DRAFT
How to Develop
Comprehensive and
Compelling Win Themes
Bruce Morton,
APMP Fellow
Differentiation vs. the 10-80-10 model
Differentiation among Contractors
• Contractors strive to differentiate themselves BUT
• Customers just don’t get it - they think we’re all the same
The 10-80-10 Model
Ref.: Roger Baker, Chief Strategy Officer, Agilex (formerly Veterans Affairs CIO)
• Ten percent of contractors are worth fighting to keep because they deliver
results and are focused on making the government customer successful
• Ten percent of contractors you should fight to fire because they just don’t
care about results
• But with 80 percent of the contractors, it doesn’t matter who gets the work
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
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Far Side Cartoon
APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 3
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Repetitive Process Perspective
 Insanity is doing the same thing over & over again, expecting different
results.*
* Source: Albert Einstein
 Hope is NOT a Strategy.*
* Source: Title of Book by Rick Page, 2002
 The idea is to develop an effective and successful process, and
use/replicate it over and over again.*
* Source: Bruce Morton
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The 3 C’s for Win Themes
(Source: Bruce Morton)
 Comprehensive
 Compelling/Convincing
 Compliant
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Win Themes – Typical Issues and Pitfalls
 Generic
 Generic Themes vs. Company/Team Specific Themes
 Generic Themes vs. Opportunity Specific Themes
 Generic Themes vs. Solution Specific Themes
 Comprehensive
 Themes focus on one topic vs. Themes focus on all key topics
 “Our Company” vs. “Our Team”
 Compelling
 “Me Too” vs. “Why Us?”
 “We” vs. “You”  Value Proposition
 Features vs. Benefits
 Proposal: Generic Captions vs. Action Captions
APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 6
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
Generic Themes vs. Company/Team Specific Themes
 Generic Themes
– Bullets that most competitors will claim
– Reused Filler & Boilerplate
 Opportunity Specific Themes
– Unique to your company and/or team
– Specifically created for this opportunity
Litmus Test: Substitute another company’s name in your win
themes and see if anyone realizes the difference
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
11.21.14
2014 Mid-Atlantic Conference & Expo
3
Generic vs. Opportunity Specific Themes - 1
Your Generic Win Theme
Customer Reaction
We read the RFP
You can read! We all learned to in 3rd grade.
We understand what we read
OK. You’re capable of understanding what we wrote. So …?
We agree with the customer mission
That’s nice, but you really have no choice. Would you
actually disagree?
We want to work with you
Well, that’s good I guess
We have a Team
And this benefits me how?
We have a Program Manager
Well, you know you need one!
We have an experienced Program Manager
Is the experience specifically relevant to this program?
We have a Management Process
Anything special or proven about it?
We can do this
Based on what? Any past performance or other evidence?
We have an approach
So what is it, and what successful experience is it based on?
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Generic vs. Opportunity Specific Themes – 2
 Generic Theme
– We have a Team
– We have a Management Process
– We have a Program Manager
– Etc.
 Opportunity Specific Theme: Proposed Program Manager has
successful relevant experience with customer and with industry
– Dr. Andrea Brady will serve as Program Manager, reporting directly to
Ms. Susan Thomas, Operations VP
– Dr. Brady has 17 years experience with NASA, and after joining
industry has successfully managed NASA and other spacecraft
programs of similar size, scope, and complexity, helping to assure
low risk and a high probability of success on the proposed program
11.21.14
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
2014 Mid-Atlantic Conference & Expo
4
Generic vs. Solution Specific Themes - 1
 Generic Theme: Vague references to solution capability without
actually offering a specific approach or solution
 Opportunity Specific Theme: Proposing a specific technical and
management approach (backed up by successful past performance)
Litmus Test: Are you offering a specific approach or solution or just
talking around it?
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
Generic vs. Solution Specific Themes - 2
• Excellent client relationship (with supporting evidence/specific
examples)
• Proven performance on relevant Contract A (for related client
D1)
• Knowledge/insight of data in critical area (political “hot potato”)
via Teammate L
• Proven data retrieval process via Contract B (for related client
D2)
• Providing a COTS solution that is a proven, secure, successful,
low technical risk, low schedule risk, cost effective approach
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Themes focus on one topic vs. Themes focus on all key topics
Develop and list win themes by key topics
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
11.21.14
Technical
Management
Schedule
Transition/Phase-In/Start-up
Best Value
Past Performance
Risk
etc.
 Develop win themes for each topic to help organize thoughts and
avoid skipping tough topics
 Also list Potential/Desirable Win Themes in blue font
 Convert to Win Theme bullets and word-smith on one or more
PowerPoint charts
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
2014 Mid-Atlantic Conference & Expo
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“
“Our Company” vs. “Our Team”
Why Team if you’re a prime?
 Opportunity Specific
– Teammate helps fill out the weaknesses/holes/gaps in the Requirements vs. Capabilities
matrix (meatball chart)
– Teammate is incumbent (prime or sub), brings customer experience, brings customer intimacy,
has a desirable facility location, has a presence at the customer site; and/or etc.
– Teammate is a certified Small Business; Veteran Owned; Service Disabled Veteran Owned,
Woman Owned; HUBZone; and also meets one of the above criteria
 Business & Other Considerations – Examples
– Quid Pro Quo
– We like the company/have worked with them before/they do good work/mentor protégé, etc.
So refer to “Our Team” vs. “Our Company” throughout the proposal
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
11.21.14
2014 Mid-Atlantic 13
Conference & Expo
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“Me Too” vs. “Why Us?” – 1
 Answer the question: “Why Us?” vs. “Me Too”
 Value Proposition: What is the benefit of us from the customer(s)
point of view?
 What is our proposed approach/solution?
