APMP Glossary

Bid Manager

A Bid Manager is responsible for managing a bid or proposal opportunity from qualification to contract award, including: Early and ongoing strategy development Legal review Solution development Winning price development Partner identification Risk management Proposal(...)

Knowledge Manager

A Knowledge Manager is responsible for the creation and ongoing maintenance of reusable knowledge databases. Knowledge Managers use organization, writing, and information design skills to increase the business strategy value of an organization's intellectual property.

Benefit

A benefit results from a feature of an offer that resolves a customer issue and demonstrates the value the customer can achieve from resolving the issue. To claim a benefit, there must be a feature of the offer that clearly allows the customer to realize the benefit. Benefits help customers(...)

Document Template

A blueprint that ensures writers are using the same format and structure for their response to save time, energy, and rework. Accompanied by the proposal-specific style sheet, the template should be used by everyone contributing to the proposal to enable seamless consolidation of team members'(...)

Joint Venture

A business agreement in which two or more parties agree to pursue a bid opportunity according to outlined terms and conditions.

Final Document Review

A comprehensive review of the proposal by independent reviewers who emulate the customer's evaluation team. It includes independent assessment of the entire proposal, its readiness and responsiveness to the solicitation, and its effectiveness in conveying strategy, themes, and discriminators,(...)

Content Management System (CMS)

A computer system that makes it easier to develop enterprise portals and websites by separating the management of content from its presentation (display). Blocks of content are tagged with metadata and other attributes and held in a content database. Webpages are generated (often on the fly)(...)

Elevator Speech

A concise set of reasons a customer should choose your organization's offer. A variety of people, including Project Managers, Sales Representatives, and Executives, use elevator speeches to get their points across quickly to customers. An elevator speech may be presented in oral, written, and(...)

Invitation to Tender (ITT)

A customer document that invites a bid. In many industries, these are complex requirements documents that cover all technical and commercial aspects of the bid. There may be a subsequent BAFO or final proposal revision (FPR) stage before contract award.

Best and Final Offer (BAFO)

A customer request for a document that describes your organization's final price. There may be more than one request for a BAFO. The customer requests a BAFO after the proposal has been submitted to select the final companies to negotiate with or go directly to award.

Delivery Risk

A customer's assessment of the likelihood that you can fully deliver the solution in your proposal at the stated price and according to the stated schedule.

Customer Focus

A customer-focused bid clearly addresses the problem the customer has agreed they are trying to solve (or the opportunity they are trying to take advantage of) and demonstrates how your solution meets their goals.

Bid Validation Decision

A decision milestone after the customer releases an RFP to address obstacles to winning that were identified in the opportunity plan.

Callout Box

A design feature with text inside a box or within borders to highlight a key point in the text.

Contact Plan

A document that lists the customers you plan to contact, including details, such as who in your company will visit them; what you want to find out and what you want to communicate; when and where you will meet; and how you will communicate your messages, plus documentation of any information(...)

Contingency Plan

A documented approach to address unplanned future events or circumstances. Negative events are often the focus, but the plan can also include unexpected positive developments. The impacts of unexpected developments are identified to the extent possible. Mitigation plans and alternate courses(...)

Discriminator

A feature of your offer that differs from the competition and that the customer acknowledges as delivering a benefit. Commonly, a weak discriminator is only distinct from one competitor's offer and not from all other competitor's offers. A positive discriminator is a benefit only one bidder(...)

Differentiator

A feature of your offer that differs from the competition but does not necessarily matter to the customer.

Content Plan

A guide and framework for addressing requirements, detailing win strategy and themes, and meeting page allocation requirements. A content plan is composed of a variety of conceptual tools used to help writers plan each section/response before drafting text. It contains assignments, bid request(...)

Compliance Matrix

A list of specific customer requirements, often splitting complex, multi-part requirements into subrequirements. It also helps Proposal Managers and Internal Reviewers verify that the proposal meets all requirements.

Gadfly Review

A macro-level review of the entire proposal to ensure it sells your solution, is comprehensive, and tells a consistent story. The Gadfly Reviewer checks compliance with your quality standards for themes, format, graphics, action captions, style, headings, summaries, and introductions.

Customer Profile

A maintained record of the characteristics of the customer. The profile is used from bid to bid and provides useful background information.

