Chet’s Blog

It was a beautiful day in Key West.  Perhaps those terms are redundant.  My wife and I were staying at great hotel at the head of Duval Street near Mallory Square.  Years ago I had attended Sonar School at the now defunct Navy base.  I had gotten off of a long proposal development program a few weeks ago and we decided to take a short vacation.  It turned out to be a great time of year to be there.  Right after Easter – the tourists had all packed up and headed north.  I think it was our second morning there.  We were preparing to take the Conch train around the island – a nice easy way to travel and see the sites.  The phone rang.  It rang loud.  It was my customer from the last job.  Over one hundred Clarification and Deficiency Reports had been entered onto the contracts web site the night before.  We had five days to turn around the responses.  This guy was panicing, and since I didn’t want to let him down I told him I’d fly up that night.  Then I had to tell my wife the bad news and then I had to call Frank.  I think he was trying to lose a little money in Reno at the time.  The point is when you’re helping a client win a large program the work doesn’t stop with the delivery of the proposal.

INTRODUCTION – PREPARING FOR THE FOLLOW-UP

A few weeks after you’ve submitted your proposal, the government will dutifully reply to it with a number of Items for Negotiation (IFN) or Clarification Reports (CRs), Deficiency Reports (DRs) and Evaluation Notices (ENs).  Depending on the size of the proposal you can pretty much count on one question per every two pages submitted.  Some of the IFNs will merely address weaknesses while others will be labeled as “deficiencies.

As waves of questions come in you’ll probably only get three or four days (not only business days) to respond to each wave.  Since some of your responses will require change pages to your proposal volumes you’ll need a reliable process to meet the tight turn around schedule.  It will take a process and organization of resources to ensure that these schedules are met.  This may require some logistical planning if your team has dispersed to other locations after the proposal process.

The method for tracking and responding to these reports requires both wall tracking (for visibility) and an electronic filing system with hierarchies of visibility.

THE WALL
Hang each of the questions separately up on the wall in your war room using the government’s  numbering order.   Some may want to rearrange them to specific volume sections and paragraphs.  This may at first seem a logical way to approach the responses since it makes it easier for the proposal team to identify responsibility in groups.  It will be easier for proposal management not to regroup them in this manner because you’ll always have to status them using the government’s numbers.  You’ll also want to be able to quickly find a particular number on the wall as other conflicting reports arise.

Once they are on the wall you’ll want to have a listing like your master outline which gives you a column for number, title, assigned writer, draft due date, reviewed by and final sign-off.  Using this simple scheme you can go through several iterations and reviews working towards a final sign-off.

TIPS & TRICKS
As you prepare to create a response for an IFN always remember the golden rule, “Answer the Question.”  Good engineers will often try to fill in the response blank with all of their back up information and explanations before actually directly answering the question.  Put the answer first so that the reviewer can determine if they agree.  Then they will read your substantiating data.

REVIEWING THE WALL
Once all of the IFNs are displayed and responses start coming in, you’ll need a method for alerting the reviewers that a response is hung.  You won’t want to make them search for the responses because they just will not have that kind of time.  I suggest using colored dots (about ¾ inch) that can be purchased in any office supply store.

By using the dots to alert a response, a reviewed response and an updated response you can reduce the numbers of copies you make of your work.  Multiple copies on different colored paper can become cumbersome and printer dependent.  Always hang the response over a copy of the original question so that reviewers can read the source data.

You should have an executive committee for the final sign-off before responses are sent back to the customer.

USE AN ELECTRONIC LOG
All CR/DR responses are entered into an electronic log.  This log contains the following columns: CR/DR Number; Description/Category; Owner; Author; and Review Mail boxes.   These columns describe:

CR/DR Number:  the exact number the Government used to avoid confusion with other seemingly more straight forward sequence numbers employed by the bidder.  You will always have to go back to and refer to the Government number.

Description/Category: Simple abbreviation of subject matter at highest level.
Owner:  There may be several authors working paragraphs on a particular page, but there should only be one owner for that page, someone to ensure that all of the most recent changes are finished.

Author: Individual who will write the CR/DR response and markup their part of the change page and then turn it into the owner.  Could be the same person.

