Introduction

The basics

You are the ghost of an overworked proposal person who haunts the bid centre.  As in life, you have some influence, but no real power.  So you can be the ‘guiding spirit’ of bids, putting ideas into people’s heads about what they should do, but you can’t just get on and do it yourself; you are not part of the headcount.

Your role is to help mortal bidders through stages of the business winning process. 

First you will use your ghostly influence to steer the making of preparations: how budgets will be allocated, what resources will be engaged, when key steps in the work will be scheduled.

Then you will guide the people through the work.  Crucially, you will help them to decide how to deal with events that arise.

As each day passes, work is done, improving the probability of successfully completing the stage by a few percentage points.  But depending on what activities your people planned and how they respond to events, they may accumulate more points - or lose some. 

The winning team is the one that gets to the end of the stage with the greatest probability of success.  If you get them to the end of the stage with 100% or more, there is every chance you will be reincarnated as a consultant.  Fail, and you come back as a bid manager.

ooooOOOOOooooohhhhh.

Other ghosts will decide how well your mortals do.  You can argue with them, but an umpire-ghost will terminate interminable discussion and decide if no decision is reached.

 The rules

Your initial probability of successfully completing the stage is set.  (This was determined by the outcome of the previous stage.)  Each turn – representing one day in the stage – the work done potentially increases the probability of a successful completion by a given percentage.

Before play starts, you will get a budget (of Shells), a list of available resources and a timeline.  You will have ten minutes to decide how you will use your budget to engage resources and how you will schedule planned activities.

If you overspend, you must trade budget for probability of success.  The exchange rate is 20 Shells for a 1% change in probability of success, e.g. spend 100 Shells over budget; lose 5% probability of success.

All players will then move forward through the stage in turn.

·                Each day, stuff happens, represented by the Event cards.

-      Some stuff happens only at particular points in the stage. These will be marked on the timeline. When you come to one of these points, you must take an Event card from the ‘Now!’ deck for that point. 

-      Some stuff happens any time.  When you come to an unmarked day, draw a card from the ‘Then…’ deck.

·                Read the card out, say how you respond.  Sometimes, you just have to take it on the chin, but maybe there are things you planned or actions you can take in the future to mitigate negative effects or capitalise on positive ones.  You can say what these are and the other players will decide how your response impacts your probability of success, awarding or subtracting percentage points.   

Some examples:

You arrive at the ‘RFP Release’ point on the timeline and draw a card from the ‘Now!’ pack.  It says:

The technical requirements are more challenging than expected.  Probability of success could be reduced by 10%.

You re-arrange your budget so as to engage additional technical resources to your team.  You argue that these will enable you to address the more challenging requirements and mitigate the impact.

It’s an ordinary so you draw a card from the ‘Then…’ pack.  It says:

Somebody who is slightly senior to and a good friend of the Chief Engineer needs somebody with his expertise to help with another project for ‘a couple of days’ (actually four).  He calls the Chief’s desk, knowing the Chief won’t be able to say ‘no.’ 

You argue that this has no effect because you spent some of your budget on a dedicated bid room away from people’s normal desks.

·              Some people just have the luck of the devil.  If you draw a Devil card, you can hold on to it and decide to play it – once – when you draw any subsequent Event card.  If you decide to play the Devil, you don’t have to read your Event card out; place it face down beside you with your Devil card on top of it.  You can keep it and play it later along with any subsequent Event card, or not play it at all.  Most devilish of all, you may require another player to play the card in addition to the one they draw themselves.

Some examples:

You have a Devil card and you later draw this Event card:

You opened the window and in flew Enza.  Bad luck.  Roll a die for each member of your team.  1 or 2; they are off for a week and your daily increase in probability of success is reduced proportionately.  No refund on your budget within the timescale of this stage.

You hand this card to another player.

You have a Devil card and you later draw this Event card:

A previously rejected supplier keen to be involved in the programme submits a revised offer for a critical subsystem.  It is technically superior to any other and would enable you to reduce your price, increasing your probability of success by 10%.  However, reworking the offer and proposal to incorporate it would take an extra 120 Shell’s worth of resource over at least 4 days.  

You decide to hold this card and choose whether to play it in the last week of the stage. 

·             Once you have played a card, return it to the bottom of the deck it came from.

