Foundations of Proposal Management

Classroom Training in Rockville, MD, April 19-20, 2012

The Foundations of Proposal Management course offers comprehensive skills in proposal management. It starts with the Request for Proposal (RFP) requirements analysis and shredding, and proceeds to proposal planning, outlining, developing a proposal schedule, preparing for and conducting a kick-off meeting, guiding the authors in developing proposal section content, running proposal reviews, debriefs, and lessons learned, and more.

This course offers a rich toolbox of the most sophisticated best practices-based techniques and tools for every step of the way.

It is an interactive 2-day workshop that is 40 percent lecture, 50 percent exercises, and 10 percent discussion. It is built around a hands-on proposal development simulation exercise to practice, discuss, and integrate each step of the proposal process.

Why should you attend this course? If you cannot afford to waste another minute or dollar writing yet another losing proposal, and if you would like to spend less time writing while winning more - you are in the right place. In this class you will learn how to:

* Use a solid capture effort to prepare well in advance for a proposal.
* Be selective on what you bid - say "no" to bidding more often than you say "yes".
* Produce a compliant and highly persuasive proposal with compelling text, a visual on nearly every page, good past performance, and price it to win.
* Avoid the mad scramble of learning about the customer and the job when the RFP is already on the street.
* Work only on proposals that you stand a chance of winning.
* Make sure that your proposals are quality documents that sell by using discriminators, win themes, and professional graphics.
* Cope with budget and resources limitations, tough government deadlines, page limits, and compliance requirements.
* Get more sleep since you won't have to write everything yourself or spend so much time rewriting others' work.
* Get your technical subject matter experts (who despise writing) to produce customer-focused, compelling responses.
* Compel everyone to collaborate and cooperate even when they must work on different projects by day, and are in different geographical locations to boot.
* Assure a cohesive message throughout sections even if they are written by multiple authors.
* Start and stay on track throughout the proposal duration, instead of stressing out and losing sleep the closer it gets to the due date.
* Keep your sanity and health intact while winning more.

Without proper training and a toolbox of best practices-based techniques and tools, managing government proposals can be a grueling, thankless task, without much reward. Over the course of two days of instruction, OST will walk you through our no-nonsense six-phase approach for managing winning government proposals. This process has allowed us to win government proposals ranging anywhere between $1 Million and $3 Billion in size, so it is completely scalable. This course will enable you to confidently compete against any government contractor, including the top five.

This course includes: process maps, templates, questionnaires, forms, the exact how-to, and the thought process behind it all to make it both practical and applicable to your business. It is based on:

• More than a decade of studying publicly available leading proposal industry's processes.
• Internal win processes of 7 top government contractors who are among those with the highest win rates.
• OST's own painstakingly collected lessons learned and best practices.
• Innovative approaches borrowed from other industries such as sales and marketing.

Date: April 19-20, 2012 (Thursday - Friday). 8:30am - 5:00pm (continental breakfast and afternoon snack included).
Location: Metro Park North Business Center, 7361 Calhoun Place, Suite 560, Rockville, MD 20855
(check our Visitor Guide for location details, driving directions, nearby hotels and restaurants, and more).
Course completion: By attending this class, you will receive 3 CEUs towards your APMP accreditation, or 3 PDUs towards your PMP. At the end of this course you will get a Certificate of Completion.

How is this course different: Many courses do not cover proposal management in enough depth, or they focus on a labor-intensive process that calls for large teams with plentiful resources. Although these courses give you some level of understanding, they do not distill the process for you down to what works - what steps you can get away without, and what you absolutely must have. They do not prepare you for the day-to-day work in the "trenches" of proposal management, and show you how to face the realities of leading pursuits with limited resources. Also, most courses focus on "why" and "what you have to do", but not on the "how."

Who should attend this course: This course is for proposal managers, volume leads, technical writers, project managers and project personnel, who participate in writing proposals, capture managers looking to expand their professional competencies, business managers and owners, and sales executives. The people who will benefit from this course are:

• Those who are new to proposals, those who come from the commercial proposal world, and those who are just starting to get their arms around government proposal management.
• Those who have written many proposals and have gotten the glorified "OJT" (on-the-job training) but wonder if there is a better way to do their work better, faster, and more efficiently as well as how to win more.
• Those who got training years ago and want to refresh their skills and become proficient in the latest best practices.
• Those who are interested in a repeatable toolset that will enable them to avoid starting each proposal from scratch.
• Those interested in producing higher quality government proposals while using fewer resources. 

Learning objectives: Upon course completion, the participants will have learned and be able to put into practice:

• Understanding where proposal management fits in the business development lifecycle.
• Understanding what it takes to win proposals.
• Understanding process-based approach to proposal management.
• Analyzing Request for Proposal (RFP) requirements.
• Parsing the RFP to create requirements checklists.
• Creating work packages with an annotated outline.
• Developing a proposal schedule.
• Creating a realistic proposal plan.
• Issuing assignments.
• Integrating cost proposal activities with the technical proposal development.
• Preparing for and conducting a productive kickoff meeting.
• Managing a proposal day-to-day.
• Conducting effective Pink and Red Teams, and other types of proposal reviews.
• Producing and delivering a compliant proposal on time.

