracefully, and enable you to make the trade-off between thoroughness of planning and maximizing the time available for writing. Convert the steps into a checklist You may not need to do the iterations one at a time in sequence. Instead, think of them as a checklist. Once you’ve created the outline and allocated the RFP requirements, you can do all of the iterations at the same time: Create the shell Add the RFP requirements Add win strategies, themes, and evaluation criteria Add (customer, opportunity, and competitive) intelligence Add your solution and references Add graphics and tables Add assumptions, limits, and issues Add boilerplate Heading by heading you can think through and add the instructions all at once. The second approach works best on small proposals. When the page count is small, you don’t need separate passes for each topic. When the page count is large, doing it in separate passes help you stay focused and create commonality across proposal sections. If you spend about 15 minutes a page doing the planning, then for a 25-page proposal you can have a plan done in a day. At the end of the day you review it to ensure that you’ve accounted for everything that needs to go into the proposal and that it reflects what it will take to win. Having the content plan ensures that the writers know what is expected of them, and gives you a baseline that will accelerate the review of the draft proposal.

Content Plans are containers. They hold ideas, instructions, and other forms of communication between proposal planners, authors, and reviewers. It’s okay if they get a little messy because you don’t want to invest too much time in making them look good when you still have to do the actual proposal. What matters is whether they set the right expectations and are helpful. This depends on who your authors are. If you are doing a Content Plan for yourself, then you’ll know what you meant (but you may still need to make sure your reviewers do). If one person is writing the Content Plan for others to follow, then you need to make sure the instructions are clear. The more information you provide and the more clear your intentions, the better the writers will be able to meet your expectations. How should you phrase the items in your content plan? Requirements. You can refer the writers to the RFP or you can drop the requirements right into the Content Plan. It may depend on how wordy the RFP is. If you have additional requirements that are not in the RFP, you can include them as well. The better job you do of accounting for or itemizing the requirements, the easier it will be to ensure compliance. Instructions. If you are creating a plan for others to follow, then you should word the items in your plan as instructions so that they will know what to do. Questions to be answered. While we prefer the clarity of instructions, another approach is to put questions into your Content Plan for the writers to answer. Also, if you have a topic that you are not sure about, rather than set it aside, you should put it into the Content Plan as a question. As the Content Plan gets passed around to authors and reviewers, they will either answer it or see that it still needs to be answered. Reminders. You can use the Content Plan as a container for reminders, whether they are for yourself, the team as a whole, someone specific, or unspecific. By putting it in the plan, it gets tracked. Placeholders. If something should go into the proposal, but you don’t have the information or content yet, you can insert a placeholder. Re-use content. If you have information or content that is of potential use, you can drop it into the Content Plan with instructions for how to tailor, convert, modify, or make use of it. Requests, issues. If you need something or have a problem, you can put that in the Content Plan as well, to ensure that the issue gets tracked. Once the Content Plan is reviewed and the authors start writing, they can also use the Content Plan as a communication tool, pointing out things they need clarified, questions to answer, requests, or issues they encounter while completing their assignments. The Content Plan can be a way of passing messages about the writing, as well as a tool for completing the writing. While the Content Plan is in between being the initial set of specifications and a completed narrative draft, it can be passed back and forth until all of the notes and comments are resolved.

Centralized Content Planning: See also: Content planning best practices If you have one person or a small group in charge of determining what everyone else should write, you have a centralized approach to planning. When planning is centralized, one person creates the Content Plan. This makes training easier, and makes it easier to use less experienced proposal contributors. But it also creates a bottleneck. Writing can’t start until the Content Plan is completed and reviewed. With a centralized approach, the Content Plan becomes the instructions that will be given to the authors. Decentralized Content Planning: If you have leaders for each section, or each author is responsible for figuring out how to organize and what should go into their own sections, you have a decentralized approach to planning. When planning is decentralized, each contributor adds to the Content Plan, and the Content Plan becomes a tool for collaboration and coordination. With a decentralized model, all of the contributors have to understand how Proposal Content Planning works. Which is the right approach for your organization? This process supports both approaches without preference. The right approach for your organization depends on your resources and corporate culture. Some companies are authoritarian and some are consensus driven. Some proposals will have contributors who are experienced with proposals, the MustWin Process, and working with each other. And some won’t. If you don’t match the approach to the company, you will encounter problems that can result in proposal failure.

