DL 220 — Pricing & Price-to-Win Fundamentals
The arithmetic course. You will turn hope into numbers: the score (pWin × value), the threshold that keeps the pipeline honest, and the price-to-win position that decides what to bid — above your floor, inside the competitive range, priced to your story.
Course number: DL 220 · Credit hours: 3 · Term: 14 weeks, one 75-minute session per week (plus independent reading and assignments) · Audience: sophomore undergraduates · Prerequisites: DL 101 and DL 102; applied statistics (may be co-requisite) · Tier: core (Year 2, Spring) · Texts: this repository — the doctrine, the literacy maps, and the Ravonics case · Tools: a spreadsheet or paper and a calculator. No specific product is taught or required. Stack-agnostic by design (doctrine/08).
Doctrine spine
doctrine/05 (scoring and price-to-win) is the spine, supported by doctrine/06 (the ORBITAL's budget axis) and doctrine/03/doctrine/04 (where the score and the threshold live in the pipeline and its gates). The course teaches the discipline of pricing — cost floors, margin floors by contract type, prohibited price actions, escalation to a pricing authority, and the basis of estimate — at concept altitude, the way a professional pricing organization encodes it.
Where this course sits in the program
This is the money course of the major: where the business analysis lives. DL 210 taught you what to chase; DL 220 teaches you what to bid and how to know what a win is worth. It is the natural companion to DL 210 — many students take them in the same year. It is the prerequisite for DL 305 (Negotiations) and feeds the pricing volume of the capstone.
Ladder: DL 101 + DL 102. Co-requisite with DL 210 (recommended). Prerequisite for DL 305. Feeds DL 480.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course, a student can:
- Compute a pursuit score as pWin × value and explain why multiplying the two matters.
- Break a pWin estimate into weighted factors and defend each factor with evidence — the difference between an opinion and a guess.
- Apply a threshold gate: state the line in advance, pass or fail honestly, and park a below-threshold pursuit without drama.
- Explain price-to-win as a position — the intersection of your cost floor, the competitive range, and what the evaluation rewards.
- Distinguish LPTA (lowest price technically acceptable) from best-value evaluation and price each one differently.
- Name the cost structure of a bid: direct labor, fringe, overhead, G&A, fee — and what "fully burdened" means.
- Apply margin floors by contract type (firm-fixed-price, time-and-materials, cost-plus, IDIQ, grant) and explain why a too-low bid is a business risk, not just lost profit.
- Identify prohibited pricing actions (below-floor without authority, rate below cost, bait-and-switch, undisclosed price drop, predatory pricing) and the escalation that protects against them.
- Build a basis of estimate (BOE): each cost element, its quantity, its unit cost, and its source.
- Read incumbency and competitive pressure into a price decision.
- Produce a full price-to-win recommendation for a real pursuit, with the arithmetic shown.
How the course works
The course alternates between the score and the price. Weeks 1–7 build the scoring discipline; weeks 8–13 build the pricing discipline; week 14 brings both together in a full recommendation. Every week uses real (published, closed) solicitations and real published award data where visible — and the Ravonics case as the default company, so everyone prices the same small firm through the same market.
