Capture planning

01What capture covers

Capture starts when an opportunity is identified, often a year or more before the RFP for a large contract, and runs until the proposal team takes over. The usual work:

• Learn the customer's mission, problems, budget, buying history and decision makers.
• Learn the acquisition: contract type, likely evaluation approach, set-aside status and timeline.
• Assess the competition, including the incumbent.
• Close gaps in partners, key personnel, certifications and past performance.
• Decide whether to pursue, and revisit the decision at set points (see go/no-go).
• Write the win strategy and an estimate of the price needed to win.

Talking to the customer before the solicitation is allowed within limits. FAR 15.201 encourages exchanges of information among all interested parties from the earliest identification of a requirement through the receipt of proposals: industry days, draft RFPs, one-on-one meetings and RFIs. Once the RFP is released, communication normally runs only through the contracting officer.

02Win themes

A win theme is a short, provable statement that ties something the customer cares about to one of your strengths and the benefit it brings: for example, that transition will not disrupt service because the proposed site lead ran the same transition at a comparable agency. Capture should produce three to five of them, tested against what the evaluation criteria reward. The proposal then repeats each theme where it is relevant, with evidence each time. A theme with no proof behind it is a slogan.

03Ghosting

Ghosting means addressing a competitor's weakness without naming the competitor: explaining why an approach the competitor is likely to propose carries risk, and why yours does not. Done well it is factual and tied to the customer's interests. Done badly it reads as an attack, and it backfires when the evaluator does not share your view of the competitor.

04The incumbent

The incumbent is the company holding the current contract. It knows the work, the people and the problems, and the customer has seen its performance firsthand. Challengers win by finding out what the customer wants changed and offering a credible, low-risk transition. Incumbents lose most often by assuming the re-compete is theirs and proposing the status quo at the old price.

05From capture to proposal

Hand the proposal team a capture plan that states the customer's priorities, the win themes, the competitive assessment, the teaming arrangement and open risks. The Shipley method formalizes this handoff; whatever process you use, the proposal should not be where the strategy is first decided.