2. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 2 Performing a Proposal Premortem MARINA GOREN, PRESIDENT/CEO OF SMART BD CONSULTING, INC.

3. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 3 Introductions  Proposal industry thought leader, active APMP member  Presenter at the last APMP Conference in Chicago, in May of 2014  Taught many Capture/Proposal Courses  President & CEO of Smart BD Consulting, Inc. – BD/Capture/Proposal Development firm in MD/DC/VA area  Extensive BD, Capture and Proposal experience with a background at IBM, Raytheon, ASRC, SRA International and numerous other companies  Directly responsible for capture of over $4.5B in new business over the course of last eight years  Was instrumental in growing a company (ASRC Primus) from 2 FTEs to over 1,500 FTEs and over $60M in annual revenues over the course of 5 years

4. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 4 What is a Project Premortem? Applying This Idea to Proposals Conducting a Proposal Premortem (4 Steps) How is This Approach Different From Brainstorming? Some Reasons of Why Proposals Lose and How Can We Increase Our Chances of Winning? Group Exercise Group Discussion Questions? Agenda

5. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 5 What is a “Project Premortem”?

6. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 6 What is a “Project Premortem”? “A premortem is the hypothetical opposite of a postmortem. A postmortem in a medical setting allows health professionals and the family to learn what caused a patient’s death. Everyone benefits except, of course, the patient. A premortem in a business setting comes at the beginning of a project rather than the end, so that the project can be improved rather than autopsied. Unlike a typical critiquing session, in which project team members are asked what might go wrong, the premortem operates on the assumption that the “patient” has died, and so asks what did go wrong. The team members’ task is to generate plausible reasons for the project’s failure.” – Gary Klein, Harvard Business Review

7. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 7 Historical Background Information  Research conducted in 1989 by Deborah J. Mitchell, of the Wharton School; Jay Russo, of Cornell; and Nancy Pennington, of the University of Colorado, found that prospective hindsight—imagining that an event has already occurred— increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%.  Gary Klein outlines a process to conduct a project premortem in his article “Performing a Project Premortem” in Harvard Business Review.  According to Wikipedia: “A premortem — is a managerial strategy in which a manager imagines that a project or organization has failed, and then works backward to determine what potentially could lead to the failure of the project or organization. … Management can then analyze the magnitude and likelihood of each threat, and take preventative actions to protect the project or organization from suffering an untimely "death".

8. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 8 Applying This Idea to Proposals  People are usually unwilling to confront the failures  We always believe that our Team is the Winning Team  Yet more proposals lose than win  We often do a “postmortem” – after the debrief, but then it’s too late to fix anything  Premortem allows us to create a plan for circumnavigating the challenges

9. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 9 Conducting a “Proposal Premortem” Step 1 Imagine a Loss Step 2 Generate Reasons for the Loss Step 3 Consolidate the Reasons Step 4 Develop an Actionable Plan

10. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 10 Step 1: Imagine a Loss  Convene all of the right stakeholders: everyone with a significant Capture or Proposal role on the bid should be invited  Set aside a 3-4 hour time period  Appoint the right facilitator  Brief the team that they lost the bid  Ask the team “What could have caused this?”

11. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 11 Step 2: Generate the Reasons for the Loss  Ask each person to write down why the proposal lost  Tap into people’s intuition (the inner voice)  Leave no stone left unturned  Reward thinking out of the box  Encourage to voice issues, typically left unsaid  The goal is to create an exhaustive list of things, everyone should feel uninhibited, this is the brainstorming session  Do not think about solutions during this Step, rather focus on identifying the problems

12. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 12 Step 3: Consolidate the Reasons  Go around the room and discuss each reason at a time  Review all of the reasons as a group  Group reasons by related topics  Focus on most likely causes of failure/loss  Discard any problems you may not have any control over

13. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 13 Step 4: Develop an “Actionable Plan”  Generate ideas for avoiding or minimizing the problems  Come up with Capture actions to neutralize the threats  Develop and revise Proposal artifacts to counter the impact of the risks  Assign the Action Items to specific team members to complete  Sometimes the right plan is to “no bid”

14. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 14 How is this approach different from brainstorming?  Most of us restrict our thinking when imagining “things that can go wrong”  We want to believe our proposal will win  By starting with a strong assertion – “we already lost” – we are encouraged to identify flaws that otherwise we would ignore  The strategy is to “trick our brains”

15. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 15 Some Reasons of Why Proposals Lose - And How Can We Increase Our Chances of Winning? Reasons for LossPlan of Action Cost – too high Consider a price cut, backed by innovations/cost savings If cannot execute based on PTW – consider “no bid” Cost – too low Adjust staffing to come up with a more reasonable price/cost Boost BOEs to demonstrate estimates are based on actual costs on similar scope of work contracts The Government just wanted the incumbent Try to get the incumbent on the Team OR get on the incumbent’s Team OR no bid Too much innovation/change was proposed – “shows lack of understanding” Remove some of the innovations, infuse “status quo” feeling First stabilize, then optimize Too little innovation – “ inability to support the mission requirements” Hold brainstorming session around innovations and substantiation Integrate/highlight via call out boxes Encourage the team to think out of the box Approach too risky Demonstrate where it was successful, add proof points Inconsistencies throughout different parts of the approach Ensure consistent approaches, methodology and terminology throughout

16. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 16 Exercise – Background Information  Customer: Department of Energy  Scope of Work: Large Commodity IT job (Helpdesk, Data Center, Desktop Support, App Dev, Networks)  The incumbent is no longer eligible to prime, not too well liked, but the people on the contract have close ties to the customers  We have some incumbent subcontractors on our team  Lots of capture information was gathered, Key Personnel brought on board early (from the current incumbent), lots of customer meetings  Right before the RFP release – the customers changed, some SEB members and SSO – new players  RFP calls for innovations, improvements, cost efficiencies. Also stresses the importance of “keeping the train on the tracks” – in support of critical operations  The customer is undergoing significant budget cuts – pressure to do more with less and cut costs  It’s an FFP contract, but the Government provided a GPM with hours for each labor category  Past Performance Volume score is equal to the Tech Volume in the evaluation criteria

17. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 17 Why Did We Lose?

18. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 18 Reasons for Losing – And Counter-Actions Reasons for LossProposed Counter-Actions We did not have knowledge or understanding of the new SSO’s wishes/desires, could not address their hot buttons Conduct online research (since we are already in black out) – learn as much as possible Bring in a teammate or a consultant who have successfully worked with/for this customer before We brought too much incumbent baggage with us – via incumbent teammates and incumbent key personnel Consider not naming some of the incumbent teammates, leave them as vendors available for reachback Identify new Key Personnel with fresh ideas and perspectives Our competitor was able to offer a lower price by cutting the hours provided in the GPM Consider cutting down the staff numbers (with a good BOE explanation) below the GPM Our proposed innovations did not clearly quantify efficiencies and cost savings Tie cost savings to as many innovations as possible, quantify them and justify (either via previous experience or industry benchmarks) Some changes we proposed were during Phase In – did not get a chance to stabilize the environment and introduced risk to critical operations Stabilize first, then optimize/transform Develop a stellar, detailed Phase In plan that re-assures the SEB about no interruption to operations We did not pre-vet or prepare our Past Performance references and did not get as good of a review as needed, lowering our Past Performance evaluation score Prepare the Past Performance references ahead of time Pre-vet that they still view us positively If not sure, provide a different Past Performance reference

19. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 19 Open Discussion  What techniques do YOU use during to increase the probability of winning?

20. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 20 Questions

21. APMP BID & PROPOSAL CON 2015 | PAGE 21 Marina Goren President/CEO Smart BD Consulting, Inc. (410) 456-9993 Marina.Goren@ smartbdconsulting.com www.smartbdconsulting.com Contact Us APMP PO Box 77272 Washington, DC 20013-7272 Phone: +1 - (202) 450-2549 www.apmp.org