8 Components of a Successful TxDOT Kickoff Meeting
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An RFP you’ve been tracking has dropped. It is officially kickoff time!
If proposals were football games, the strategic prework you’ve been doing is the training camp and developing play strategies. While crafting the RFP response is the actual football game. This means the kickoff meeting is the transition between the two. Refer to our previous blog about creating your proposal playbook here.
Now it’s time to apply all that training camp strategy work to win an actual RFP.
It’s crucial that you keep strategy at the forefront and not dive straight into tactics and tasks during the kickoff meeting. When firms focus on tasks during kickoff meetings, they miss the opportunity to strategize and customize proposals to TxDOT and the project needs.
Successful firms use an RFP proposal development process that starts with a productive proposal kickoff meeting. A kickoff document guides productive kickoff meetings. Think of the kickoff document as a living document that is both a project management and strategic alignment tool.
Here are the top 8 things firms need to do in their kickoff meetings:
1. Invite the right people. Ensure all the players who will have a hand in creating the RFP attend the kickoff meeting, including project manager and task leads. Anyone who will be, responsible for writing portions of the proposal should be invited.
2. Use the right tools. Select the right teaming tools for subconsultant coordination and project management. Spend the time to develop your CSBM (challenge, solution, benefit matrix). Create a kickoff document that guides your meeting and tracks decisions and responsibilities.
3. Decide Section Page Count. TxDOT has very stringent page count requirements. While it might seem premature to decide on page count at this stage, it is necessary to streamline the content development process. The HDB team calculates the target page limits based on TxDOT’s evaluation criteria and scoring weight.
4. Audit & Select Applicable CSBM Content. Firms win TxDOT proposals when they craft responses based on strategically weaving their approach and experience documented in their CSBM to the RFP prompts. Translate CSBM content into the TxDOT evaluation criteria. Where do the CSBM items fit into the technical approach, project manager experience, key staff, and project planning and management.
CSBM IN ACTION:
A firm successfully used its CSBM to craft a compelling story and an easy-to-read graphic representation of its technical approach for a proposed highway expansion. During the kickoff meeting, the team audited their CSBM and selected a success story from a previous similar project that outlined the firm’s plan to study traffic patterns and recommend which types of barriers TxDOT should install during the project. The team tailored this content to address the RFP criteria and dropped it into the proposal document.
5. Solidify the subconsultant team and specific CSBM content required. Streamline the complications of subconsultant management by using the CSBM to determine what content you need from subconsultants.
6. Assign Responsibilities. Break down your task list and assign responsibilities by specialty.
7. Develop a Production Schedule. After the team makes strategic decisions and assignments, it’s time to figure out how to get all the work done within the 21-day timeframe. Schedules should address milestones such as draft deadlines and review meetings. HDB uses a red, yellow, green draft review approach. Read more about our draft process here.
8. Track Decisions. The kickoff document should track both strategic and tactical decisions, from technical approaches to the production schedule to how the team will express team members’ names within the RFP document. Be sure to refer to this document when questions arise later in proposal development about what decisions the team has already made.
Firms that dedicate time and effort to creating a structured process for developing RFP responses experience a proposal development process that’s easier and less stressful while producing better RFP response documents.
“Hello Diana Brown’s genius proposal process is clearly derived from years of experience. The kickoff clearly established expectations, responsibilities, and critical milestones to meet our deadline schedule. This proven and organized approach kept us focused and on task while balancing our other client commitments.”
For more information on how HDB can help you streamline your TxDOT proposal process, schedule a discovery call or visit TxDOT Proposals breakdown to learn more.
Looking for insider tips and strategies to create winning TxDOT Proposals? Click here to sign up.