Syllabus — The Dream Pursuit Doctrine (14-week semester)

"Federal business is not a lottery. It is a pipeline — and the pipeline is teachable."

Course number: DL 401 · Format: 14 weeks, one 75-minute session per week (plus independent reading and assignments). Audience: Strategic Initiative, MBA, and MPA students, taught in the same room. Texts: this repository — the doctrine folder (the concepts) and the literacy folder (the maps). Tools: none required beyond a web browser for SAM.gov and Grants.gov. The course is stack-agnostic by design (doctrine/08).

How the course works

The course has three interleaved streams:

1. The doctrine — the durable concepts, taught through the shared core (modules/shared-core.md).
2. The literacy — the reading maps and the money flow, taught through real (published, closed) documents.
3. The audience track — each student takes the track that matches their program: Strategic Initiative, MBA, or MPA (modules/). All tracks meet together for the core weeks and the capstone.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the semester, a student will be able to:

• Explain where federal money lives and how it flows from Congress to an awardee.
• Read an RFP and a NOFO: locate the statement of work, the evaluation criteria, the compliance requirements, and the deadlines.
• Draw the pursuit pipeline and explain the purpose of every stage and gate.
• Compute a pursuit score from probability-of-win and value, and make a defensible bid/no-bid recommendation.
• Build an ORBITAL — the seven-axis business structure for a pursuit.
• Explain the Dream → ORBITAL → World lifecycle and the cosmology loop.
• Trace the public-side governance of the same transaction (money, rules, programs, oversight).

Weekly schedule

Week	Theme	In-session (75 min)	Reading (doctrine / literacy)	Assignment due next week
1	Where the money lives	Core S1. The three kinds of money, the identifiers, the market.	doctrine/01; literacy/where-the-money-flows	Money map of one agency
2	The money flow	Core S6 preview + literacy: trace a dollar end-to-end on USAspending.gov.	doctrine/01; literacy/where-the-money-flows	Refined money map + first look at SAM.gov/Grants.gov
3	The pipeline shape	Core S2. The nine stages, the gates, the repeat loop.	doctrine/03	One-page pipeline diagram
4	Gates and governance	Core S2 continued + SI/MBA/MPA split: the gate from each lens.	doctrine/04	Gate charter for one pursuit
5	Reading an RFP	Core S3. Six questions, Section L/M, the compliance matrix.	doctrine/02; literacy/how-to-read-an-rfp	Compliance matrix from a real RFP
6	Reading a NOFO	Core S3 continued. The grants sibling, the review criteria.	doctrine/02; literacy/how-to-read-a-nofo	Strategy reading of a NOFO
7	The ORBITAL skeleton	Core S4. Seven axes, structure-first.	doctrine/06	One-page ORBITAL for a chosen opportunity
8	Scoring and bid/no-bid	Core S5. pWin × value, the threshold, the call.	doctrine/05	Scored pursuit sheet with a recommendation
9	Midterm	Break down a real NOFO in class: purpose, eligibility, criteria, deadline, budget sketch, bid/no-bid.	(review week)	Midterm submission
10	Lifecycle and the loop	Core S6. Dream → ORBITAL → World, the cosmology loop.	doctrine/07	Flywheel reflection
11	Track deep-dive	SI: portfolio & gate governance. MBA: price-to-win & certifications. MPA: grants management & oversight.	doctrine/05, 01	Track deliverable
12	Track deep-dive	SI: ecosystem & SuperNova. MBA: delivery flywheel & the pitch. MPA: equity & policy view.	doctrine/07, 08	Track deliverable
13	Capstone workshop	Teams work the capstone: real NOFO/RFP → ORBITAL + score + bid/no-bid. Instructor reviews drafts.	case-study/ravonics.md	Draft capstone
14	Capstone presentations	Teams present their capstones; peer and instructor Q&A.	—	Final capstone submission

The track splits (weeks 4, 11, 12)

Weeks 4, 11, and 12 run the room in parallel tracks, then recombine. The shared core sessions happen in the combined room; the track sessions adapt the emphasis:

• Strategic Initiative track (modules/strategic-initiative.md): the doctrine as an operating system, portfolio strategy, gate governance, ecosystem view, organizational posture, leading a pursuit organization.
• MBA track (modules/mba.md): pursuit economics, price-to-win, the ORBITAL as a business plan, certifications as go-to-market, the revenue flywheel, the investor pitch.
• MPA track (modules/mpa.md): the money flow from inside, the FAR and grants framework, grants management, eligibility and equity, oversight, the public-policy view.

All three tracks share the same doctrine, the same case (Ravonics), and the same capstone.

Assessment summary

• Weekly assignments — 30% (each a concrete deliverable: a map, a matrix, a scored sheet).
• Midterm — 25% (breaking down a real NOFO, in class).
• Capstone — 35% (build an ORBITAL from a real solicitation + bid/no-bid recommendation + score, presented and defended).
• Participation and peer review — 10%.

Full rubric: course/assessments-and-rubric.md. Capstone brief: course/capstone-build-an-orbital.md.

Policies worth stating plainly

• The doctrine is the course. Every assignment tests the concept, never a tool. If an assignment ever seems to require knowledge of a specific product or system, that is a bug in the assignment — flag it.
• Real documents, safe exercises. We read real RFPs and NOFOs, but always published, closed ones. You never submit anything live in this course.
• Late work. The pipeline has deadlines; so does the course. Assignments are due at the stated time. The one professional grace: an honest early warning beats a silent late submission.
• Academic integrity. The federal market runs on trust in a fair, documented process. This course models that. Cite your sources; do not fabricate evidence; be the person the market can trust.

The course in one sentence

By week 14 you will have read real solicitations, built a real ORBITAL, made a real bid/no-bid call, and defended it — and you will have learned a mental model that outlives every tool this industry will ever invent.