Kickoff Meeting

A meeting that initiates the proposal effort for all contributors, answers questions about the opportunity, assigns writing tasks, coordinates upcoming activities, and creates a cohesive team.

Customer Debrief

A meeting with the customer after an award to obtain feedback on how your proposal scored in the evaluation.

Bid/No-Bid Decision

A milestone after the opportunity plan is substantially complete. It validates that you are properly positioned to win based on the opportunity plan.

Knowledge Repository

A place where knowledge is gathered and stored and can be accessed. Whereas a low-tech knowledge repository could be a set of file folders, we usually think of knowledge repositories as structured collections of ready-to-use information stored in a database.

Business Development Capability Maturity Model (BD-CMM)

A research-based framework that guides business development organizations in identifying and implementing high-priority improvement actions. The model encompasses the entire business development life cycle. It establishes a structure that guides increased performance to: Increase value to(...)

Account Plan

A sales plan that is specific to one customer and covers multiple opportunities with that customer. The timespan covered by the plan typically is two to five years.

Aesthetics

A set of principles regarding the nature and appreciation of beauty. The study of aesthetics increases the validity of many critical judgments concerning art. Established aesthetic principles create a shared vocabulary and understanding for the objective evaluation of beauty.

Executive Summary

A short abstract of the main points of the offer aimed at the senior-level decisionmakers in the customer's organization. It is the section of a proposal that provides an overview of the offer and highlights the key selling points for customer decisionmakers. It articulates the customer's(...)

Daily Stand-Up Review

A short meeting held at the same time every day during the proposal development phase. Its purpose is to keep the proposal team focused on near-term tasks. When managing a virtual team, it often involves the use of web conferencing, teleconferences, and email.

Action Caption

A short, informative statement associated with a graphic that provides additional information to help the reader understand what the graphic means.

Annotated Outline

A simple writing or content plan. This is a structure for the proposal that is usually derived from the customer requirements documentation. The outline may be annotated to show writing responsibilities, informative headings, page-count estimates, and so on. The annotated outline amplifies a(...)

Ghosting the Competition

A sophisticated tradeoff analysis used to highlight a competitor weakness or downplay a competitor's strength. When using these techniques, competitors are not named. Ghosting and tradeoff analysis are similar. Tradeoff analysis discusses analysis of alternative approaches and then notes why(...)

Customer Motivators

A subset of issues that relate to the fundamental reasons behind the customer's need to make a purchase.

Bid or Proposal Center

A support organization dedicated to generating proposals and other response documents for customers.

Expert Locator

A system for identifying and cultivating subject matter experts (SME) on topics important to your business.

Knowledge Audit

A systematic identification and analysis of an organization's knowledge needs, resources, flows, gaps, uses, and users.

Benchmarking

A systematic process for comparing your processes with those of other recognized leaders in your field or industry to identify and close gaps.

After-Action Review

A systematic process to extract the learning from an event or activity. The process addresses the questions, What should have happened? What actually happened? What can we learn and apply for the future?

Color

A technique used for emphasis, color may be applied throughout the proposal to headings, callouts, sections, tabs, and anywhere else the solicitation instructions allow. The use of color can enhance the readability of the document and draw the reader's attention to specific content you wish to(...)

Bidder Comparison Matrix (BCM)

A tool used to analyze the customer's current perception of your solution compared to competitors. It usually is a weighted score that indicates the customer's confidence that you can meet their requirements.

Bid Decision Tree

A tool used to help you make an informed bid decision based on positive and negative indicators. It results in a "yes" or "no" response leading to a qualified pursuit decision.

Graphics Template

A visual guide that defines all aesthetic choices for graphics (e.g., colors, shapes, lines, arrows, fonts, indention, capitalization, and line spacing).

Knowledge Map

A visual representation of the knowledge of an organization or the knowledge underlying a business process. It identifies business-critical knowledge assets and the processes, gaps, sources, flows, barriers, dependencies, and knowledge at risk if key employees leave.

Business Case Review/Senior Management Review

All the internal milestones and approvals (internal governance) required to sign off on the solution, pricing, and legal requirements.

Competitor Review

An assessment and analysis of competitors' likely strategies and solutions. People who are independent of the opportunity planning team and are experts on the customer and competitors conduct this review.

