Government Contracting Company Case Study

CASE STUDIES

Project Description

Government Contracting Company recently increased in size and hired many new personnel. There has always been a core group of people working on the many aspects of the business; however, these people are approaching retirement age, and need to pass their knowledge on to the newer employees. Contracting Company decided to implement a training program that would enable the senior staff to impart their knowledge to the newer staff with regard to responding to Requests for Proposals (RFP) as well as in the management of the various projects underway at the organization.

Contracting Company Challenges:

Challenge Number 1:

There was no standard methodology written down, to help newer employees gain an understanding of how Contracting Company responds to RFP’s. The senior staff knew the “Contracting Company Way,” but were having difficulty imparting that information to the newer staff members. Project Masters was hired to develop a training program to fill this need. The training program was then delivered by Contracting Company personnel.

Challenge Number 2:

At Contracting Company most of the work is program based but, these programs have many new initiatives that need to be managed as projects. To this end, Project Masters was hired to develop a Project Management training program, to be delivered by Project Masters' instructors. Initially, the training was intended to reflect the “Contracting Company Way” of managing projects.

Challenges:

Project Masters addressed the following challenges in managing this project for Contracting Company:

No formal methodology in place for responding to RFP’s

Contracting Company employees located throughout the country

Differing inputs, opinions, and needs from the various levels of the organization as well as from the various locations

No formal project management methodology

Solution(s) Provided:

Over a period of more than five months, Project Masters' consultants met with key Contracting Company personnel from all levels of the organization and from many of the Contracting Company locations to develop both the RFP Response training program as well as the Project Management training program.
The training program for RFP responses was delivered in June of 2004 and was very well received by all attendees. The training covered the following areas:

Determining whether to bid or not to bid on a given RFP

Developing an RFP response strategy

Developing an RFP response

Overview of writing a proposal

The November, 2004 training was originally designed to be used for information transfer from the more senior staff members to the newer, more junior staff members. However, during the investigative phase of this project, Project Masters' consultants, in conjunction with senior staff at Contracting Company, came to the joint conclusion that this training should be more about behavior modification rather than information transfer. To this end, the Project Masters' consultants developed a customized project management training program based on the Project Management Institute (PMI) model. The training covered the following general areas:

The Project Management Context

The Post-Selection Process (After Contract Award)

Project Scope Management

The Project Schedule

The Project Budget

Risk Management

Project Quality

Project Communications

Client Care

Benefit:

Project Masters working together with Contracting Company, provided training programs and consulting services that:

Enabled Contracting Company to transfer information from senior staff to junior staff regarding responding to RFP’s.

Enabled Contracting Company to have a re-usable RFP training program that can be used well into the future and reflects Contracting Company’s corporate philosophy and values.

Enabled Contracting Company to begin to modify behavior in the Project Management arena to better meet the needs of its customers.

Enabled Contracting Company to understand the Project Management model that all of the Federal government agencies, one of Contracting Company’s biggest clients, are moving toward.