Proposal Development

Most proposals to the United States Government, particularly to the Department of Defense, are structured in a similar manner in response to the government s formal Request for Proposal (RFP). Because of this similarity industry follows a common approach in developing proposals. Different organizations may have their own unique terminology associated with developing proposals, but the basic underlying proposal process is almost always the same. Government RFPs vary in the specific way they provide proposal instructions and evaluation criteria, sometimes creating a challenge to the proposal team in interpreting the RFP. However, once the interpretation is made a standard approach to proposal development can be used. This handbook presents a nominal proposal process that is widely used in industry and explains how to implement this process to produce effective written proposals. The content is organized with a process overview followed by appendices covering specific proposal artifacts and source material. The process overview describes an evolutionary approach to developing proposals with each incremental product building on previous products. Successive increments in this proposal evolution provide an opportunity to review and make corrections and improvements before proceeding with the next increment. Guidance on the content of the incremental proposal products is provided, along with examples of these products, in the appendices. The presentation is meant to be understandable by a proposal novice and, therefore, contains material that is elementary and lessons learned from many years of proposal development. Both the novice and the experienced proposal developer can benefit from using the handbook as a reference and not as a tutorial to be studied end-to-end. The handbook can also be a vehicle for establishing a common language within the proposal development team. Having a common understanding of the proposal process and the intent of each proposal product across the entire proposal team should reduce confusion and miscommunication. The advice given in the book has resulted from the combined 75 years of the authors experience in developing and reviewing proposals for government contractors bidding to the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The concepts covered in the book incorporate industry best practices and have been widely used by the authors to provide direction and training for proposal teams. While briefings have been effective the book was conceived as a self-help device that individuals working proposals can easily access at the appropriate time in the proposal development process, revisiting specific topics to refresh understanding.