by B. David Krigelman
President
Krigelman and Associates, Inc.
e-mail: bdkrigelman@yahoo.com
web site: http://www.krigelmanandassociates.com
For many years, people in the proposal development business have debated the merits and usefulness of storyboards as applied to the proposal development process. It is my belief that storyboards can be very useful as a tool for preparing good proposals. They can also be a terrible waste of time and effort and have horrible results if the technique is used improperly.
Storyboards for proposal preparation have been around for many years. I was first introduced to their use as a young GE Aerospace engineer in the mid-60’s when we were teamed with Hughes Aircraft Company (now Raytheon Corporation) on a proposal activity in response to a US Air Force Request for Proposal (RFP).
It was rumored then that the storyboard process was based on a technique invented by Howard Hughes (the founder of Hughes Tool Company, which later became Hughes Aircraft Company) to make movies in Hollywood, CA. This was denied by the Hughes Aircraft Company Space and Communications Group proposal people adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport with whom I worked. They insisted they were responsible for the development of the technique many years after Howard Hughes owned and operated the company.
I was re-introduced to the storyboard process in the mid-70s when we teamed with Hughes Aircraft Company again for development of successful proposals to NASA Ames in Sunnyvale, CA and JPL in Pasadena, CA. The Hughes business development people claimed a very high success rate in winning contracts and said this was largely to their use of storyboards to prepare proposals, which were clearly written and easy to evaluate by Government personnel.
I have no doubt that this is true, since Hughes had an excellent track record and was very successful at what they did. In fact, GE Aerospace (which later was bought by Martin Marietta and is now part of Lockheed Martin) adopted the storyboard technique for their company-wide use.
In general, storyboards provide a means to organize the writing process, as follows:
- First perform an analysis of the requirements as defined in the RFP to determine whether they are understood.
- Then, allocate these requirements to lower levels (sub-tiers) meanwhile ensuring that traceability to the source requirement is maintained.
- Next, perform a review to determine whether the allocated requirements have an approach proposed for each that will satisfy that sub-tier requirement.
- As the proposal material is developed, verify that each of the allocated requirements and source requirements have been met.
A storyboard template that is used to implement this process is shown in the figure. The template is usually provided to the authors in an 11 inch by 17 inch (foldout) format to enable adequate legibility of its contents. When completed, it is then placed on a wall in a serial arrangement (proposal volumes, sections, and paragraphs in sequence) for review by the proposal team. During the review, care is taken to ensure the continuity of flow and that detailed contents are provided to attain the maximum possible point score by the Government evaluators. It is also a valuable tool to enable management of the page count of the final document, which is often a serious restriction and constraint.
As shown in the figure, the storyboard is in two parts: The left-hand side provides an outline of the text and the right-hand side contains the graphics that are proposed by the author.
The top of the left-hand side includes the authors name and contact information, that part of the proposal to which the storyboard applies, and the RFP references. It is followed by the theme (or thesis) statement, which is proven (or defended) by the author. After an opening sentence or short paragraph introduction, the author lists key points that will be made during the discussion. Finally, a closing sentence or short paragraph summary or conclusion is provided. The closing statement also serves as an introduction to the next topic.
The right-half side includes the figures and tables that will be used to augment the text. The figures and tables are often prepared prior to preparation of the text because these are where the attention of the reader is first drawn. The graphics can often be used to replace a lengthy textual discussion and provide an easy-to-grasp view of the topic being presented. Each of the figures should contain artwork bullets, text boxes, and pointers to enhance the presentation and leave a minimum amount of white space, which is wasteful in a proposal. Last but not least, the graphics should include titles and action captions. The title should reinforce the theme statement and the action caption should describe how the features described in the graphic are beneficial to the customer end user.
In this short summary, I have tried to describe the essentials of the storyboard process as applied to proposal development. The process by itself does not guarantee a winning proposal. However, it provides clarity of content for the final written product, which certainly helps your message get across to the Government evaluator and helps justify the best possible point score required for contract award.
