The In-House Assessment

To engage in continuous improvement, you need to make a conscious, consistent effort to gather information about how effectively each proposal succeeds in achieving its purpose. Keeping track of the "lessons learned" from each project will help all team members deliver more value, communicate more persuasively, and enhance your contributions to your company. Unfortunately, the "lessons learned" are often ignored, meaning we continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over.

At the conclusion of each proposal project, after a suitable period of rest and healing for the proposal team, conduct an internal review for about an hour. The main goal is to review the process and the deliverable to find out how you can do a better job next time.

Here's a checklist for conducting a lessons learned session:

The Proposal Document

1. Does the proposal (or other persuasive message) look attractive and professional?

2. Does it reflect the image we want our company to convey to clients?

3. Does the proposal present a clear, consistent, and integrated message? Does that message appear throughout the document?

4. Is the total proposal organized persuasively? Is the executive summary focused on the client's key issues and outcomes?

5. Does this proposal clearly differentiate us from the competition? Have we made the value of that differentiation obvious?

6. Are our win themes presented clearly and emphatically? Are they substantiated with specific details and proof?

7. Is it easy to read? Is the writing style consistent throughout? Does it use graphics effectively?

8. Does it conform to the RFP requirements for format?

The Proposal Process

1. How well positioned was our company before the RFP was released? What kind of relationship was already established with the customer? Who owned that relationship?

2. Were we able to influence the RFP in any way before its release?

3. Was the proposal team brought in at the outset or did the opportunity lie on someone's desk for a while? Was the development schedule realistic?

4. Did we have an accurate idea of who the competitors would be? Did we analyze the competitors to develop the most effective win themes? If not, why not?

5. Did we spend time to define our strategy for winning at the outset? If not, why not?

6. Were key win themes identified before writing began? Were all contributors made aware of them? If not, why not?

7. Was a red team review conducted? If not, why not?

8. Did the red team cite any major deficiencies? Were they resolved before the proposal was submitted?

9. Were there any bottlenecks in the proposal development process? If so, who or what were they? How could they be resolved or avoided in the future?

10. Did the team work well together? If not, why not? How can it be improved in the future?

11. How effective was the communication between the proposal team and senior management? Was senior management involved at the outset or only at the end?

12. Did any unexpected problems arise during the proposal development process? If so, what were they and how did we resolve them?

13. Was any new content developed for this proposal? If so, has it been stored for future use?

14. What worked well? What didn't work so well in the overall process? What can be done to improve our proposal process in the future?