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Improve your proposal reviews by using Privia
A lot of the pain felt during proposal development centers around the review process. Over and above all of the issues regarding maintaining focus and coping with egos, the logistics of a formal review require a lot of effort. Typically, reviewers mark-up hard-copies of the document (or soft copies using “track changes” feature of MS-Word). At the end of the review, someone has to go through the laborious and time-consuming process of consolidating the changes before they can be implemented. This can result in a delay of up to a whole day on a big proposal. It’s even worse when some of the reviewers are remote. Do they send their changes via FedEx or a really-long fax? Privia not only solves the logistical problems, but it has a number of additional benefits:
In Privia, when files are opened for “Review,” it opens up in a window where the reviewer can attach a “comment.” Comments can be attached to a specific item in the text (such as “Add an example from such-and-such project here”), or they can be general comments that are not attached to a specific text-item and apply to the whole document (such as “does not align closely enough with the evaluation criteria”). Reviewers can respond to the comments placed by other reviewers, and Privia automatically consolidates comments and shows all of the associated discuss threads received. As soon as the reviewers are done, the comments are ready to act on them and make the necessary revisions to the document. Re-writes can be cut-and-pasted from Privia's comments tool into the document. Because it is so easy to comment on documents, you can use it for all of your “color team” reviews and not just the “Red Team.” You can even use it for informal reviews — just to provide feedback to team members. Privia’s workflow features can also be used to support proposal reviews. For example, you might have technical approach submissions routed to a Lead Engineer for review prior to incorporation into the proposal. Privia will notify the Lead Engineer when the document is ready for review, collect his/her sign-off, and route the document to the proposal manager. The Lead Engineer could even use the review feature along with the workflow system to pass comments along. The ability to route the document and electronically collect sign-offs can also lighten the logistics workload and encourage you to do more quality assurance. This is the true benefit to using Privia for reviews. By making reviews easier, you do more of them. At all levels. This not only helps to keep the proposal on track, but ultimately results in a better proposal. A better proposal produced more easily. What’s not to love about that?
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![]() This conference is a great opportunity to really get to know their proposal software well beyond anything you'd see in a "demo." Plus, you'll benefit from all the networking, speakers, and workshop sessions on proposal development. As a special perk for CapturePlanning.com users, if you end up purchasing the Privia "Jump Start" package (or equivalent) within 90 days you'll full credit for up to two conference registrations so that attending ends up costing nothing, nada, nil. It's a fantastic way to cut your risks before committing to a major proposal software purchase. When you sign up, make sure you enter the code CPCM so they know you came from CapturePlanning.com and you can claim the credit for attending if you decide to get the package. Click here for more info. |
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