Steve Hennessy – Hennessy Defense
ARE YOU KIDDING
ME…THAT WAS A
PROPOSAL KICK-OFF
MEETING?
Agenda
• Why hold a comprehensive killer Proposal Kick-Off
Meeting
• When should you have the Kick-Off Meeting
• Who should run the Kick-Off Meeting and Who should
be invited
• What are the contents of a great Kick-Off Meeting
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Survey
• How many of you are involved in large, complex, time
limited proposals?
• How many have been responsible for a Proposal Kick-Off
Meeting?
• How many have attended a Kick-Off Meeting?
• How many have attended a Killer Kick-Off meeting where
every question has been answered?
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High Performing Teams*
1.
Trust - solid and deep trust in each other and in the team’s
purpose —free to express feelings
2.
Goals - Everybody is working toward the same goals
3.
Work Together - clear on how to work together and accomplish
tasks
4.
Expectations - Everyone understands both team and individual performance goals and expectations
5.
Tension - Team members actively diffuse tension and friction in a relaxed and informal atmosphere
6.
Contribution - Team engages in extensive discussion, and everyone gets a chance to contribute
7.
Conflict - Disagreement is viewed as a good thing and conflicts are managed. Criticism is constructive
8.
Decisions - The team makes decisions when there is natural agreement — in the cases where agreement is
elusive, a decision is made by the team lead or executive sponsor, after which little second-guessing occurs.
9.
Responsibility - Each team member carries his or her own weight and respects the team processes
10. Leadership - The leadership of the team shifts from time to time, as appropriate, to drive results.
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* Excerpted from The Collaboration Imperative by Ron Ricci and Carl Wiese.
Published by Cisco Systems.
The Nature of a Proposal
•
Brings together diverse group that needs to become
a High Performing cohesive team within days
•
A submission deadline cannot be missed
•
The environment can be highly stressful
•
Content spans a variety of functional groups that must pull a cohesive story
together – Engineering, Management, Manufacturing, Logistics, Cost,
Performance on Current Jobs, etc
•
Innovation is critical to winning
•
You are competing against another team – not another company
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Why Hold a Killer Kick-Off
•
Initializes the 10 characteristics of a High Performing Team
•
Firmly establishes the baseline for every aspect of the proposal with as
little ambiguity as possible
•
Provides all team members with the bigger picture of what must be
accomplished….they see how their part fits into the whole offering
•
Forces the Capture Manager and the Proposal Manager to have their
act together before the team fires off in all directions
•
Provides understanding of why due dates are not arbitrary
•
Reduces B&P Costs – minimizes wasted time
•
Creates a unified team mission – WINNING!!!!
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Failure Modes and Effects*
1. Talker Domination
1. No contribution from the team – no
collaborative solutions made
2. Stifling Subordinates
2. Subordinates brains stifled – ideas not
generated
3. Wrong Priority
3. Kick-off rushed before ready – wasted
efforts, rewrites, weeks in recovery
4. No Team Consensus
3. Writers turn to boilerplate material – Exec’s
return to offices, details not identified
5. Deferred Decisions
3. Ideas not generated using collective
wisdom – missed deadlines – rushed efforts
6. Rudderless Teams
3. Weak proposals without the details and
quantitative solutions required to win
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* Excerpted from Kick-Off Meeting Guide by Carl Selfe
Background – The Capture Battle Plan
