Gail & Jim Greenwood, Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

Copyright © 2005 by Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

Many of you are probably working diligently on your Phase I proposal for next week’s submittal deadline at the Department of Defense. We don’t want to take too much of your time, but do want to address a couple of things that we think you should know about.

First, we are seeing a lot of errors in the "Related Research" section of Phase I DOD proposals. Per the instructions, this section is supposed to convince the reviewer that (a) your team has prior experience relevant to this project and (b) you are aware of the state-of-the-art in terms of similar or related R&D. One common error is to not list any related work that your team has performed in the past, which suggests to the reviewer that you are not qualified for this project. Highlight prior work in which the Principal Investigator on your proposal was involved, as this adds to his/her qualifications as the PI. Also briefly describe work that the exact same team (company personnel, consultants, subcontractors) has performed that is right on target in terms of the proposed project. Then describe work that subsets or individual members of the team have performed.

Another common error in this section is to fail to describe the relevancy of the related work to the current proposal. It may be obvious to you, but it often is not obvious to the reviewer. A related and very common error is to not distinguish the differences between the related prior work and the proposed project. Sometimes we read proposals where the prior work sounds so similar to what you are proposing that we wonder if you have already done the proposed project and now just want to get "reimbursed" for it.

Another error that we see more and more these days is failure to address the second half of the instructions for this section, or the demonstration of your team’s awareness of the state-of-the-art. Don’t expect the reviewer to just assume you know it since you have done related work—you need to briefly describe key research that others have performed that is relevant to your project. Note we said "briefly"—we’re suggesting that landmark work in your field is to be summarized in not more than a sentence, and if you can do it in half of a sentence that’s even better (with the other half of the sentence summarizing another key piece of research by others). Your goal, in a paragraph or two, is to convince the reader that you are on top of everyone else’s important research in this area.

Okay, we know you need to get back to putting the finishing touches on your DOD Phase I proposal, so just one other piece of advice: DOD allows you to submit your cost proposal using either the format given in the instructions, or you can use the on line form. We strongly recommend that you use the on line form, for several reasons. First, it is designed specifically for SBIR/STTR proposals, so it has a more logical flow to its sections than does the old format. Second, it readily accommodates "Options" that those of you submitting Phase I proposals to Navy and Army are hopefully taking advantage of. Third, it does some of the math automatically for you—you plug in your G&A rate, for example, and tell it what base is being used, and it automatically does the calculation. We also like the fact that the form defaults to the Partial Payment option, versus the less preferable Progress Payment choice.

If you have time, and want some additional "do’s and don’ts" on DOD Phase I proposal preparation, please refer back to our SBIR Alerting Service article in 2000 in which we made a number of recommendations that are still relevant to your 2005 submittal. Archived copies of this and other proposal writing tips are found on the SBIR Alerting Service website, and on our website (http://g-jgreenwood.home.att.net).

Best of luck with your DOD submittal. And remember, the deadline is 6:00 am Eastern STANDARD Time on July 15^th, 2005. Don’t wait until the last minute to upload your proposal, especially if you aren’t sure how 6:00 am EST translates to Pacific, Mountain, Central or Eastern DAYLIGHT Time, or Mountain STANDARD Time if you are in Arizona, or Central STANDARD Time if you are in parts of Indiana, or …