RFP Parsing Services

It all starts with a Request for Proposal (RFP) from the Government. RFPs come in many formats and in many different styles. To ensure compliance, the first task of a Proposal Manager is to break the RFP down into individual requirements that flow across multiple sections of the RFP. The best way to do this is to actually cut and paste each individual requirement into a new document that can then be mapped to individual paragraph headings for your proposal. Many times a single Paragraph Heading in a proposal will have to consider instructions from Section L, Evaluation Criteria from Section M, and Contract Requirements from Section C of the RFP. There may also be other information from other Sections of the RFP that must be considered when writing a certain paragraph of the proposal. The Proposal Team may also have certain points that they want to make in each paragraph.

The Proposal Manager Challenge

Experienced Proposal Managers will create some form of a Compliance Matrix or Annotated Outline prior to starting to write. To do this, they need each line taken out of the RFP and placed in an easy to use document. The process of taking the text out of the RFP and breaking it down into individual requirements is called parsing. Some companies refer to this process as Shredding, Stripping, or Bursting. After the requirements are taken out of the RFP, the Proposal Manager can then easily work with them. But it is a time-consuming and tedious task that is needed to be performed at the most critical and hectic time during the Proposal Process. The Proposal Manager has many other duties to perform at this time. It doesn’t make logical sense to have them cutting and pasting or typing requirements into a useable document.

The Proposal Geek Solution

Our team uses automated tools to help move the text out of the RFP into a useable Excel Worksheet. These worksheets are part of our Proposal Analysis and Planning System. As soon as an RFP is released by the Government, someone on your team uploads the RFP to our website. Our team is notified immediately and we begin the tedious task of parsing the RFP into the Excel worksheet for you. We also number each RFP requirement with the full reference number which improves communication with the team and helps with the Proposal Paragraph numbering process. We highlight key words in the proposal such as Shall, Must, Describe, etc. to ensure every little requirement is easily recognized by the Proposal Manager. This service is performed in less than 24 hours so that on day two after the RFP release the Proposal Manager can start using the parsed text to help them develop the Proposal Outline, Populated Storyboards, Compliance Matrices, and Writer Instruction Documents.

Our team uses seven different Quality Checks and has another member of the team do a visual quality check of the work before the worksheet is turned back to the Proposal Manager. This process frees up the Proposal Manager’s time on the first day to simply reading and highlighting the RFP. By day two, they are ready to start mapping all the requirements to individual Paragraph Headings.