After,Award,Debrief,Tool,for,W business, insurance After Award Debrief as a Tool for Winning Proposals

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You submitted your proposal, and then waited anxiously tohear whether you won or lost. You had your hopes up, and maybe got exactly whatyou were wishing for: the contract is awarded to your company. You havemillions of things to take care of since you now need to start up the program.You may not even have enough time to plan your win party because you are sobusy. Or, maybe you have lost and are thoroughly disappointed. After all, youhave given it your best, spent scarce resources and sleepless nights, andwitnessed heroic efforts from your entire team putting the proposal together.Whether you won or lost, however, you cannot consider your proposal effortcomplete until you have asked the government for a debrief. You are bound to wina lot more proposals if you consider lessons learned after each pursuit toimprove your proposal management process, your knowledge of your customers, andyour offers.So, what is a debrief? The government is required byFAR 15.506 to provide official feedback on your proposal to your company, ifyou make a request within three days of the notification. During the debrief,the government contracting officer, with support from other evaluators,discusses strengths and weaknesses in your proposal, provides the overallevaluated price and technical rating of the winner, offers summary rationalefor award, and provides “reasonable” responses to “relevant” questions.It makes sense that a debrief after a loss is a way tounderstand what you missed and what you could have done better, but it may seemredundant to ask for a debrief when you won. Obviously, they loved yourproposal and chose you, so what more could you ask for? Besides getting areassurance that you got things right, there are a couple of important reasonsyou should ask for a debrief. One reason is that you may be surprised as to what the government thought was the most compelling part of your offer. What swayed them to your side may not have been what you thought was the most important part. Now that you have a vested interest in keeping them happy not just as your evaluator but as your full-fledged client, this information is vitally important to make sure that your company meets and exceeds client expectations. You also need to share this information with your business development team to replicate the successful techniques in your next proposal to this customer. Another reason is that even winning proposals have weaknesses, and you’d better know about yours. If this is an open competition contract, you are never secure from a scorned, losing competitor finding a legitimate reason to protest and get the proposal re-competed. Since it is a normal practice for a losing competitor to get a debrief, they are guaranteed to get information on their proposal weaknesses, and would then have a chance to make informed changes in the next go-round. If, simultaneously, you fail to get a debrief because you were a winner, and assume that all you need to do is resubmit your old proposal with minor tweaks because it has already won, think again. It is not totally unheard of to lose in the second go-around. Proposals are not read, they are scored. Even if yours got the higher score and won, you may still have had some weaknesses, or some areas that were rated “good” but not “outstanding”. Your competitors will have corrected weaknesses in each section to get the highest score. You will have made no changes because you didn’t know that some of your sections may have gotten an average score. Think how frustrating and unfair it would be to lose what you had won.If you have lost, request a debrief immediately, nomatter how uncomfortable it may seem. It may feel like going willinglyto a session where the government gets to add an insult to an injury. Debriefsare often tense and formal, and not particularly forthcoming with informationbecause many government employees have concerns of their own. First, there maybe a simple human aspect of not fancying being the “bad guys” because manyunderstand that it takes money, sweat, and blood to prepare a proposal – so thenatural tendency is to keep the encounter as short as possible. Second, thegovernment always worries about your launching a protest based on what youlearn in the debrief, so they have to watch their every word. Protests are anoverwhelming concern because of the resulting project delays, endless paperworkto investigate and adjudicate, and possible questioning from the Hill.In order to make the best of your debrief, you need toassuage the government’s concerns of your launching a protest. You also can putpeople at ease by not acting on the natural temptation to express sour feelingsor act defensive. You need to put yourself and your colleagues in a right frameof mind to think of the event as an important milestone in a long-termrelationship. Your attitude going in should be forward-looking, with sincerecuriosity and good sportsmanship. You’ve hit a snag and would like thegovernment to provide some insight into how you could better meet theirexpectations in the future. Tell the government that while you lost a proposalthis time, you have full intention of continuing to work with them and youvalue your relationship. Phrase your questions to be entirely focused onlessons learned and constructive resolution. Smile, look the governmentstraight in the eye, hold your head up high, and take detailed notes.At the same time, do not let the government get away withglittering generalities that you do not understand or that they fail to fullyexplain. Prepare specific questions on the features of your offer to verifywhether your assumptions were correct, and if and why the government liked ordisliked each key feature of your offer. Draw information out of themconcerning what they think would get the specific sections scored higher; whatwould be the ideal offer that you could provide, even if it is unrealistic;what benefits they would like to see that weren’t obvious; and how you couldimprove your writing, graphics, and features. You should leave the meeting witha clear understanding of what you need to do to be more competitive in yournext solicitation.In summary, requesting a debrief after you have won or losta bid is a proposal management best practice. Come to the debriefwell-prepared, having reread the proposal, and bring a copy with you for quickreference. Take detailed notes to share with your colleagues and management,and conduct a formal lessons learned session shortly thereafter. You will besurprised how much your win rate goes up.