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Automating Proposal Quality Validation
In addition to lending itself to a forms-driven process, Proposal Quality Validation also lends itself to automation when using a tool like Privia. As you define what you need to validate, items can be entered into Privia's workflow system. Privia can then automate the routing and tracking of each validation item.
You can enter the list of items that need to be validated as activities into Privia. You can even pre-enter a nice long list of typical things that require validation, and from that point forward, every proposal will start with those items pre-defined in the process. Along with each item to be validated, you can include any forms, checklists, criteria, instructions, and other forms of guidance you want the participants to follow.
Privia will handle the logistics of notifying participants and delivering instructions through the use of its workflow features. It will also enable you to collect sign-offs and approvals through activity assignments, making validation of decisions truly quick and easy --- just click the button provided with the activity! Privia tracks the status of each validation assignment, enabling you to see if anything is being held up and keeping everything on track.
Privia provides you with additional options for how you validate your items. While traditional review deliverables (checklists, scoring sheets, and hardcopy markups) are available, Privia also has the ability to collect comments and sign-offs, enabling you to have a "paperless" review. This can be accomplished with Privia's embedded online tool for collecting comments from geographically dispersed participants. Using a centralized tool for commenting reduces costs and level of effort by eliminating the need to produce and distribute paper. Since all comments are kept in a centralized repository, with their corresponding document, this feature also makes it easier to deal with comments at the back end of the reviews.
Another important feature for automating proposal quality validation is Privia's built in notification system, which will alert participants when an item requires verification and action. The assignment arrives in the user's inbox with the instructions and files needed to perform the review. Participants need only click on the assignment, follow the instructions for reviewing and/or completing any files, and clicking a completion button to submit the activity so the next person in the process can continue with the next activity. Privia handles routing the files from there. Privia substantially reduces the administrative effort it takes to validate the content of your proposal, effectively mitigating the biggest barrier. The result is not only more cooperation, but better quality proposals.
Privia can be used to automate and facilitate color team style reviews as well. However, the quality of the reviews is limited to the quality of effort put into them. An automated Privia-based implementation of color team reviews will suffer from the same problems that are inherent in the color team model --- it will however suffer more efficiently ;-) Privia's ability to track and route individual assigned items can be a great resource during the color team model --- Fortunately, the combination of using the Proposal Quality Validation method to overcome the deficiencies of the color team model, and the automation support that Privia can provide gives you a powerful new way to greatly enhance the quality of your proposals.
The use of proposal software like Privia can turn the logistics of validating your proposals into a point-and-click effort. But that's just the logistics. You still need to apply your brains to the question of whether the content of the proposal is actually valid. Even with artificial intelligence, there is no way to substitute the human brain!
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