Customer
Customer Specifics / Rank Influence / Source Selection Role / History
with you / Customer Management Plan
Most Imp Requirements (MIRS)
Underlying issues / Not just price of admission / Rank Order / Beyond
the Spec/ His Buying Problem / His point of view
Our Solution
Detailed and Specific / Tech-Mgmt-Small Bus-Price / Win-Lose Factors
/ Why are we the Team they want to work with
Competition
Honest assessment / They are taking actions to win and want it as
much as you do / From customer viewpoint
“Critical” Actions
Focus on critical actions that move the Pw needle / Specific and
hard hitting / Mini-Program Plan for each
Win Strategy and Win Themes
How you will win / Key Discriminators / Allocate to all Sections of
the Proposal / Features only we can offer
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When to Hold the Kick-Off Meeting
ID
Phase
Qual
Phase
APBI / Recompete
Typical
Timelines
Sources Sought / RFI
Full & Open
IDIQ Task Order
• 3 Year Strategic
Plan
• Annual Pipeline
Plan
• Annual R&D Plan
• Annual B&P Plan
• Strategic Partners
• Early Teaming
• Long Term
Customer
Relations
• BD / Capture
Training
S1, S2, S3 Annual
Strategic Plan
Capture Phase
• Opportunity Qual
• RFI Response
• RFP Influencing
• Incumbent
Program
Assessment
• Product
Development
• Studies / Analysis
• Qtrly Pipeline
Reviews (cut-line)
Gate 1 – Pursue /
No-Pursue
Draft RFP
Proposal Phase
Final RFP
6 – 24 Mo
4 – 12 Mo
Gate 3 - Proposal
Kick-Off
Gate 2 – Bid /
No-Bid
Blue Team #1
Win Strategy
Black Hat
Competitive
Blue Team #2+
Win Strategy
4 - 12 Mo
1 – 6 Mo
• Proposal Prep Second Round
• Annotated Outline – with rqmnts, pg counts, author,
themes, discriminators
• Story Boards – section themes, features / benefits /
proof, references, primary content and graphica
• Section Drafts - primary text, fully developed
graphics, +/- 10% of pg count,
• Section Finals – all text, fully reviewed graphics,
within page count, formatted by pubs
• Final Pricing
• Management Reviews
• Final Product Pre-Testing
• Final Pubs, Copying, Delivery
White Team
Annotated Outline
Start-Up
/Trans
Submission
30-60 Days
7-30 Days
• Customer Identification – Source Selection
Team, SSA, SSEB
• Customer Most Important Requirements
Analysis (MIRS) - Ranked
• Solution Development - detailed for all rqmts
including Tech, Mgmt, Price, IMS, Sm Bus, etc
• Win / Lose Factors
• Competitive Assessment
• Win Strategy
• Key Strategic Actions
• Price-to-Win
• Teaming
• RFP Shaping
Post –
Proposal
Pink Team
Storyboards
Red Team Gold Team
Final
On-Screen
Or… if No Draft RFP then right
after Final RFP
• Pre-Award Activities
• Recruiting
• Final Teaming
• Orals
• Product Testing
Award
30 - 240 Days
30 - 90 Days
• Celebration
• Debrief
• Internal Team KickOff Meeting
• Customer Start-Up
Review
• Integrated Baseline
Review (IBR)
• Transition – Mgmt
Team, Re-badging,
Inventory, etc
• Lessons Learned
Internal
Kick-Off
IBR
How Long is a Kick-Off Meeting
• As Long as it takes……
• Very Large, Prime Gov’t with Multiple Volumes, $500M+
– 1 - 2 Days is not too long
• Large, Prime Gov’t with 100 pages or less, ~$50M - $500M
– 5-6 Hrs possibly
• Medium to Small with 50 pages or less, $20M - $50M
– 3-4 Hrs… ish
• Small with 30 pages or less, single volume
– 2-3 Hrs – don’t short change
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Who should run and Who should attend
•
The Capture Manager and the Proposal Manager
•
All Writers
•
All SME’s that will feed the writers
•
Proposal Coordinator, Graphics, and Pubs
•
Cost Roll Up Team (finance, materials, etc)
•
Executive Leadership – approvers and Color Team
reviewers
•
Functional Managers who oversee the inputs for their area
•
ALL KEY SUBCONTRACTORS – all players who will
contribute
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The Diamond Team
On-Line or In Person Meeting?
I’ll Let you be the Judge…..
