The Essential Guide to Proposal Development

This book will familiarize you with the SMA proposal process—a process developed over 40 years ago that applies system engineering and program management principles to the development of responses to structured competitions including government procurements and formal commercial solicitations. A note on why we specifically use the phrase proposal development in this book. Successful proposals are designed, engineered and built. The approach and process described in this book are based on systems thinking principles, just like how your firm’s product is designed, engineered and manufactured, or your service offering is designed, configured and provisioned. Proposal management and writing are just several of many aspects of successful bidding and are perhaps the more easily accomplished tasks you will undertake to win. The three parts of this chapter walk you through an…

We now discuss the development of the proposal plan, including development of the outline, allocation of page counts to each topic, and creation of the proposal schedule. The SMA proposal process is a robust approach that can be executed with reliable, predictable outcomes. SMA Proposal Approach: Proposal Planning Once the initial solicitation documents are available, the proposal management team transitions to detailed proposal planning. Typically, this starts with the release of the draft RFP (DRFP). If no DRFP has been released, the capture and proposal team will often develop a strawman RFP based on previous RFPs issued by the customer and tailored using information gained by the business development or sales team. Not only does the strawman RFP help the proposal team get started early to avoid a time crisis…

In this part, we discuss the development of the proposal itself using the proposal tools, including Module Specifications, Story Maps, Annotated Mock-Ups, and Module Drafts. The SMA proposal process is a robust approach that can be executed with reliable, predictable outcomes. SMA Proposal Approach: Proposal Development As described in Part 1B, the DRFP or RFP has been analyzed, and the proposal plan has been established. You now begin development of the proposal submission. The process is designed to focus first on what you need to say, get an agreement on how you are going to say it, and then incrementally design a compliant and effective response. A Structured Process is Used to Generate the Proposal Products You create a compliant, effective proposal using a structured process that stresses preplanning, incremental…

The Module Specification, or Mod Spec, is a useful tool to gather the data you need to prepare your proposal module, such as applicable RFP requirements and win themes. The Story Map provides a rough layout of each of your assigned pages and shows how you will use the page count effectively. The proposal evolves through a series of incremental products. The final product is “grown” and quality is integrated at every step Development of the Module Specification is the First Step in the Series of Incremental Proposal Products As an author who has been assigned to prepare one or more modules of the proposal, your first task is to develop the Module Specification, or Mod Spec, for your assigned module. The Mod Spec enables you to gather the information…

In this chapter, we discuss how to develop proposal graphics that convey the complex information and key messages of the proposal. Note that we define “graphics” as all the proposal content elements that are not text, i.e., figures, photographs, tables, etc. The SMA proposal process is a robust approach that can be executed with reliable, predictable outcomes. The objective is to write art, not illustrate text The Next Step is Designing the Graphics At this stage of the process, a strawman RFP has been created, or the draft RFP or RFP has been released and the writing assignments have been made. You have completed your Mod Spec and Story Map for your module, and you have gone through reviews with management. Now, you are going to design the graphics that…

In this chapter, we explain the development of the Annotated Mock-Up for a proposal section. An Annotated Mock-Up (AMU) is a page-for-page mock-up of the proposal. The AMU includes all the information from the Story Map, builds on the information developed in the Mod Spec, and is maintained daily on the proposal wall. The final product is “grown” and quality is integrated at every step The proposal evolves through a series of incremental products. The proposal evolves through a series of incremental proposal products Annotated Mock-Up (AMU) After you have finished drafting the graphics planned for your proposal module, the next step is to use the Mod Spec, Story Map, and the draft graphics to develop your Annotated Mock-Up, or AMU. Prepared by each author with frequent in-process reviews by…