| The Red Team Review |
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Reviewing the Final Draft The members of your Red Team should emulate the membership of the selection panel. They should be at the same cognitive level. Therefore, if your selection panel will be mid-level managers and some technical experts, you should not seek the President of your organization as a Red Team reviewer. If the project or product being proposed is a large purchase for the customer, and their CEO will be reviewing the proposals, then your CEO would be an ideal candidate for the Red Team. (If this is a REALLY BIG proposal for your organization, your senior management may insist on seeing the Red Team draft. This does not mean that they should be a member of the Red Team, but should review a copy of the draft while the Red Team is reviewing the draft as well.) This review is the last look at the proposal before it goes to print. The Red Team members ideally have had no prior connection to the proposal. They should not have been consulted for content matters, and they definitely should not have contributed to the writing. They should also be willing to commit the necessary time and attention to the proposal. If possible, they should be given a weekend to do the reading so that distractions and interruptions can be kept to a minimum. And, if possible, the review should be held in an isolated location, away from where the proposal was prepared. Each team member should have a copy of the proposal guidelines in advance and for reference during the reading. The proposal guidelines include a synopsis of the RFP, outline of the ISSUES, and explanation of the Theme. Red Team mark-ups can be accomplished in a variety of ways. The old-fashioned red pen works just fine. Electronic mark-ups (like those possible in programs like WordPerfect™, Word™, and WordPerfect's Envoy™) are also acceptable, provided the readers know how to use them and you know how to deal with them. The Red Team looks at the proposal through the client's eyes. They evaluate the proposal as if they are members of the client's review board, looking for weaknesses and strengths, checking to make sure it responds to the guidelines in every respect, and reading it from beginning to end. This should be the most comprehensive review the proposal gets, determining one last time the following: The Proposal Manager should collate all comments and arrange for any necessary assistance for re-writes. Next page in the Magic of Winning Proposals | Senior Management | Proposal Manager | Proposal Coordinator |
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