Remember, it’s your responsibility to read and understand every word of every document. It’s not the Government’s responsibility to make sure you understand. If you sign a contract that has a requirement that you didn’t understand when you priced it you are still responsible to fulfill that requirement without additional funding. Here is one trick I use to identify every requirement of a solicitation. Do a word search for the word “shall”. Most of the time it will state something similar too “contractor shall…”, copy and paste that statement into an excel spreadsheet. Repeat the process for the word “will”. You should get similar results. When you copy the statement be sure you get enough context so later you understand what it means. I also add the paragraph number next to each statement so I can find them again it I need. This process will help you identify 95% of the requirements, but there still may be more that are not as clearly defined so you still need to READ everything.
The spreadsheet you create in this process is the start of building your requirements matrix. I compare the requirements matrix to Section L (Instructions to Offeror) and highlight all the requirements that are listed in section L. These are the subject you must write about in your proposal.
A requirements matrix is an important tool when getting ready to develop a proposal. What I point out to many of the small businesses I work with is it’s a tool all your large business use. They may have different names for it, but they have a version of it. Many of your large defense companies started out as small businesses, but won large contracts. This is one of the tools that will help you win a large contract.
Author: Phil Davidson
I have worked in the Defense Industry as a contractor for over 20 years. I do Business Development for a small aviation company right now, but I have worked as a full-time and part-time consultant over the years. I decided to redesign my website as a place where I can share information about my experience and help companies come together for working together and teaming.