At its core, a Content Plan: Sets expectations for writers so they know what they have to do to create the right proposal. Provides a set of specifications for reviewers to use to determine whether the authors achieved what they were supposed to achieve. See also: Proposal process implementation Content Plans are flexible. You can use them on simple, quick turnaround proposals or large complicated proposals. You can use them on proposals with strong centralized management and planning, and you can use them on decentralized highly collaborative proposals. In addition to figuring out what to say in your proposal, you can use Content Plans to provide training, guidance, communication, and even issue tracking. Some of the ways you can adapt your implementation include: How you format the instructions that go into a Content Plan? Do they tell the reader what to write, what to research, or what to figure out? Do they go beyond instructions and include questions, ideas, problems, issues, or other things that impact proposal development? How do you handle access? Does everyone have access to edit the Content Plans or just a chosen few? Do you take turns? How do you pass them around for contributions? Do you use them for more than just writing? Do you use the Content Plans to drive consensus? To develop bid strategies? Or just to account for what you intend to write? The most important thing about implementing a Content Plan is not the appearance or the format, but the review. If you do not thoroughly review your Content Plan prior to writing, then your writers and reviewers may not be working from the same set of expectations. This is critically important. More tips for implementing Content Plans Centralized vs. decentralized models for Content Planning What to put into your Content Plan Content Planning for quick turnaround proposals and task orders Using Content Plans to improve proposal writing quality Using Content Plans with proposal recipes How to incorporate boilerplate/re-use into your Content Plans Checklist for using boilerplate/re-use material Addressing graphics in your Content Plans Inspiration for graphics 9 proposal metrics you didn't think were possible enabled by Proposal Content Planning

Validating your Proposal Content Plan helps to ensure that your proposal writers: Aren't trying to hit a moving target. Are aware of everything they should be when they start writing. Know what their assignments are. Define proposal quality the same way the reviewers do. See also: Creating a proposal content plan Does the Content Plan do the following? ❏ Do you have the right balance of placeholders and details to guide the writers while still responding quickly? ❏ Does it state the conclusion the customer should reach after reading the section? ❏ Does it explain how substantiate that conclusion? ❏ Does it identify the points that should be emphasized in the section? ❏ Does it identify all of the customer/RFP requirements that should be addressed in the section? ❏ Does it suggest how to optimize the score against the evaluation criteria? ❏ Does it provide information about the customer, opportunity, and competitive environment that goes beyond what is given in the RFP? ❏ Does it expand on the RFP requirements and provide guidance to help the writer respond to them in the right context? ❏ Does it explain to the writers what to do with any statements or information provided? ❏ Does it identify where projects/experience should be cited and where? ❏ Does it identify where examples should be cited and how? ❏ Does it identify any places where proposal re-use files could be used and how to modify them to fit the needs of this proposal? ❏ Does it identify any assumptions, limits, or boundaries that were identified when making trade-off decisions or in response to ambiguities or problems in the RFP? ❏ Is there a graphic in every place where it could improve the communication or navigation? ❏ Is every graphic necessary? ❏ Is it designed to make it easier to write the section? ❏ Is it designed to make it easy to validate the section after it’s turned into a narrative draft? ❏ Will it produce the right response if followed?

