A Visible Beginning: Adoption Strategies and Lessons LearnedWebinar – March, 2014

Don Taylor, VP Business Development, CALIBRE

Fergal McGovern, CEO, VisibleThread

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Operational Notes Operational Notes

1. Call will last for about 40 minutes (longer if questions)

2. VisibleThread Sales (Rowland Bradley, US Sales) & Support staff (Eoin Wren – head of support) are panellists to address any questions

3. Please ask any questions using the question facility – we’ll answer them in the Q&A at the end

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Operational Notes

1. Intro to CALIBRE

2. Why VisibleThread?

3. Our experience

• 1st Pass- Failure

• 2nd Pass – Success

4. Lessons Learned

5. Q&A

Agenda

Improving CALIBRE Proposal & RFI Quality Through Automated Analytics: A sample case.

VisibleThread:1st Theater Logistics Support Proposal

Don TaylorCALIBRE

Reduce Proposal

Costs

Training

Reduced False Starts

Reduced Re-dos

Reduced-cycle time

This is a virtuous cycle.

Other folks call it common sense.

We call it a good business process.

5VisibleThread

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What motivated us?#

of

pro

posa

ls

Time

More proposals = more proposal managers, more writers, more reviews, more editing, more false starts, more redos, more costs…and yes more wins…!

VisibleThread

How can we do more (better)?

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Lots of really smart technical

folks

Functional Analysts

Software Engineers

Process Specialist

s

Policy and Procedures

Shared Tools

Shared Lessons Learned, Style

Guide, Common Repository

Our fix…we will have a common foundation improving our processes, making outcomes predictable, lowering costs and improving win rates.

VisibleThread

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Why improve proposal quality with analytics?

Increase wins Improve ease and predictability of scoring Increase readability

Reduce costs Proposal Manager and Writer Hours Color reviews Support staff

Think of the next proposal…

• Increase re-usability

• Lower future costs

• Improve future wins

• Virtuous cycle

CALIBRE ‘s Third Principle: Always innovate!

VisibleThread

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We did our due diligence and picked VisibleThread

Criteria1. Ease of use2. Industry acceptance & track record3. Cost

Other issues1. On premises (no cloud for us)2. Operate on our virtual cloud

environment

VisibleThread

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Our first rollout was less than successful…

Install product Verify operation and security roles Train corporate staff Announce it at a leadership meeting Stand back and watch the tsunami

VisibleThread

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Results of our first rollout…

Nothing The cosmic void Silence

VisibleThread

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Management gets involved

Why are we spending $? Can we do the same with MS Word? Who is in charge? What are we trying to do?

VisibleThread

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Take two…

Our challenge: Shared services vs line staff Proposal help vs proposal veteran In house example vs generic

Second approach Re-introduce VisibleThread by example Target proposal writers, not leadership Distribute rules of the road for folder naming

conventions

VisibleThread

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Proof case: An actual CALIBRE proposal

Time Phase

Long Sentences

%1

Passive Voice%2 Bad Words3

Start Pre Red 37 9.4 353

Post Red 32 6.9 299

Post Post 31 6.5 265

Finish Final 30 5.5 185

Notes:1 Actual sample of a gaseous, ponderous bit of nauseous prose from our proposal: “Proof of this can be found in CALIBRE’s successful program management support to large multiple TO award contracts, such as the $1.2B VA SPECTRUM and the $491M U.S. Army Sustainable Range Program, where we clearly demonstrate effective risk and performance management while delivering TOs within cost and on schedule.” Please stab me in the eye – it will feel better than reading this stuff.2 Actual Sample: See “can be found” above3 Definition: Problematic words and phrases introducing liability & contract risk, clichés and professionalism, deliverability risk, and credibility concerns.

VisibleThread

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VisibleThread measured, documented and encouraged improvement at every review cycle.

1. Pre Red 2. Post Red 3. Post Post 4. Final0.40.50.60.70.80.9

11.11.21.31.4 Long Sentences

Passive Voice

Bad Words

We took 4 major “turns” of the proposal.

Rela

tive I

mpro

vem

ent

Index

We now have data to measure our progress. We

could also set quantifiable goals before we release!

This 50% decrease in “Bad Words” was 100% driven by VisibleThread

VisibleThread

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Better adoption with an emerging VisibleThread ecosystem!

VisibleThread

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What specifically are “bad words” per VisibleThread?

Category / word-or-phrase # OccurencesDeliverability / such as 12Liability and Contract Risk / expert 8Liability and Contract Risk / expertise 8Liability and Contract Risk / fully 6Liability and Contract Risk / ensure 4Liability and Contract Risk / most 4Liability and Contract Risk / leverage 2Cliches and Professionalism / unique 2Deliverability / timely 2Credibility / comprehensive 2Cliches and Professionalism / state-of-the-art 1Cliches and Professionalism / world class 1Cliches and Professionalism / premier 1Credibility / dedicated to 1Liability and Contract Risk / all encompassing 0Liability and Contract Risk / anywhere 0Liability and Contract Risk / as may be required 0Liability and Contract Risk / constantly 0Liability and Contract Risk / customary 0Liability and Contract Risk / each and every 0Liability and Contract Risk / assure 0Liability and Contract Risk / insure 0

These are words/phrases that could introduce evaluation uncertainty, decrease clarity, create legal issues, or annoy the evaluator.

Some of the flagged terms are just fine in their context. Others should always be looked at…e.g., assure vs insure.

This list is based on a sorted CSV export of the quality analysis function.

VisibleThread

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Observations VisibleThread helped improve quality

Bad Words were attacked Some long, gaseous sentences were cut down to size Passive voice was not given a pass

Easy to use Sign in, upload, click on the options, and go We have our own User’s guide

We could have done even better if writers had their sections submitted to VisibleThread BEFORE any color reviews

Ask for VisibleThread report at color reviews Use your VisibleThread services…

VisibleThread can do more

sophisticated analysis. We

only used the simplest

functions.

Data-driven quality and analytics are a good thing. Welcome to the future.

VisibleThread

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User Notes…Proposal history (but not in the right order..grrr…)

The offending long sentences and passive

voice are flagged.

More color blocks means more “opportunities to

improve”

VisibleThread

Thanks – Q&A

Recording will be available

on www.VisibleThread.com

Mail support@visiblethread.com for deployment and usage questions

Mail sales@visiblethread.com for commercial questions20