Effective review is a powerful way to maximise your chances of submitting a winning proposal. However, I often observe even experienced Bid Managers handle the process poorly.
So, below is some advice on how you can ensure sound proposal review becomes part of your winning bid strategy.
What to review
This is an area where I see the biggest errors made. For example, a couple of years ago I was part of a Proposal Team bidding for a large Commonwealth Government Contract. The Bid Manager selected tried and trusted resources to run the review process. What he didn’t do was clearly define the parameters, requirements and objectives of the review from the outset.
When the reviewed documents starting flowing in it was obvious the review team was focusing too much on proof reading and editorial corrections. What was actually needed was focus on evaluating the response documents against the weighted evaluation criterion in the RFP.
A great editorial review was delivered but not nearly enough feedback was provided to ensure the bid was compelling and competitive. The proposal was not a winning one and I believe a better review process would have changed this.
To avoid these errors, we advise review teams be tasked with evaluating and scoring the proposal against the solicitation evaluation criteria and recommending improvements. This normally means a concentration on the following elements of the proposal:
• Compliance
• Clarity
• Competitiveness
• Positioning
• Sell
Most importantly, the objectives of the review process must be made clear by the Bid Manager. All bids have their own circumstances and requirements and the make-up and skill sets of bid teams can vary. It is imperative that the role of the review team and their objectives is made clear from the outset of the bid process.
How to review
A traditional review process includes a customer evaluation simulation where the review team tries to apply a general quality score to each proposal section. If the review team has a high level of industry and/or customer expertise a more formal evaluation may be suitable. In this case, the review team attempts to more closely simulate the customer evaluation process by providing a specific score against each evaluation criteria.
In all reviews, the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal should be identified with recommendations made on how to address deficiencies. We advise a flowing review process, where each completed draft section is immediately passed on to the review team for evaluation.
When to review
This is contingent on the specific proposal. A late review is better for less complex proposals as the draft document will usually be a higher quality by the time the review team receives it. However, late review on more complex proposals may not leave enough time to address deficiencies. Here, we suggest short reviews early in the process with a final review later in the delivery timeline.
Composition of the review team
The best review teams are comprised of independent, skilled, experienced reviewers who are familiar with the proposal, the industry and the customer’s requirements. You should avoid using internal company members solely and the review team should ideally not be involved in any other aspects of proposal development. Most importantly, the members of the review team must have enough time capacity to properly and thoroughly conduct a review evaluation and provide appropriate feedback.
With sound review process the review team can turn a losing proposal into a winning one.