Obtaining Senior Management Buy- in

As I was teaching our IDIQs and Task Orders course on Monday, we were reviewing the best practices for a quick and efficient proposal development process. One practice was conducting a proper kickoff meeting. After attending many proposal kickoffs (some of which included a proper breakfast and a long PowerPoint), and then watching a proposal unravel, I have figured out what needs to happen in order to prevent a disaster. I distilled the information that needs to be shared with the proposal team into nine kickoff goals. It doesn’t matter what the size of the team is and what the length of a proposal is, you have to address all the goals – or there will be problems, guaranteed.

One of these goals is obtaining a management buy-in. First, make sure that you and your teammates’ senior management is present at the kickoff. Since management usually grapples with a busy schedule, the portions of your kickoff content that you want them to hear the most should be put in the beginning of your brief, and addressed in a discreet chunk of time, with management in attendance, so they can leave afterwards. You especially need to win their support for your:

Plan for conducting your proposal (how have you tailored the proposal process to fit your opportunity and the resources you have available),
Win strategy, and
Level of confidence in your ability to pull it off with the resources you have at hand – or any resource-needed requests if you don’t think you can do it with what you’ve got.

The kickoff is the time to express confidence in your team’s ability to win, and to get everyone excited and ready for the “fight.” But, do not sound overconfident – so that you inspire complacency in your team, and don’t commit career suicide with the senior management, in case you make it seem like a slam dunk. This may prevent you from getting the resources and support needed if you run into trouble around mid-proposal stage, and will definitely backfire if you don’t win.

If you would like to find out more about conducting kickoffs or masterful proposal management? We have courses coming up just for you:

Foundations of Proposal Management Seminar on February 2-3, 2012 in Rockville, MD.
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.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS AND SEMINARS

Jan. 31 - Feb. 1, 2012 Tuesday - Wednesday, 8.30am - 5.00pm (EST, -5 GMT), 2-day course	Foundations of Capture Management This class will arm you with real knowledge and tools you can apply immediately to capturing contracts. We will cover master techniques for customer engagement, intelligence gathering, win strategy development, competitive analysis, teaming, solution development, and more. This is an interactive 2-day workshop that is 40 percent lecture, 50 percent exercises, and 10 percent discussion. It will teach you real skills to raise win probability on the government contracts you pursue.
Feb. 2-3, 2012 Thursday - Friday, 8.30am - 5.00pm (EST, -5 GMT), 2-day course	Foundations of Proposal Management This course offers a rich toolbox of the most sophisticated best practices-based techniques and tools for every step of the proposal management process. 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.
Feb. 6-7, 2012 Monday - Tuesday, 8.30am - 5.00pm (EST, -5 GMT), 2-day course	Proposal Speed-Writing and Persuasion This unique course shows how to develop compliant and highly persuasive proposal sections in at least half the time that it would normally take. It covers detailed methods for outlining within the sections, developing section content, infusing proper structure and flow, and implementing correct writing processes and section planning techniques. But this course goes beyond mere compliance - it shows you how to write tighter, sharper proposals that will win.
Feb. 8, 2012 Wednesday, 8.30am - 5.00pm (EST, -5 GMT), 1-day workshop	Win Themes Development Workshop This workshop offers valuable skills in win theme development as the most important element of proposal persuasion. The course walks you through the purpose of win themes and their building blocks. Then, it advances the learning beyond the mere mechanics to the inner core of win themes. It shows how to design win themes that deeply touch the customers exactly where and how it is necessary, in order to become memorable and influence them to select your company. It demonstrates how win themes morph into win strategies, and helps increase win probability.
Feb. 9, 2012 Thursday, 8.30am - 5.00pm (EST, -5 GMT), 1-day workshop	Executive Summary Workshop This workshop shows how to write one of the most critical proposal elements: a highly persuasive executive summary. The course starts with the common executive summary mistakes, and shows how to avoid them. It then walks the participants through when and how to develop executive summaries, who should develop them (and various management strategies for making it happen), optimum length, and other vital considerations. It provides the six-part formula for executive summaries based on direct response, a marketing-related persuasion technique that fuels a trillion-dollar consumer market.
Mar. 15-16, 2012 Thursday - Friday, 8.30am - 5.00pm (EST, -5 GMT), 2-day course	Advanced Capture Management This course takes capture management to the next level - maximizing win probability; masterminding the most effective win strategy using cutting edge techniques; masterfully facilitating brainstorming sessions such as Black Hats, Win Strategy Sessions, and CONOPS workshops; performing advanced competitive analysis; creating advantageous teaming arrangements; applying formulas to solution development; and much more. The course also focuses on measuring and improving cost-efficiency and effectiveness of the capture team.

P.S.: As always – if you need business development, capture, and proposal support, contact us at 301-384-3350 or at service @ostglobalsolutions .com.

Tags: IDIQs, capture, government, management, proposal, proposals, training