Customer

An existing or potential buyer of products or services. Customers who have not yet made a purchase are sometimes called "prospects."

Knowledge Management Heuristic

An exploratory problemsolving technique. As you interview Knowledge Workers for sources and uses of knowledge, each answer prompts additional, probing questions. A knowledge management heuristic guides Interviewers along this path.

Business Development Maturity Level

An indicator of an organization's adoption of business development best practices. For example: Level 1 organizations have ad hoc processes and are often seen as chaotic. Level 2 organizations have repeatable processes and build on past successes. Level 3 organizations have defined processes(...)

Knowledge Café

An informal brainstorming technique in which a moderator prompts a group to generate ideas and captures those ideas for further analysis.

Business Case

An internal documented argument for bidding on a particular opportunity. The business case typically focuses on the financial aspects of the bid. The same term may also be applied to a document or proposal section that is aimed at providing the customer with the financial justification for(...)

Customer Positioning

An organization's position from the perspective of a customer. Many companies begin in unknown positions with potential customers. Through marketing and sales strategies, a company may move to a known position, then an improved position, and eventually to a favored position.

Knowledge Base

An organized structure of information that facilitates the storage of ready-to-apply intelligence in a database.

Customer Intelligence

An understanding of a customer's needs—spoken and unspoken—and the capabilities desired of a vendor/contractor to support requirements. It is a key element of the sales and opportunity development process that occurs well in advance of responding to a bid or RFP.

Balance (Visual)

Balance is achieved when the visual "weight" of both halves of a graphic is similar, giving a sense of equilibrium. Unbalanced graphics convey a sense of uneasiness.

Bid Decisions (General)

Bid decisions are aimed at eliminating opportunities or sales leads with a low win probability, thus permitting a stronger focus on opportunities with a higher win probability. For large, complex pursuits, companies often use market entry, opportunity qualification, bid pursuit, bid/no-bid,(...)

Clarification

Communication to eliminate minor irregularities or apparent clerical mistakes in a request for proposal (RFP) or in a proposal. In government settings, these are typically limited and structured exchanges between the Government and offerors that may occur after receipt of proposals. In(...)

Compliant Versus Responsive

Compliance is the act of meeting stated requirements, such as those in an RFP or contract. A compliant proposal response meets the customer's requirements, answers their questions, and addresses specifications to the letter—nothing more, nothing less. Responsiveness goes beyond compliance.(...)

Assumptions

Conditions that the bid team assume exist for the purpose of providing a price or terms of service in a proposal.

Customer Issues

Customer concerns that the offer will resolve. Issues may be the business outcomes the customer is trying to achieve. They also may be emotional and therefore not articulated in the customer's requirement documents.

Central Processing

Decisionmaking based on logic and sound arguments. This type of processing is often used by experts but is less common in general than peripheral processing.

Highlighting Techniques

Different font styles, spacing, alignment, placement of graphics, and groupings meant to create impact, draw attention, and enhance readability. Common techniques include bolding or italicizing text, using color, increasing font size, or varying font choice.

Bid Pursuit Decision

Generally the first decision milestone to verify that the opportunity fits your strategic direction and capability. This decision often approves the funds to initiate early opportunity planning activities. Sales may do an opportunity qualification decisionbefore this decision gate.

Informative Heading

Headings that enable evaluators to immediately determine both the contents of a section and the benefit to their organization. Informative headings signal new topics to evaluators, may link features to benefits, and often cite features that are discriminators.

Advantage

How, in the seller's opinion, a product or service may benefit the customer. Advantages are potential benefits and are more powerful than features.

Community of Practice (CoP)

Networks of people who work on similar processes or in similar disciplines and who come together to develop and share their knowledge in that field for the benefit of themselves and their organization. CoPs may be created formally or informally, and members can interact online or in person.

Competitive Intelligence (CI)

Objectively understanding the strengths, weaknesses, and strategies of companies competing against your company for business. CI is a well-defined business practice to understand the competitive forces and market dynamics that affect your company's viability and long-term profitability.

Customer-Focused Writing

Persuasive writing that focuses on the customer issues and benefits of your offer to the customer, rather than on your company and its capabilities.

Formatting Techniques

Practices that involve the mechanical structure and appearance of the proposal. They include the standards and procedures for proposal layout dictated by the customer or by an in-house proposal development style guide.

