GE 640 — Proposal Management & Color-Team Leadership (14-week elective syllabus)
The proposal is a production system, and the review cadence is its quality gate. This elective teaches the management discipline of proposal production and the leadership discipline of the color-team system: how to run a proposal like a factory with a quality bar, how to review like an evaluator, and how to lead the color teams that decide whether a proposal is ever submitted.
Course number: GE 640 · Credits: 3 · Format: 14 weeks, one 75-minute session per week (plus reading and a weekly deliverable). Audience: Graduate students in the MS program; proposal managers, volume leads, and capture leaders who will own the submission decision. Prerequisites: GC 510 (competitive strategy) recommended — a proposal executes a strategy. GC 540 (advanced finance) recommended for the cost-technical reconciliation weeks. Texts: the doctrine and literacy folders of this repository; the course reader on proposal management and the review disciplines. The course is stack-agnostic by design (doctrine/08).
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course, a student can:
- Run a proposal as a production system: roles, team, schedule, page budget, and the plan that turns a strategy into a compliant document.
- Read the solicitation the way a proposal manager does: Section L (what to include) and Section M (how it will be judged), the page budget, and the deadline as a production constraint.
- Build and maintain a compliance matrix — the contract between the solicitation and the response.
- Use storyboarding to align the team on structure and evidence before drafting begins.
- Lead the color-team system with discipline: the cadence (blue → pink → red → gold → white-glove), the reviewer independence rule, and finding specificity.
- Run a pink team (compliance and outline integrity), a red team (evaluator-stance review), and a gold team (executive submission decision) with the right questions and the right discipline.
- Reconcile the cost volume with the technical volume — the audit that proves the price is the proposal in money.
- Manage a proposal retrospective that feeds the learning loop rather than the blame loop.
Weekly schedule
| Week | Theme | In-session (75 min) | Reading / material | Assignment due next week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The proposal as a production system | Roles, team, schedule, page budget. The proposal as a factory with a deadline and a quality bar. | doctrine/03; the course reader on proposal management | One-page plan: the production plan for a case proposal — roles, schedule, page budget, risks. |
| 2 | Reading the solicitation as a PM | Section L (what to include), Section M (how it is judged), the page budget, the deadline. The PM's compliance-first reading. | doctrine/02; literacy/how-to-read-an-rfp | Section L/M brief: extract the instructions and evaluation factors from a real (closed) RFP. |
| 3 | The compliance matrix | Every requirement, mapped to where the response will satisfy it. The matrix as the contract with the solicitation. | the compliance-matrix canon at concept altitude | Build a compliance matrix for a real (closed) RFP, at least 30 rows. |
| 4 | Storyboarding | Aligning the team on structure and evidence before drafting. The storyboard as the promise each section will keep. | the storyboard canon at concept altitude | Storyboard three sections of a case proposal with their evidence commitments. |
| 5 | The color-team system | The cadence, the independence rule, the finding-specificity rule, the forward-only discipline. Why the sequence exists. | the color-team canon at concept altitude; doctrine/04 | Cadence memo: design the review schedule for a case proposal, with entry/exit criteria for each color. |
| 6 | Pink team | Compliance and outline integrity. Every Section L instruction addressed; every Section M factor covered; the storyboard contract kept. | the pink-team canon at concept altitude | Run a mini pink team on a case draft: produce findings classified critical/major/minor. |
| 7 | Red team | The evaluator-stance review. Reading the proposal as the government will read it; factor scoring; the cost-technical reconciliation. | the red-team canon at concept altitude | Run a mini red team: score a case draft against Section M factors and write the findings. |
| 8 | Cost-technical reconciliation | The price is the technical proposal in money. The reconciliation memo as the auditable link. | the reconciliation canon at concept altitude; doctrine/05 | Reconciliation memo: reconcile a case cost volume with its technical volume and state every mismatch. |
| 9 | Midterm | In-class: run a red-team review of a case draft in 75 minutes — factor scores, findings, and the cost-technical check. | (review weeks 1–8) | Midterm submission. |
| 10 | Gold team | The executive submission decision. Compliance posture, pricing posture, residual risk, confidence to perform. Submit, revise, or withdraw. | the gold-team canon at concept altitude; doctrine/04 | Gold-memo: for a case proposal, write the submission recommendation with the residual-risk posture. |
| 11 | White-glove and production | The final production pass: formatting, the last compliance sweep, the submission checklist. The deadline discipline. | the white-glove and submission canon at concept altitude | Production plan: the final-48-hours checklist for a case proposal. |
| 12 | Review leadership | Running a review that produces findings, not opinions. The specificity rule, the roster lock, the escalation of findings to owners. | the review-leadership canon at concept altitude | Review-leadership memo: how you would run a red team where writers push back on findings. |
| 13 | The retrospective | The proposal post-mortem that feeds the learning loop. What to capture, what to change, and how to make the next proposal better. | doctrine/03; doctrine/07 | Retrospective design: the retrospective protocol for a case proposal after submission. |
| 14 | Synthesis | The proposal leader's desk. Final defense of a complete proposal-management plan. | (course synthesis) | Final memo: "My proposal-management doctrine," from solicitation to retrospective. |
Assessment summary
- Weekly deliverables — 40%. A cumulative proposal-management file: plan, compliance matrix, storyboards, review findings.
- Midterm — 20%. In-class red-team review.
- Final proposal-management doctrine — 30%. Defended before a panel.
- Participation and peer review — 10%.
The graduate rubric
| Criterion | Excellent | Proficient | Developing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production discipline | Roles, schedule, page budget, and risks are explicit and defensible | Mostly explicit | Plan vague or absent |
| Compliance rigor | The matrix is complete and maps to the solicitation | Mostly complete | Coverage gaps |
| Review leadership | Findings are specific, independent, and forward-only | Sound reviews | Findings vague or captured by writers |
| Cost-technical honesty | Reconciliation is explicit and mismatch-free | Reconciliation present | No reconciliation |
Policies
- Real documents, safe exercises. All reviews use real, published-and-closed solicitations and student-built case drafts; nothing touches a live competition.
- Reviewer independence is graded. A review that surrenders to the writers fails the relevant assessment.
- Late work. An honest early warning beats a silent late submission.
The proposal is a production system, and the review is its quality gate. This course teaches you to run both.