RFP requirement cross-referencing and compliance matrix building

Before something can go into your proposal, you have to decide where in your outline it should go. MustWin Now provides several ways to connect RFP requirement to the proposal outline. You can even drag and drop RFP requirements onto the landing zone for each proposal section. Once the association is made, MustWin Now remembers all the RFP requirements that are relevant to each section. 

If you want, you can use this to generate a very traditional looking compliance matrix and download it in Excel. Only you probably won't need to, because when interact with their proposal sections, the requirements will just be there.

And the same way you can cross-reference RFP requirements to the proposal outline, you can cross-reference your win strategies. If you use the Win Strategy Development tool, you'll convert your ideas into instructions for proposal writers. When they are cross-referenced to the outline, they'll show up without you having to do anything other than make the association. When you start Proposal Content Planning, you'll have the most important parts, the RFP requirements and win strategies already in place to guide your proposal writers.

Here is the main screen from the cross-reference tool. What you see, from left to right, is the list of RFP requirements, then the proposal outline, the currently selected proposal section, and the Collaboration tool on the right. 

 

To begin linking RFP requirements to proposal sections, select a proposal section from the proposal sections on the left sidebar. When it opens, you will see a landing zone box that you can drag RFP items to.

 

To link an RFP requirement, choose one from the left sidebar and use your cursor to drag and drop it into the box.

 

To cross-reference something from the RFP to this proposal section, just drag it and drop it on the landing zone.  Onced dropped, the requirements will show up as colored banners. When you click them the full text of the RFP requirements will pop-up.

Select the next proposal section and cross-reference all the RFP requirements that are relevant to it. It doesn't take long to make all the associations needed. 

 

You can sort your proposal sections by sequence, ones with notes, or ones that are unlinked.

 

 

You also can sort the RFP requirements by type, ones with notes, ones that need a response, or ones that are unlinked. You can used the last option to make sure that all of the RFP requirements that should be written about have a place in the proposal where they should go.

 

 

 

In addition to adding RFP requirements, you can also link win strategies by clicking the green "Matrix mode" box and selecting "Map win strategies".

 

 

If you used the Win Strategy Development tool, your win strategies will now appear and you can link them to the proposal sections they are relevant to. This is how you drive your win strategies into the document, by connecting them to specific sections so that they show up as instructions in the relevant proposal sections where the proposal writers are working.

 

Just like with the RFP requirements, drag and drop a win strategy into the landing zone box of a relevant proposal section.

The win strategy now appears as an instruction to the proposal writers.

 

You can edit or add more instructions by using the Proposal Content Planning tool.

The link will bring you to a page where you can add new instructions, or edit/delete existing ones.

By clicking the arrow to the left of the instruction, you can also add:

• An annotations, which are a blocks of text that can be used for lengthy explainers, examples, or text that you copy and paste for the proposal writers to tailor and reuse,
• A link to a resource that might be useful for writing the section
• A file the proposals will need
• Or strikethrough formatting, to mark an instruction that is complete

You can move, copy the instruction to other proposal sections or delete it.

To add notes, simply type them in the "notes" section.

To add more proposal sections or edit them, click the "Switch to outline tool" button.