Validating your Content Plan before you start to write: Prevents re-writing and editing cycles. Enables you to confirm that the approaches are correct before you start writing. Provides you with a reliable baseline to measure the draft text against. Validating the Content Plan is more important than validating the draft text. See also: Creating a proposal content plan It is important to confirm that the Content Plan contains everything that it should, and that the instructions it contains are correct before you use it to create the proposal. In other words, you should confirm that if followed, it will produce the desired proposal. The time to catch differences of opinion or defects is while things are in the planning stages and before you have a narrative document to work with. When implemented properly, the Content Plan becomes something that you can use to measure the draft text against in later reviews. You can compare the draft text to the Content Plan to see whether the Proposal Writers achieved everything they were supposed to. This will only work if the Content Plan is reliable. That is why validating the Content Plan is actually more important than validating the draft text of the proposal. If the Content Plan is valid, then all you need to do is check the text to make sure it fulfills what’s in the plan. The alternative is to rush to a first draft and then perform an endless series of rewrites until you stumble across a winning proposal or you run out of time. Usually you run out of time.

Sometimes you know can guide the authors by telling them what to include and sometimes you just don’t know and need them to figure that out. You get to decide what level of detail and what form the instructions should take, based on your knowledge, the capabilities of your writers, and the circumstances surrounding your proposal. Think of Content Planning as a toolbox with many different techniques that can be used to solve particular problems. See also: Creating a proposal content plan Sometimes the instructions will tell the author exactly what to write. Ex: Describe how our approach does this, this, and that. Provide a list of our locations. And sometimes the instructions will tell the author what they need to figure out. Ex: Figure out what our approach to this requirement is and then describe it. Describe how our approach to risk mitigation will reflect the client’s circumstances. Proposal Content Plans get written at the beginning of the proposal. Sometimes you haven’t figured everything out yet. But if you know what needs to happen next, that can be the guidance you provide. You can take it further by saying “After you complete that, then do this with it.” Sometimes Proposal Content Plans are written by people who are not subject matter experts (SMEs) and may need them to figure out what should go in the proposal for certain items. Sometimes SMEs are teamed with a proposal writing specialist who interviews them to complete the proposal. You can use the Content Plan as a way to emulate this, by inserting the interview questions into the Content Plan to guide the SME through the proposal considerations and steps. If you know something should go in the proposal, but don’t have the details, it’s okay to put a placeholder in the Content Plan. Ex: Org chart goes here. Insert a table describing the features and benefits of our approach. If there is something you are not sure about, it’s okay to say so right in the Content Plan. Ex: If our widget does not meet the specifications, then identify an alternative. I’m assuming that this is not included but that is. You can actually use the Content Plan to get answers to question or track issues, simply by inserting them into the plan. You can also use the Content Plan to deliver data for the writer to assess. Ex: Here is a list of client locations. Describe how many of our locations match theirs. If possible, calculate a percentage or show it as a pie chart. You can even put instructions in the Content Plan for someone else to create the instructions. Ex: Describe, at the bullet level, what needs to be included in our approach. Phrase them as instructions to guide the author of this section. Make sure you use clear language so that the difference between a requirement and a suggestion is clear. You should also make sure that your authors know that they can use the Content Plan to insert questions and issues themselves, so that anything that gets in the way of completing a section can be identified, tracked, and routed to someone who can resolve the issue. When you write instructions for a Proposal Content Plan, you can also do it at various levels of details. Basic: Tells them what should go there. Ex: Write the management plan. Good: Tells them what should go there and what to include in it. Ex: Write the management plan. Describe how we are organized and how the project will be staffed. Better: Tells them what should go there, and also includes what you know about the customer, opportunity, and/or competitive environment, as well as you win strategies and themes. Ex: Write the management plan. Describe how we are organized and how the project will be staffed. Point out that we provide a dedicated single point of contact because we know that are competitors do not. Emphasize that all of the staff we need for the project are already hired, trained, and in place. Best: Tell them how to write it. Tell them what you want emphasized and how it should be presented. Ex: Write the management plan. Describe how we are organized and how the project will be staffed. Point out that we provide a dedicated single point of contact because we know that are competitors do not. Emphasize that all of the staff we need for the project are already hired, trained, and in place. Make these stand out as features. Make sure that it reflects what they are going to get out of our organizational, single point of contact, and staffing, instead of simply describing it. Use the keywords from the evaluation criteria as much as possible. The best instructions show the author exactly what they need to do to pass the proposal reviews that come later.