Play Video – “The Conference Call”
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What are the Contents
1. Customer Summary
9. RFP Detailed Breakdown
2. Most Important Requirements (MIRS)
10. Team with rolls and contact info
3. Summary of our Solution – technical,
mgmt, logistics, price, past perf, etc
11. Prop Schedule – detailed
4. Competitive Analysis Summary
13. Annotated Outline – very detailed
5. Strategic Actions Taken to Date
6. Win Strategy – Discriminators
14. Storyboard Template, AMU Template,
and Writing Template
7. Price to Win (PTW)
15. WBS – with Dictionary – BOE Template
8. Teaming – summary of TA’s
16. Notional high level program IMS
12. Sharepoint File Structure
17. Allocated Cost Targets each function
Capture Plan
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Proposal Plan
Customer Summary
•
100% Focus on who will be reviewing
your proposal – SSA, SSAC, SSEB Team
•
Customer Org Chart with Notes
•
Customer List – ranked in order of
decision making authority
Discuss:
•
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–
What they like and don’t like
–
How will they know us
–
Who they would pick if no proposal was
submitted
–
Do we do work for them today
SSASelects
SSAC- Compares
Proposals
•Rqmts Orgs
•Users
•Functional
SSEB- Evaluates Proposals
SSEB Chair
Contracts
Tech Team
Eval Tech Merit
and Proposal Risk
Legal
Past Perform
Team
Cost
Team
Most Important Requirements (MIRS)
•
“The Customer” demand of the procurement… the
prime motivators for selection
•
Relationship of emotional and logical requirements
•
“What is the customer’s Buying Problem” – not always
in RFP
•
Each has an underlying driving issue(s)
•
MIRs are what is most important to the Customer, not
what you think
•
Ranking them drives prioritization
•
MIRs are a synthesis of all the customers desires
weighted by the most important decision makers
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Ranked List of MIRS
Competitive Summary
Relative Scoring against the MIRS and then against Eval Criteria (Section M)
Against MIRS
Against Eval Criteria
MIR
Vs. Competitor
#1
Vs. Competitor
#2
Rationale/
Comment
1
0
-
~~~
2
++
+
~~~
3
0
+
~~~~~
4
--
0
~~
5
-
-
~~~~
Legend (our eval against them)
++
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Significant Strength
+
Strength
0
Tie
-
Weakness
--
Significant Weakness
Price to Win
PTW is a Range – It is Constantly Updated – It is Owned by the Capture Team
Baseline Assumptions
Team Recco Cost/Price Reduction
Ideas
Reduction Ideas that need Mgmt
Approval
Reduction Ideas that push limits –
Needs Exec Mgmt approval
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Teaming
A Better Teaming Matrix for improved decision making
Score Potential Teammates
Against Specific Prog Reqmnts
Teammates Traditionally Listed
with “X” Against the SOW
Better
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Annotated Outline (#1 Failure Item)
Section #s Collapsable
Author for Every Section to Level 10 if required
Got to Level 10 if that is
how it must be organized
Put in your own words
what goes in this section
Page Count – Leadership
Team Decides Up Front
Add Critical Spec / SOW,
and CDRL Para Ref
Colorize the Levels –
Level 1&2 – Fill in color
Status at Various Stages
– simple color coding
All Sect L, Sect M Para
Ref (Just Para Ref)
Win Themes – Allocated
to lowest level
Cover all Volumes – All
Detail
Don’t Forget All
Attachments
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Storyboards – Its About the Graphics
RFP Reqmnts
Graphics
Other Reqmnts
Feature/Benefit/Proof
MIRS/Sol/Comp
Theme Sentence
• Its about developing the graphic first
• Its about developing the graphic first
• Its about developing the graphic first
• Then put Features, Benefits, Proof
around the graphic
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High Level Graphical Schedule
Key Gov’t Milestones – should be
defined by the RFP
Insert Key prog milestones notional at Kick-Off
Big Picture Engineering Tasks or
primary work scope
Include Production, Logistics or
whatever applicable
Add Notes and Call Outs for key takeaways
Conclusion
• Hold a Killer Kick-Off – Just Do It
• Be Prepared – Make it Content Rich – Its Your Job
• Don’t Rush It – Good Things Take Time
• Make it Mandatory – This is Serious Business
• Get Exec Leadership Involved – Eliminate Rework
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QUESTIONS ???
Steve Hennessy
Hennessy Defense
[email protected]
321-704-0262
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