– Technical; Management; Schedule; Transition/Phase-in/Startup; Performance; Best Value; Risk; Etc.
 Do our teammates fill out the weaknesses/holes/gaps in our
Requirements vs. Capabilities matrix (meatball chart)?
 What is the compelling evidence that supports that we and our
team can successfully do/perform
– what we say?
– what we say at low or acceptable risk?
11.21.14
2014
Mid-Atlantic
Conference
Bruce
Morton
- 28
May 15& Expo
8
“Me Too” vs. “Why Us?” – 2
The Death Strategy for a re-compete:
“The customer doesn’t like the incumbent so we will win!!!”
 Actually, if this is really true, then one of the competitors will
likely win, but not necessarily you!!!
 Best to assume that the customer does like the incumbent, and
then explain why you should win
 Still need to answer “Why Us’ vs. “Me Too”
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
11.21.14
2014 Mid-Atlantic Conference & Expo
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“We” vs. “You”  Value Proposition
What is the benefit from the customer(s) point of view?
Change perspective from “we” to “you”:
• Poor: We will achieve a significant improvement in customer
satisfaction
• Good: You will see a 30% improvement in customer satisfaction
within 9 months as measured by 3rd party customer surveys
• Poor: We are providing a 3 Terabyte hard disk drive
• Good: You will have the highest capacity COTS hard disk drive
available today
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Features vs. Benefits
 Feature: We are providing a 3 Terabyte hard disk drive
– Implication: Isn’t that great?
– Problem: Leaves it up to the reader to decide significance
 Benefit: You will have the highest capacity hard disk drive available
today: 3 Terabyte
– COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf)
– Meets all requirements
– Cost effective
– Available now: low schedule risk and low technical risk
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
11.21.14
2014 Mid-Atlantic Conference & Expo
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Win Themes: Review Techniques - 1
Source: Bruce Morton
1. Cross Out Bullets
• Put Win Theme bullets on PowerPoint chart
• Cross out all generic strategy bullets
• Cross out all bullets that most competitors will claim
• See what’s left (may not be much)
• Review/discuss and figure out how to mitigate
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Win Themes: Review Techniques - 2
2. Typical Issues & Pitfalls
 Carefully and critically evaluate Win Themes against each
bullet of “Win Themes - Typical Issues & Pitfalls”
 Generic
 Generic Themes vs. Company/Team Specific Themes
 Generic Themes vs. Opportunity Specific Themes
 Generic Themes vs. Solution Specific Themes
 Comprehensive
 Themes focus on one topic vs. Themes focus on all key topics
 “Our Company” vs. “Our Team”
 Compelling
 “Me Too” vs. “Why Us?”
 “We” vs. “You”  Value Proposition
 Features vs. Benefits
 Identify and Mitigate any issues
APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 19
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
Win Themes - Review Techniques - 3
Source: Bruce Morton
3. Create Loss Debriefing
 Create a customer debriefing for the loss
 Use prior loss debriefings as a source (ref. next page)
– Example - Best Value: lost because cost differential (vs. the
winner) was too high
 Identify and Mitigate any issues
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Customer Loss Debriefings - Examples
1. “The Offeror appears to understand the Program, but the lack
of specificity made it difficult to evaluate and fully assess the
viability of their proposed solution.”
2. “The Offeror’s proposed price reflects multiple omissions in
their proposal and a relatively low number of bid labor hours.
The labor mix for Task Orders 03-05 is not realistic (i.e. too
low).”
3. “The Offeror’s proposed price is too high (vs. competitors) to
justify the best value benefits that were proposed”
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Win Themes – Typical Issues and Pitfalls
 Generic
 Generic Themes vs. Company/Team Specific Themes
 Generic Themes vs. Opportunity Specific Themes
 Generic Themes vs. Solution Specific Themes
 Comprehensive
 Themes focus on one topic vs. Themes focus on all key topics
 “Our Company” vs. “Our Team”
 Compelling
 “Me Too” vs. “Why Us?”
 “We” vs. “You”  Value Proposition
 Features vs. Benefits
 Proposal: Generic Captions vs. Action Captions
APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 22
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
Generic Caption vs. Action Caption - 1
 In your proposal, the captions should convey the key
elements of your story independent of the text
– Some customer evaluators are better at reading and
comprehending graphics & captions
– Some customer evaluators are better at reading and
comprehending text
– Customer evaluators can read their assigned proposal
section, then refer back and copy the captions as
justification to support their evaluation score
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Generic Caption vs. Action Caption - 2
Fig. 1-1: Horse
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Generic Caption vs. Action Caption - 3
Fig. 1-2: Horses
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Generic Caption vs. Action Caption - 4
Fig. 1-3: Pie Chart
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Generic Caption vs. Action Caption - 5
 Graphic: Photo of a computer screen showing a bunch of
data formatted as a table
 Generic Caption: “Fig. 7: Screen Shot”
 Specific Caption: “Fig. 7: Program Data displayed in real
time on client’s desktop by our proven, successful, award
winning PMMT (Program Management Monitoring Tool),
which has been successfully implemented on multiple
programs and is also proposed for use on the proposed
XYZ program”
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Generic Caption vs. Action Caption - 6
Generic Caption:
Action Caption:
Figure 2: State’s Cloud Computing Environment
Figure 2A: “As-Is” State
Figure 2B: “To-Be” State
We plan to use the same proven Cloud Computing Environment methodology
that we successfully used on the similar and highly complex XYZ Program to
transform from the “As Is” to the “To Be” state
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Bruce Morton - 23 Oct.14
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Thank You
Presenter Name
Title
Organization
Phone
Email
APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 29
Bruce Morton,
APMP Fellow
President
2 Oceans Consulting
(703) 405-3103
[email protected]
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15
Questions
APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 30
Bruce Morton - 28 May 15