The world of Government proposals is a world with its own language and rituals. The first of these is learning the acronym RFP (Request for Proposal) and the process of shredding it down to the customer requirements located (or should I say buried, hidden, or disguised?) in Sections C, L, and M in particular. Soon thereafter, you will encounter on the proposal schedule color coded reviews: Blue, Pink, Red, Green, Gold, and White and even, sometimes, shades in between. And if that wasn’t confusing enough, documents reviewed in each of these are often rated as Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue.
This paper helps unravel this process and explains that at the end of this rainbow of colors can be a pot of Gold (sorry, couldn’t avoid using a color) in the form of a winning proposal.
What is the purpose of the proposal color review teams?
Color-coded reviews are an accepted industry practice for a disciplined, logical process to bring a RFP response to completion in winning form. The reviews represent increasing levels of maturity. At each level, the reviewers should be qualified to assess the proposal at its given stage and provide the necessary assessment and guidance to move the proposal to the next level. Each level of review should be evaluating the presence or absence of win themes and discriminators, compliance with the RFP requirements, and responsiveness to the customer’s needs that produced the RFP in the first place. The reviews should be somewhat overlapping to ensure connectivity between reviews. To this end, while you want reviewers geared to each level and each aspect that must be assessed, there is a good case to include someone from the previous level review on the next. At the end of the iterative writing and then review process for each level, the proposal response should be compliant, compelling, and complete.
What are the goals of each color review team?
Blue Team Review
At Blue Team, the proposal sections are in outline. Some proposal managers use outline templates or writer’s work pages to guide writers to developing the initial framework of the response. Initial graphics and tables are inserted in draft or, at a minimum, their purpose and location described. If the proposal calls for key persons and/or resumes the names should be identified. Very importantly, the client should have a description of the proposed solution, win themes, and discriminators to include features and benefits.
A Blue Team review ensures that the basic outline of the proposal is correct and complete and that a writer is assigned to each section. The Blue Team review also identifies gaps in information, data, designated SMEs, discriminators, and win themes.
Pink Team Review
Some organizations describe the goal of a Pink Team document to be 65-70 percent complete. A more useful definition is to describe the expectation that the document addresses with content, approach, or intent every section of the proposal. The Pink Team document adds narrative and detail to the outline developed for Blue Team. The document contains graphics and tables. Emphasis is on content, not on form, style, or grammatical perfection. At the same time, the document should begin to incorporate consistent ways of spelling, acronym use, common quantity references, and common ways of referring to discriminators. Pink Team document should not have any sections blank even if all a section contains is a description of what will go there and what has been done to obtain the information. The Pink Team document should reflect initial collaboration between the writer and the responsible SME. If there are key persons or resumes called for, then the resumes should be submitted in draft at a minimum and ideally formatted as intended for submission. The document should have RFP references leading the sections to help in the compliance review.
The Pink Team review has essentially the same responsibility as the Blue Team with respect to compliance, completeness, and being compelling. Any gaps become key action items. However, now the emphasis shifts to the story. Is the story correct? Is the information and data current and relevant? Is the story understandable and does it speaks to the RFP requirements and underlying customer needs? Are there any Red Flags (sorry, another color) that signal a major problem in the proposal that could, if not properly addressed, result in the proposal being non-compliant and just not competitive? Reviewers should be focused on content and not on spelling except in those instances that reflect inconsistency.
Red Team Review
The Red Team document should be nearly complete. Some organizations want to quantify it by saying 85 to 90 percent. Again, a more useful definition is that it should have all the changes, additions, and corrections identified at Pink Team Review. The document should have final or near final graphics, tables, data, resumes. All sections should have complete narratives and the documents should be formatted the same as it will be submitted without going through a formal desk top publishing edit. In regard to this last point, depending on the review process, the document may or may not retain the full RFP references but should retain RFP paragraph references after the heading titles.
The Red Team review should reflect the perspective of the customer’s evaluators/source selection review board. Compliance and clarity are the top priority items. Next should be responsiveness, and does it tell a compelling story? Does it show best value; does it prove that it is technically acceptable? Are there features and benefits stated and documented? Does the technical solution match the price and it priced to win? This latter question is not always easy for the Red Team since it is not uncommon for the price not to be complete at this point. Nonetheless, the Red Team should make an assessment if the solution offered is potentially too expensive and what risks are involved in delivery.
Green Team Review
The Green Team is the pricing review. This review may occur at any time but often is at or after Red Team but before Gold and may be after Gold. Normally, if the proposal manager/writing team are contracted support and not part of the client, they will not be involved in pricing development or review. The review documents are the pricing information in the formats prescribed by the RFP.