Course curriculum: Here are some of the topics we will cover in this course.

Day 1 highlights

Module 1: Introduction
- Introductions and learning objectives.
- Introduction to proposal management and overview of the business development process to provide a big-picture perspective.
- Overview of the class project.

 

Module 2: Proposal Process
- Why most proposals don't win and what to do to win - and the most important component that makes it win or lose.
- OST's six-phase proposal process to streamline and organize the proposal development effort.
Discussion: Proposal process observations.

 

Module 3: Requirements Analysis
- How to read government RFPs correctly to understand exactly what the government is looking for.
- How to parse the RFP to develop a checklist for a fully compliant proposal.
Exercise: Analyze and parse the RFP to create a compliance checklist.

 

Module 4: Outlining and Story boards
- How to create compliant proposal outline that helps get the highest score.
- How to create an annotated outline.
- When to use annotated outlines as opposed to story boards.
- How to develop story boards or writers’ work packages that help transition easily from brainstorming to the first draft.
Exercise: Create a work package with an annotated outline.

 

Day 2 highlights

Module 5: Developing a Proposal Plan
- How to create a proposal schedule that will result in an error-free set of proposal documents.
- How to develop a realistic proposal plan.
- How to develop a proposal organization structure with roles and responsibilities.
- Integrating cost proposal activities. How to assign proposal sections.
Exercise: Plan your proposal to develop a realistic proposal schedule.

 

Module 6: Conducting a Productive Kickoff Session
- How to jump-start your proposal the right way by preparing for and reaching nine all-important kick-off goals.
- Preparing Kickoff Materials.
- Planning for the Kickoff.
Exercise: Prepare the draft Kickoff Brief for the practice proposal.

 

Module 7: Managing the Proposal Day-to-Day
- How to manage a proposal team effectively on a daily basis.
- Issuing data calls.
- Tracking proposal section status.
- Managing proposal document workflow and configuration control.
- Challenges of managing a virtual proposal team.
- Resources for getting non-professional writers to produce better proposal sections and graphics.
Discussion: Day-to-day proposal management techniques.

 

Module 7: Conducting Effective Proposal Reviews
- How to run effective proposal reviews.
- Types of proposal reviews.
- Planning for and conducting a Pink Team.
- Planning for and facilitating a Red Team.
- Gold Team standards.
- Other types of reviews that may be helpful to your team.
- Review forms, inputs, and outputs.
- Review recovery effort.
Exercise: Review a proposal section for compliance and content; score the section and prepare recommendations.

 

Module 8: Producing and Delivering the Proposal
- What you need to complete prior to delivery.
- How to determine production requirements.
- How to estimate the binder size and create tabs.
- Proposal cover, spine, and back requirements.
- Communicating and collaborating with the production team.
- How to polish, print, check, and deliver your proposal on time.
- Confirming delivery.
Exercise: Develop a proposal production and delivery plan.

 

Module 9: Summary and Recap.

About the instructor: Olessia Smotrova-Taylor is the President and CEO of OST Global Solutions, Inc. She is a currently practicing capture and proposal manager who has won more than $17 Billion in new business. As one of the proposal industry leaders, she is on the Board of Directors of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals' (APMP) National Capital Area (NCA) chapter and is the editor and chair of the APMP NCA Executive Summary e-zine that won 2010 APMP Communications Award. She regularly presents at the APMP's international and other conferences, roundtables, and proposal boot camps, and runs popular training webinars on business development. She is currently designing and preparing to teach a Masters-level course in proposal development for Stevens Institute of Technology. She has 16 years of experience in proposal and capture management, marketing, and communications. She is a prolific author, speaker, trainer, and blogger, and is well-known in the global proposal community. Her self-study course, Executive Summary Secrets, sells worldwide. Prior to starting her own consulting company, she won business for Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, and wrote for the Financial Times of London.

Seating is limited. Do not delay registering.

Fee and registration: For team discounts please change quantity of attendees at the checkout and click "Recalculate" to get the discount. Register 3 weeks before the class date and receive $100 off per attendee as an EARLYBIRD discount!

• $1390 per one attendee ($1290 if registered 3 weeks before the class date).
• $1250 per attendee when registering a team of 3 or more ($1150 if registered 3 weeks before the class date). Discounts apply at the checkout.

(click on a link below to register):

April 19-20, 2012 class

For additional questions please call 301-384-3350 during normal business hours. If you'd like to pay by invoice please send an email to service@ostglobalsolutions.com (NOTE: the payment must be received prior to the course start date).

Cancellations and rescheduling policy: Cancellation notification must be received 10 business days prior to the training date. Upon notification, your registration fee will be refunded less a $100 non-refundable processing fee. Any cancellations beyond the 10 business days are non-refundable, but the course fee can be applied towards another training course, webinar, or an OST Global Solutions training product. No refunds will be made for the cancellation of a rescheduled course. Attendee substitutions may be made at any time. Payment must be received prior to the course date. No-shows are liable for the full class fee.

P. S. If you think of someone else who could benefit from this course, please forward this invitation to them!