Data Call

Requests to members of your company and teaming partners for data to be used to build proof points and answer specific financial, demographic, and experience-related questions.

Functional Reviews

Reviews are conducted at a series of pre-defined stages during the proposal development process. They ensure that a proposal in development is compliant with a customer's requirements and has a good probability of winning a bid. Many reviews are followed by a corresponding bid decision.

Final Bid Review

See Business Case Review/ Senior Management Review.

Gold Team

See Business Case Review/ Senior Management Review.

Black Hat

See Competitor Review.

Capture Manager

See Opportunity Manager.

Blue Team

See Opportunity Plan Review

Capture Plan

See Opportunity Plan.

Capture Rate

See Opportunity Rate.

Color Teams

See Reviews.

Active/Passive Voice

Sentences written in active voice have a clear subject and verb. They make it clear who does what. Passive-voice sentences, in contrast, are considered "weaker," because the subject receives the action instead of performing it. Passive sentences usually contain a form of the verb "to be."(...)

Hot Buttons

Singularly important issues or sets of issues that are likely to drive decisions, usually associated with customer buying decisions. Hot-button issues are items that the customer repeatedly discusses and often are problems with a system, software, process, or resources inhibiting the success(...)

Jargon

Specialized language used among members of a group or profession who have common knowledge. The use of jargon can be a barrier to communication with those not familiar with the language of that field. Use jargon only when customers will be familiar with it and only when plain English will not(...)

Boilerplate

Stored text and graphics that are available for potential reuse in future proposals. Boilerplate is information that is harvested from existing documentation to be repurposed in other proposals. It may include text and graphics, technical specifications, company procedures, and advertising and(...)

Appendix

Supplementary material included at the end of a proposal. Appendices contain specialized, relevant information that facilitates the decisionmaking process.

Feature

Tangible aspects of the seller's product or service. They are normally measurable and demonstrable. Features tell the "what" of the offer. Benefits address the offer's added "so what."

Customer Budget

The amount of funding available to procure the products or services defined by the RFP or other solicitation document. For an offer to be affordable to a customer, the customer's budget must be greater than or equal to the price.

Change Management

The application of tools, processes, skills, and principles to transition people from one way of working to another.

Customer Requirements

The attributes and specifications of a product or service as determined by the customer.

Explicit Knowledge

The captured and cataloged information and knowledge ready for people to use. In contrast with tacit or implicit knowledge, explicit knowledge is codified and articulated. It appears in documents, procedures, and databases.

Knowledge Management

The discipline of enabling individuals, teams, and entire organizations to collectively and systematically create, share, and apply business development-related knowledge to better achieve their objectives. Some organizations use collaboration tools, such as Microsoft SharePoint, to score and(...)

Fundamental Knowledge Object (FKO)

The lowest structurally definable unit of content pertinent to a discipline. An FKO for Proposal Managers might be the question and answer (Q&A) pair.

Innovation

The optimum balance achieved by using the latest technologies, cost structures, styling, features, and services, and then successfully matching what is "new" to customer or end-user needs at the optimum price.

Delivery

The process of implementing the delivery of the negotiated solution to the customer and maintenance of an ongoing relationship with the customer.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The process of managing all aspects of your relationship with your customers, so they will know, like, and trust you and eventually select you over your competitors.

Cost Section

The proposal component that includes your cost data. This section may contain more than just financial information, such as schedules, material listings, labor categories, and hours. The cost section also reflects the products and services offered in the technical and management sections.

Business Development Phases

There are eight generally accepted business development phases: Market identificationAccount planning Opportunity assessment Opportunity planning Proposal planningProposal development Negotiation Delivery Opportunity assessment, opportunity planning, proposal planning, proposal(...)

Graphics Label

Titles above proposal graphics that are sequentially numbered throughout a proposal section. Graphics labels allow an evaluator to quickly locate a graphic within a proposal, especially when a proposal contains a list of figures/graphics similar to a table of contents. Labeling should also be(...)

Graphics

Visual elements of a proposal that help explain a concept when a text-only description is insufficient or would be difficult to understand. Good use of graphics makes complicated information easier to process and comprehend. Varying graphic types and styles can help you communicate your(...)

Intangible Value

Your customer's perception of what the product or service you are proposing is worth to them. Intangible value can be measured only qualitatively.