The review team is responsible to ensure that all pricing information required by the RFP is presented and in the formats prescribed. The team will also ensure that company pricing policies are followed depending on the type of contract (Firm Fixed Price, etc.)
A critical aspect of the Green review is that it reflects the technical solution. Getting to this point requires close collaboration between the Technical/Management writers and cost team. You do not want a solution going to the customer wherein the solution cannot be accomplished at the proposed price.
Gold Team Review
The Gold Review document is pre-submission quality. It should be complete in all sections, all information, all graphics, and fully compliant. It is formatted and looks exactly like it will for submission.
The Gold Team Review is usually done by 2-3 senior executives or managers who are in the authority chain for the unit(s) providing the services/products under the RFP. Ideally, these executives have been kept up to date on the results of the previous color review and have received periodic IPRs on related information such as the status of production if an item of equipment is to be submitted for evaluation with the proposal. The Gold Team reviewers focus is on high level win themes and discriminators and select aspects of the technical proposal that are considered key to winning the award. Critically, the Gold Review must ensure that the proposal is priced to win.
White Team Review
The White Review, often called White Glove, review is a page by page mostly visual review of the document to catch any obvious errors in printing. The review will check those select item identified at Gold Review for correction. Focus is primarily on compliance items.
What does the color rating of the review team mean?
Now that you have mastered the intricacies of the color codes on the reviews, you are ready to learn the secrets of the evaluation of the reviews. Here too there is a color system. It is reasonably intuitive but still important to understand.
Red
A red rating means that the reviewer believes there are major elements of the proposal which are deficient that would result in the proposal being non compliant and not technical acceptable.
Yellow
A yellow rating means that the proposal/section is generally compliant but not complete. The response may be confusing or not present information in a convincing manner. Some individual sections may not be compliant but there is an identified path forward to be compliant. If submitted, the proposal might not be thrown out but it would not likely win.
Green
A green rating means that the proposal is essentially compliant with minor areas requirement correction or improvement. The proposal if submitted in the condition would be competitive but at risk for selection.
Blue
A blue rating means that the proposal is fully compliant, complete, compelling, and priced to win. It represents best value, has a technically superior solution with distinctive features and discriminators.
Summary
The color-coded review process can be confusing to a new comer. And, importantly, it can also be confusing to the SMEs who have been through other proposals and may have different understandings and expectations of each review. This latter situation is exacerbated because often the role of the SME is simply to provide information and not to prepare the document. Consequently, they may not appreciate the type and quality of information needed at each step of the review.
The good news is that this process is methodical and takes you from reading the proposal to developing a high quality, winning document if followed correctly. And you don’t have to be a Leprechaun to find the pot of Gold at the end of this rainbow.
We are looking for training on using color coding for evaluating proposals. The evaluation team was instructed to use color codes to evaluate proposals. The team needs help. Do you provide training in this area?
Hi Taff,
We do provide corporate training on all aspects of the proposal process. Our Communications Director will send you a follow-up email with more information.
Thank you for contacting us. You may also visit our Contact Us page if you have any more questions.
-The AOC Key Solutions team
My company uses a Green Team before Bid Confirmation and before Pink Team. This makes no sense to me. I think that they are using the Green Team only for a technical solution but not for any pricing. What can you say about this?
Thank you for your question; it is an important one. Most companies use the Green Team or Green Review for pricing. At its simplest, the Green Team ensures that the company has responded to all the requirements in the pricing tables and that it meets the companies Price to Win Strategy. My experience is that this review often is put off to the end of the process and often doesn’t happen to just prior to Gold Review or even worst case just prior to White Glove.
Ideally, the Green Review should evolve in two ways. First, it should be tied closely to the Technical Solution. Often the pricing and technical response are developed independently and only brought together at the end, and often this results in last minute changes to the technical solution to stay within the pricing strategy. This occurs in part because of the proprietary nature of pricing and that the tech writers (often consultants) don’t get involved in the pricing details. Secondly, I think the Pricing should not be just the one time shot at the Green Team at the end of the process. Companies should consider having a series pricing reviews (or maybe evolutions and evaluations) as part of, or in parallel to the technical Pink, Red, Gold path. One advantage to this is to ensure that pricing questions back to the Government take into account the technical questions on how to frame our technical solution.
Part reason for this “out of synch” or stove piped approach to a pricing review also stems from what I have observed as an increasing difficulty for companies to agree on the business case and solution strategy up front thereby resulting proposal development that is not on a sure footing. Such conditions make pricing difficult.
Hope this helps.
-Doug Brission, Senior Proposal Specialist, AOC Key Solutions
do you have training for conducting Green teams?
Hi Susan,
Thanks for contacting us. We sent you an email. If you have any more questions email us at info@aockeysolutions.com.
-Valeria Quinonez, Communications Director, AOC Key Solutions