8 Ways to use our MustWin process to improve your own process instead of replacing it

Throwing out an existing process and starting over may be too traumatic for some people to contemplate. Because we designed the MustWin Process for customization, you can also selectively use certain parts. You can use it to cover a part of your process that either isn’t sufficiently documented or isn’t working as well as you’d like. Here are some of the ways this can work:

1. Make sure your team is ready at RFP release. Most proposal processes start at RFP release. They also tend to start unprepared because they don’t address what you need to do before the RFP is released. The MustWin Process starts with lead identification and provides a process for ensuring that you are ready to write the winning proposal at RFP release. If you have a proposal process, but need a pre-proposal process to guide the pursuit, just use the pre-RFP portion of the MustWin process.
2. Set standards for proposal planning. What items constitute a valid proposal plan? Do you have written specifications for each? If your proposal planning efforts are inconsistent you can use our section on proposal planning to guide your efforts.
3. Replace storyboarding with something that works. Storyboards only work well for one kind of proposal and even then they work better for conceiving the solution than they do for planning the document. The MustWin Process helps you select the best approach to planning your content and gives you an alternative that works better for most proposals. Instead of calling for storyboards and then never actually doing them, you can replace that section of your process with ours.
4. Have defined roles and responsibilities. You might know what everyone is supposed to do, but do they know it? Having written roles and responsibilities can help set expectations. Instead of starting from scratch, you can take ours and customize it to meet the needs of your environment.
5. Provide guidance to writers. If all you give your writers is a copy of the RFP and maybe a style guide (that they’re not going to follow anyway), you’re just setting yourself up for problems. Our process gives authors guidance for completing their proposal assignments to help them avoid getting stuck on a blank page. Without making any changes to your process, you can make big improvements simply by putting together a proposal writers support package using our material (and anything of yours you want to add).
6. Change how you do proposal reviews. If you are one of the vast majority of companies that can’t seem to ever achieve consistently successful color team reviews, don’t feel bad. It’s not you, it’s the approach to the reviews that’s broken. The MustWin Process offers a much better way to do proposal reviews that is based on IV&V (Independent Verification and Validation) techniques. Instead of punishing yourself by going through yet another proposal with a broken review process, there is a way out. Replace the review process with one that works. The MustWin Process tells you how.
7. Use checklists. Instead of replacing part of your process or adding a new component, you may be able to improve your process simply by using one or more of the 16 checklists built into the MustWin Process.
8. Track metrics and measurements. The MustWin Process makes tracking metrics and measurements easy. Over time it enables you to really understand what impacts your chances of winning. Our process includes not one but two appendices that deal with metrics and measurements. If you are looking to establish a real process of continuous improvement, the advice it offers will be invaluable.