·              You may change your plans during the game, of course.  Declare your changes during your turn, after you have dealt with any Event card. 

The umpire will keep track of everybody’s budget and probability of success throughout the stage.  He has the ‘casting vote’ in debates about players’ actions and their outcomes – though he might use the roll of a die to help decide where outcomes are a matter of chance.

Scenario: Go/no go decision to proposal submission

The story so far: the prospect has been adequately researched (and influenced, where possible).  The likely requirements are sufficiently understood, as are the customer’s hot buttons and likely budget.  A solution has been roughly outlined, suppliers provisionally identified, and a cost and price that is likely to be acceptable to the customer while also leaving a reasonable profit margin have been estimated.  Likely competitors and their probable offerings have been identified and our own solution is believed to be at least as good.

The opportunity has just come to the stage where the campaign manager has, as required by company processes, persuaded a senior departmental-level manager that it is worth pursuing more formally.  The head of department has agreed to authorise the budget for fully formulating a solution and preparing a proposal in response to the RFP that is expected any day now. 

You are going to guide the campaign manager and, later, other bid team members through all business winning activities up to the point where, with top-level company management blessing, a proposal is submitted to the customer.

Company procedures mandate a formal presentation to the board to obtain approval to submit a proposal.  It takes a full day and must be within one week of anticipated submission.  Directors require at least one week’s notice and at least three must be present to grant approval.  Depending on how much confidence the presentation gives them, the directors may not require every ‘i’ to be dotted.  On the other hand, they may only grant permission subject to some additional work (not always trivial!) being done.  No other hurdles/gateways are required, but bid teams are free to implement additional reviews, and usually do, even though it may cost them a small amount of progress.  The Directors often look for some confirmation – such as formal reviews – that product, price and proposal have been fully addressed.

Preparation

Budget assigned:  1000 Shells

Timeline:

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^ Start

<  Approval Review?  >

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^ RFP Expected

Submission expected ^

Win Probability: 20% at start, default increase of 2% daily.

Resource available	Description	Cost / day	Days	Cost
Campaign Manager	Solely involved to date.  Has expert knowledge of customer and competitors.  Can manage bids, but lacks some skills for this.	15
Bid Manager	Senior enough to give orders.  Skilful enough to ensure they are followed.  Adequate knowledge of technology and marketplace.  Can do scheduling.	12
Chief Engineer	Understands technical requirements and can specify a solution to them.  Knows in-house capability inside out.  Can write precisely but not in a particularly customer-friendly way.	10
Technical Specialist, A	Limited oversight and marketing appreciation, but can specify detailed elements of 40% of solution as well as the Chief. Not an ace writer.	3
Technical Specialist, B	Limited oversight and marketing appreciation, but can specify detailed elements of (another) 40% of solution as well as the Chief. Weak writer.	3
Subcontracting specialist	Has all the contacts and knows all the processes to obtain bought-in elements of solution.	5
Pricing specialist	Can take care of all pricing and costing.  Confirms (or otherwise) solution will yield adequate profit.	5
Scheduler	Produces optimum programme of work for delivering the solution.	4
Proposal authoring specialist	Turns plain facts into persuasive prose.  Significantly reduces experts’ proposal-writing effort.  Can also edit, do document admin and production.	8
Technical editor	In-house copy-editing service.  No understanding of, or commitment to, proposal but can be relied upon to make it linguistically flawless.	4
Document administrator	Ensures that no work ever gets lost, prevents duplication and parallel working.	2
Document production services	Dedicated in-house printing, binding and despatch services, including all necessary equipment.	2 (+20 setup)
Document production services	Ad hoc external printing, binding and despatch service.	80
Dedicated bid rooms	Said to enable more efficient collaborative working and minimise distractions from ‘day jobs.’	2 (+20 setup)
Dedicated IT	Dedicated PCs, network, storage, and 24/7 support service, separate from routine company resources.	2 (+20 setup)
Independent reviewers	Ensure that your solution and proposal are suitable.  Reviewers with various areas of expertise are available.  Require four working days’ notice unless otherwise specified.  Say which you engage, e.g. technical, marketplace, readability, approval, etc.	10
A N Other	You specify. Justify to other players.

The umpire will circulate a spreadsheet containing a tab for each player's timeline, resource allocation, probability score, budget, etc.  This will be updated and recirculated at the start of each turn.