By B. David Krigelman
President
Krigelman & Associates, Inc.
321.242.7598
www.krigelmanandassociates.com 

The submittal date for a proposal that is prepared in response to a Government–prepared solicitation may be 30 days, 45 days, 60 days, or 90 days after release depending on the complexity of the required documentation. In the example shown below, I have chosen a 30-day response time with no weekend work required for simplicity of presentation.

In the example, the Request for Proposal (RFP) is released on the Internet on a Tuesday, which is the last day of the month and delivered 30 days later. Is it often said that the Government intentionally releases RFPs such that the Contractor’s personnel have to work over holiday periods (Christmas and New Years for example) while they are home enjoying their time off but I will leave that up to others to debate.

Following the RFP release, it is downloaded and reviewed over the next few days to ensure all of the requirements are thoroughly read and understood. Although the period after RFP release and during proposal preparation is a “black-out” situation whereby Contractor personnel are not allowed to communicate with the Government personnel involved with the procurement, they are allowed to submit questions to the Contracting Officer until a specified cut-off date, after which no more questions are allowed.

As part of the review process, the Proposal Management Plan is prepared, a portion of which includes an analysis of the solicitation, development of the RFP/proposal compliance matrix, preparation of topical outlines, preliminary author assignments, and page count allocations. After this has been accomplished, two meetings are convened, a win strategy meeting with management, and a kickoff meeting with all of the proposal team members.

During the week after the kickoff meeting, draft write-ups are prepared by the authors following by a review by management. Subsequently, feedback from management to the authors takes place and the second and final drafts are prepared. The number of drafts depends on the amount of schedule time available.

After the final draft review, the authors incorporate all comments that have been provided by management and the proposal is turned over to the production organization, which is followed by a final Quality Control (QC) review. Production entails the preparation of the final product deliverables in hardcopy and softcopy formats per the quantity required by the RFP.

Assembly of the proposal includes boxing, packing and shipping the deliverable in accordance with the RFP requirements. The proposal may be delivered electronically, by ground/air transportation, or hand-carried, as appropriate to the individual situation.

This discussion has concentrated on the activities required to produce the Technical and Management portions of the proposal. Similar but modified schedules would be required for the Past Performance and Cost/Price portions of the proposal, which are specific to their needs.

SUNDAY	MONDAY	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY	FRIDAY	SATURDAY
28	29	30 RFP released; Download from Internet	1 Review RFP; Prepare compliance matrix and topical outline	2 Review RFP; Allocate page count and assign authors	3 Convene proposal strategy/kickoff meetings	4
5	6 Start first draft	7 Prepare first draft	8 Prepare first draft	9 Complete first draft	10 Perform first draft review; Provide comments to authors	11
12	13 Start second draft	14 Prepare second draft	15 Prepare second draft	16 Complete second draft	17 Perform second draft review; Provide comments to authors	18
19	20 Start final draft	21 Prepare final draft	22 Prepare final draft	23 Complete final draft	24 Perform final draft review; Provide comments to authors	25
26	27 Incorporate final draft comments	28 Perform proposal production; Final QC check	29 Assemble proposal; Ready for delivery	30 Deliver proposal to Government	31	1