Review Mailboxes:  There are four columns.  Each will be dated per a transaction between the author, the reviewer and Production.  The sequence works like this:  One, The author posts a note in the Review Mailbox that says that Number xx & xxx are ready for review.  The reviewer looks up these CRs/DRs in the CR/DR database, reviews the responses and posts a note back to the Author’s Mail Box.  This note will either say that the response needs the following changes before it is approved or it will have an OK attached to it.  A date will be made for this transaction either under the Reviewer to Author Mail Box or under the “Approved” Mail Box. Once the author receives an OK, they must complete an electronic change page or a red lined hardcopy change page and then post the finished response to the Production Mailbox.

Since these transactions are done in mailboxes, the flow can be tracked by both the proposal manager and the production manager giving high visibility to the work flow.

CR/DRs Thumbnail Process
1- Create an electronic log (copy of HPC file) by Government log number.  Create folders for draft responses and a set of folders for final approved responses.  Don’t give the team write privileges to the latter set of folders.  Production will be able to use the finals for edit and electronic submittals.

2- Have copies made of the questions.  Retain one in log book held by Deputy Program Manager.

3- Volume assignments should be made by the Proposal Manager.  Have a column for supporting personnel.

6- Volume Leaders will review responses electronically.

7- After reviewing the draft response, Volume Leaders will hold one-on-one critiques with the writers.  They will offer written comments and recommendations to the writers and a second draft turn around time will be agreed to before the end of the one-on-one review.

8- Updated responses will be hung on the wall beneath a copy of the Government Question.  Responses will be separated by volume and tab to facilitate continuity of responses.

9- The Program Manager, Technical Director, Deputy Program Manager and writers will review the wall.  Responses that receive criticisms will be rewritten and returned to the wall.  Once this cycle has produced an agreed upon write-up, the response will be signed off and entered into the “final” set of folders on the team drive for  production.

10 – Change pages are produced and printed

11 – An annotated list is developed for all changes and revisions per volume.

CHANGE PAGES
As responses are developed for the questions the need for change pages will unfold.  Ensure that there is a column on your status tracking sheet to account for this need.  Change pages should be copies of the actual page red marked by the author.  Do not give write privileges to the proposal team or you will lose configuration of the submitted proposal.
Change pages should be prepared on colored paper.  As more waves of IFNs come in different colors can be used to differentiate one change set from the next.

ELECTRONIC SUBMITTAL
Often DOD commands will request that you use their software for submitting your IFN responses.  CECOM has been using something they call ASSIST.  All of these programs take getting used to.  Some won’t allow tables and figures in the response field.  In this case you will have to edit the package so that these items can be made into attachments to the response file.  Other quirks include certain key strokes eliminating text.  So, it’s always a good idea to run a few test submittals in advance of your final delivery.

CREATING A FILE SYSTEM TO REDUCE CONFUSION
There will always be confusion, since few people stop to actually read the procedures that the Proposal Manager published by email.  When creating file systems for your incoming IFNs, be sure to determine a low enough level of folders to make your responses easy to find and track.  Otherwise, don’t create a single folder for 250 IFNs.  Because if you do every time you go to the well to change one, you’ll have to go all the way to the bottom just to find the one you want.  This can work by breaking folders into groups, such as Technical Group A, B and C.

BAFO PREPARADNESS
Your Best and Final Offer (BAFO) will be in response to a final set of amendments to the RFP.  You’ll probably have a week to ten days to make the revisions to your responses and to include your change pages from the questioning process into newly revised volumes.  You will also have to rerun your cost rollups and perhaps, if it’s required, you’ll have to update your total ownership cost (TOC).  So, you’ll need your full team and all of your production resources to bring to bear during this final knockout punch to your competition.

SUMMARY

Expect follow up from the client after you submit your proposal.  The solicitation board will try to level off all of the players so that the final judgment can be made on cost alone.  That’s right: even though Section M may list technical and management as higher in evaluation points than cost, once these two lead evaluation areas are leveled, cost is all that is left.  So have an in-place process to handle the incoming.  Keep in touch with your core team and make sure that they are available on a moments notice.  If you do, you’ll make it though to the end and victory.

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