Got an e-mail from my India proposal client the other day. Now that the proposal is done and gone, she asked me to provide some feedback on what went well and what could be improved.
When I served as the Director of various proposal units back when I had "real" jobs, I always tried to hold an internal debriefing after our team had finished a proposal. The purpose was to find ways to improve our proposal processes, systems, and teamwork, and apply the lessons learned to future proposal efforts. Whenever possible, all members of the proposal team should be present and be encouraged to offer their opinions and suggestions.
When conducting an internal debriefing, it is important to make sure that it doesn't evolve into a blame game -- "whaaaa, John didn't finish his section on time so we all had to stay late." You need to focus on processes and offer concrete suggestions for improvement. For example, here is some of the feedback I gave to my India client:
- More time could have been spent up-front discussing and outlining the approach to the project. It would have been useful to have a 1/2 day or full day meeting to discuss the various technical tasks and how they might specifically be addressed.
- The specific roles and responsibilities of various people participating in the proposal effort should have been more clearly defined at the outset of the proposal effort.
- From a consultant's perspective, it would have been useful for me to participate in-person or via conference call in some of your internal reviews/meetings to get a better handle as to what was going on and what the next steps were to be.
In addition to identifying problems with your processes, it's worthwhile to take note of things that went well. If, for example, you were able to keep to your schedule, how did you accomplish this? Was your team particularly cohesive, and if so, why?
You can learn a lot from these debriefings. But the important thing is to actually apply what you've learned.
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