Likely many, if not all, of your proposal team members, whether part of the prime or subcontractor groups, will need training on some aspect of the process. Effective training on best policies and practices can help you focus on getting the job done and winning more business.

Now you may be thinking that if it’s so important, why am I addressing the topic of training in an appendix rather than as a chapter? Well, many companies seeking government contracts prefer to have an outside source provide training, so they don’t need to know the information I cover here. They prefer to call in the hired guns to handle training and be done with it.

However, there’s a danger in relying on outside sources for training. The wrong training, at the wrong time, is bad for two reasons: the training may be misguided or misapplied, and such training gives the appearance of progress, when in fact there is none. So this appendix provides information on how the typical outsourced, usually two-day format, training should be conducted. And I also describe an alternative to outsourcing—the Just-In-Time (JIT) in-house training approach.

The most effective training for getting government contracts is done in the context of a specific proposal effort. This JIT is given to the team members, including the prime and all subcontractors, as an integral part of the kickoff meeting.

Here are questions you’re likely to have if you are involved in conducting or coordinating this training, along with brief answers to each question. The rest of the appendix explores these answers in more detail.

Let’s proceed on the hypothesis that we have only adults here. These adults arrive at the training with some, but not all, of the prerequisite skills and interests to perform the tasks they will be performing in creating a winning proposal. Further, the training is delivered by platform instruction. The term used here for the platform instructor or instructors is “faculty.” The trainees are able to hear and see clearly the materials the faculty presents.

So let’s begin with the right way to do training with the instructional objective of improving your proposals and getting a high win rate as a result. Here’s a step-by-step walk-through:

All types of training should be required to meet specifications and have performance standard. Following is a checklist of training course specifications and performance standards. These apply to all training, and specifically to the training in proposal creation:

The most popular form of proposal training in the industry is not JIT but The Fri-Sat For-Mat, a two-day session for members of your company, with representatives of all the roles in your process.

The major cost of most training is not what you would expect. It’s not hotel rooms, airline tickets, rental cars, meals, training materials, faculty fees, or facilities charges. It’s personnel costs—personnel being those on your team who must participate in the training.

The Friday-Saturday sequence just about cuts the personnel cost in half because (virtually) all the employees are professional (exempt from overtime pay). Although there may be some exceptions, professionals are if not happy, at least understanding, to trade one of their normally off-days in exchange for being included in training because they realize such training is important to their career development. In addition, individuals doing this work are accustomed to being required to work long hours in the weeks and days before the due date for large proposals. These individuals therefore have a greater acceptance of giving up a single Saturday, if it means the training will result in a more efficient proposal-creation process in the future. If the training cannot eliminate the last-minute push and long hours, it can at lease reduce those long hours.

The Fri-Sat For-Mat is not a requirement, and is only a suggestion. It is wise to test the waters with the population of potential trainees, and gain their buy-in for this scheduling. Trainees must understand where each fits in to the objectives of the training. It’s important that all trainees have a positive attitude; negative attitudes are contagious, and not at all helpful. Better to schedule during the normal work week than to impose overtime hours to an unwilling group of trainees.

The learning environment is better on Saturdays when there is no major threat of interruptions from frantic “emergency” phone calls or meetings associated with the normal business day. Especially for on-site training, the temptation for participants to drop out of the class for a few minutes or hours is almost irresistible.

Because of cost savings available to the faculty for such an arrangement, the fee is typically lower than it would be for other days.

Assuming that faculty is coming in from out of town expressly for this training course, the following conditions exist:

If you agree that the Fri-Sat For-Mat makes sense to meet a specific instructional objective, then you should know that an important part of the pre-training preparation is the opportunity for the (outsourced) faculty to meet with your top management.

An important part of the Fri-Sat For-Mat training plan is the Thursday afternoon meeting with your Top Management. At this meeting, Top Management has an opportunity to describe in detail the specific needs of this set of trainees. This enables the trainers to tailor the course materials and meet the specific needs of the trainees. If this is truly in the context of the response to a specific solicitation, the faculty can address the peculiarities of that solicitation, and therefore make the training even more relevant and useful. This presupposes that the faculty members have signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with the sponsoring company.

This type of training, JIT and for all proposal team members, allows the proposal team management (proposal manager, capture manager, program manager-designate) to proceed in the belief that all members have at least been exposed to the right material. This translates into relatively high expectations for adherence to the processes and standards taught during the course.