Shipley Insights

  Kick-off meetings are critical milestones that require careful core team planning followed by professional execution. Industry leading organisations: Allocate approximately 15 percent of available preparation time to planning prior to kick-off meeting Invite the right people Prepare a complete but concise agenda Prepare a comprehensive kick-off package in advance Review operational guidelines for proposal

Kick-off meetings should be motivational, informative and directive and should contain the necessary information and plan for responding to the tender. They should: Initiate contributors’ proposal efforts Answer questions about the opportunity Set writing assignments and coordination of activities Create cohesiveness across the team They should not contain proposal planning discussions such as: Client requirements,

Proposal Management Plans (PMP) document the roles, responsibilities, tasks and deadlines before writers start developing proposal sections, volumes and ultimately the complete proposal. PMP is a proven best practice that leads to improved win-rates and higher quality proposals, produced with less friction and cost.

Make sure evaluators get their answers as quickly as possible. State your most important point first. Proposal evaluators read until satisfied, score the question, then look for the answer to the next question. Writers’ styles are influenced by the documents they read. So proposal writers with a technical background often model their writing on the

Decision gate reviews are about deciding whether to proceed, not on critiquing and refining the technical solution. The technical solution is only one facet of your complete offering. It might also include your management solution, pricing solution, past performance, quality assurance plan and transition plan. Suggest a separate review of the technical solution, and who

Resumes should be organised according to the readers needs. Proposal resume evaluators, rather than screening to eliminate individuals face a more complicated task. They are assessing for: •Understanding of the customer’s needs •Degree of commitment •Match between position requirements and the individuals proposed •Team coverage of all requirements Best-in-class resumes: •Clearly define the requirements of

Value propositions establish the value basis for the business relationship. They describe how your solution will improve the customer’s business and how the improvement will be measured. Make sure your value proposition is: unique to each of your clients predicated around what is important to the client detailed, specific and quantified

…until the proposal is submitted Many people have been told the Executive Summary should be a one-page document prepared after the proposal is written. This is unhelpful advice as executive summaries are the most important pages in your proposal. A draft executive summary should be prepared early during the capture planning or pursuit phase, well

Decision makers are more likely to worry about risk, what could go wrong, than about relatively minor price or technical differences. Some sellers prefer to avoid any discussion of risk. They correctly see risk as negative but incorrectly avoid discussing risk because it is a negative topic. Identifying and highlighting mitigation of key project risks,