We have no federal past performance. Are we finished?

No. Read section M: a firm with no relevant past performance is frequently rated neutrally rather than badly, and it says so when it applies. Commercial past performance is often acceptable and worth offering. And a subcontract under a prime is a legitimate way to build the first entries, which is module 7.

How long should a capability statement be?

One page. Two only if the second page is past performance detail somebody asked for. A three-page capability statement is a brochure, and brochures do not get read by people with forty other suppliers to triage.

Do I need a written quality manual if nobody has asked?

If you make things, yes, before somebody asks, because the request usually arrives with a deadline. If you provide services, a documented process for how you deliver and how you handle a problem covers most of what an evaluator is looking for.

Can I reuse text between proposals?

Yes, and carefully. Reusable material belongs in the parts that describe you: corporate background, past performance, resumes, quality approach. The parts that describe how you will do this work must be written to this solicitation, and an evaluator recognises recycled text immediately because it answers a question nobody asked.

Who should hold all of this?

One place, with one person responsible for currency, and a review date on every document. The commonest failure is not that a firm lacks the documents; it is that the current versions are in four people's mailboxes and the one that gets submitted is eighteen months old.

Course, module 12 of 16

The documents you need

Most of these take days to write and are asked for with hours of notice. Build them once, keep them current, and a proposal becomes assembly rather than authorship.

counted over all of it, not over a sample

By the end of this module you will be able to

Build the standing set that every buyer and every prime eventually asks for
Write a capability statement that is read rather than filed
Treat past performance as an asset you build deliberately rather than one you hope accumulates
Assemble a per-proposal set from parts you already have
Keep your own documents indexed against the requirements they answer

The standing set: build these before you bid anything

These are not per-solicitation. They are your company's permanent kit, and the difference between a firm that can respond to something in two days and one that cannot is almost entirely whether this set exists.

Keep reading

The rest of this module opens with your name and email

All sixteen modules open on this device for about six months. No card and no password.

Still to come in this module

The standing documents
The capability statement, which is almost always written wrong
The per-proposal set
Key personnel, and the commitment behind a resume
Teaming documents, and the trap in them
Things the record will not let you assert twice
Questions at this stage