Readiness Reviews help implement strategic planning objectives

A Strategic Plan, in addition to identifying markets and targets, also defines the high-level positioning for your company. Unless it gets ignored. Most proposals are conducted without any consideration of the strategic plan, and all of the positioning elements like win strategies and themes are re-invented in isolation. Sometimes people who have read the strategic plan try to keep it in mind.

The list of questions, goals, and actions items that the Readiness Review methodology uses gives you a vehicle to insert positioning actions and guidance into the pursuit. 

The Strategic Plan should also be used as a filter to guide bid/no bid decisions. Each of the Readiness Reviews is already a bid/no bid decision point. All you need to do is add the considerations from your Strategic Plan to turn them into a filter.

By inserting positioning guidance and a strategic bid decision filter, you ensure that the proposals you submit reflect your Strategic Plan. You also help ensure that your bids add up to the market position you are seeking and that you waste less effort on opportunistic bidding.  This is exactly what you need in an environment with more companies chasing fewer bids that are worth less and using fewer overhead staff to do it.

When you integrate strategic planning and Readiness Reviews, you get a way to track metrics related to your strategic plan and how it impacts your win rate. At each Readiness Review, each question, goal, and action item gets graded. When you insert items related to your strategic planning objectives, they get graded as well. Track the grades and analyze their impact on your win rate. You will also be able to see how many bids do or don’t support your objectives, and you will also be able to measure when they start (on time or late) and whether they trend more or less strategically over time.