March 2024- Capture Approach
There are several commercially available publications, companion guides and handbooks for training or supporting Capture Management. However, most are thin when it comes to meaningful content, meaning analysis, strategy development or solutioning.
The step-by-step process below is a recommended phase-1 approach for capture. It’s the initial set of activities that help determine whether or not to pursue the effort; estimate the difficulty and resources required if you choose to pursue; thoroughly analyze competition and identify potential competitor strategies; develop preliminary solutioning strategies, like teaming; and develop a meaningful kickoff briefing for leadership.
1. Firstly, it’s important to determine Strategic Fit. This means determining whether the opportunity fits the organization’s strategy or not. If your strategy is to bid on specific types of work, focused on specific customers, don’t “chase” things outside of that strategy because of someone’s good idea. You don’t know if strategies work if you don’t follow them. This is key to the initial bid/no-bid decision.
2. Considering the requirements of the Statement of Work (SOW) or Performance Work Statement (PWS), conduct the Gap Analysis and identify shortcomings in resources, credentials (certifications, registrations and compliance requirements), teaming, key personnel, past performance citations and so forth. The Gap Analysis feeds the Black Hat session, Difficulty Analysis and SWOT Analysis.
3. Conduct the Differentiator Analysis, identifying what differentiators (meaning, “things that set competitors apart from each other”) your company currently has or can get through strategic hiring, teaming or in some other way. Conduct this analysis for your competitors too. The Differentiator Analysis feeds the Black Hat session and SWOT Analysis.
4. Identify the Innovations your organization will propose, and your competitors will propose. There is a level of speculation required and often I hear “how would we know what our competitors will propose?”. One way to do this is by researching your competitors’ existing teaming relationships, strategic agreements, and joint ventures to identify innovations possible through teaming. The Innovation Analysis feeds the Black Hat session and SWOT Analysis.
5. Conduct the SWOT Analysis, assessing the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats for the opportunity. It’s recommended you complete the SWOT Analysis before your Black Hat session and then refine it afterwards.
6. Conduct the Difficulty Analysis of the effort, reconciling all analysis and Black Hat feedback. This gives you an indication of the effort and resources required for your organization and your competitors.
7. Conduct the pWIN Calculation making sure to account for the impact of differentiators and innovations. A pWIN calculation should be done for your organization and for each competitor for comparison. The pWIN Calculation considers all analysis and Black Hat feedback.