Weekly schedule
| Week | Theme | In-session (75 min) | Reading (doctrine / literacy) | Assignment due next week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The score is pWin × value | Turn hope into arithmetic. Two numbers, one decision. Why the arithmetic makes the conversation honest. | doctrine/05 | A one-page "what is a score" explainer with a worked example |
| 2 | pWin as a defensible opinion | The factor rubric: customer, past performance, pricing, team, strategy. Weighted, auditable, argued with evidence. | doctrine/05 | Build a pWin rubric for your term opportunity and score each factor with evidence |
| 3 | Threshold discipline | The pass/fail line. Why the discipline matters more than the exact number. The courage to say no. | doctrine/05; doctrine/04 | A one-page threshold charter for your term opportunity: the line, the evidence, the owner |
| 4 | Value: what is it worth? | Expected value grounded in the solicitation's own numbers. The budget axis as the reality check. | doctrine/06 | A value estimate for your opportunity, with two independent anchors (solicitation + published award) |
| 5 | Composite and the call | pWin × value, the composite, the disposition. The score informs the gate; the human makes the call. | doctrine/05 | A scored-and-decided pursuit sheet for your opportunity |
| 6 | From score to price | The score decides whether to pursue; price-to-win decides what to bid. Two disciplines, one pursuit. | doctrine/05 | A one-page bridge: your score, and the three price-to-win inputs you will need |
| 7 | Midterm | In class: present your scored-and-decided pursuit sheet — pWin factors, value, composite, threshold call — and defend it. | (review week) | Midterm submission |
| 8 | Price-to-win as a position | Cost floor, competitive range, evaluation reward. The right bid is low enough to compete and high enough to be real. | doctrine/05 | A one-page price-to-win frame for your opportunity: the three inputs, named |
| 9 | LPTA vs. best-value | Lowest price technically acceptable vs. best value. When a higher price is the winning move. | doctrine/05; literacy/how-to-read-an-rfp.md | A one-page evaluation-posture brief for your opportunity: which game is the agency playing? |
| 10 | The cost structure | Direct labor, fringe, overhead, G&A, fee. What "fully burdened" means, and why the floor is the floor. | doctrine/06; doctrine/05 | Build a simple cost model for your opportunity: five cost elements, a burdened rate |
| 11 | Margin floors by contract type | FFP, T&M, cost-plus, IDIQ, grant — the floor and target for each, and the risk each carries. | doctrine/05 | A margin-floor sheet for your opportunity: contract type, floor, target, and the risk note |
| 12 | Pricing discipline and escalation | Prohibited actions (below-floor, rate-below-cost, bait-and-switch, undisclosed drop, predatory). Escalation to the pricing authority. | doctrine/05; doctrine/04 | A one-page pricing-discipline checklist and an escalation plan for your opportunity |
| 13 | The basis of estimate | Every cost element justified: quantity, unit cost, source. The BOE as the evidence the price stands on. | doctrine/05 | A BOE for your opportunity: five elements, each with a source of estimate |
| 14 | Final: price-to-win recommendation | Present the full recommendation — score, value, cost floor, competitive range, recommended price, and the story that justifies it. | (review week) | Final submission |
Assessment summary
- Weekly artifacts — 30% (the scoring sheets, cost models, and pricing briefs built week by week).
- Midterm — 25% (scored-and-decided pursuit sheet, presented and defended).
- Final price-to-win recommendation — 30% (the complete pricing package, presented and defended).
- Participation and peer review — 15%.
Rubric per course/assessments-and-rubric.md, with the additional standard that the arithmetic must be shown. A price without a visible cost model is a guess.
The midterm
In class, present the scored-and-decided pursuit sheet for your term opportunity: the pWin rubric with factor-by-factor evidence, the value estimate with two anchors, the composite, the threshold, and the call. The panel's job: "Why is your pWin that high? Where does that value come from? Who owns the threshold?" An honest number beats a hopeful one.
The final
The full price-to-win recommendation for your term opportunity: score, value, cost floor, competitive range, evaluation posture, recommended price, and the basis of estimate that supports it. Presented in 15 minutes and defended against a panel that includes a skeptical "pricing authority" role whose only job is to find the element without a source.
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 price real, published, closed solicitations. You never submit anything live in this course.
- Late work. The pipeline has deadlines; so does the course. 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. Do not fabricate cost evidence; a fake BOE is the pricing-world equivalent of plagiarism.
The course in one sentence
By Week 14 you will be able to look at any pursuit and answer the two questions that decide its fate — how likely are we to win, and what is it worth if we do — and you will have turned "this feels good" into arithmetic, and arithmetic into a price you can defend.