QuickStart®

QuickStart®: Proposal to Program Execution Transition

Early Preparation and Risk Mitigation

Quickstart® is built to help you navigate the proposal-to-program execution transition with speed, structure, and confidence. Programs often face the most significant risk of failure during this handoff period because key operational elements aren't fully in place when execution begins. Quickstart® is designed to help you identify risks early, fix gaps fast, and set your program up for long-term success.

QuickStart® Helps You Address 12 Areas of Risk:

You'll get a fast, focused assessment of your program’s readiness across 12 key areas where most startups struggle. The momentum gained during this phase will carry into the program and ensure that early milestones and deliverables meet the customer’s expectations. With our proven approach, you'll be fully prepared to deliver on your commitments and avoid costly setbacks.

Risk Area
Requirement Verification: Ensure all allocated requirements are demonstrably verifiable at the point of delivery.
Infrastructure Readiness: Define up-front strategy & requirements for program infrastructure.
Coordinated Program Execution Processes: Ensure plans and processes of all teammates are adequate & consistent.
Program Review Framework: Plan & establish requirements for periodic reviews with internal & external customers.
Subcontractor Selection & Integration: Execute rigorous source selection for key suppliers and vendors, and integrate them effectively into program teams.
Comprehensive Onboarding Plan: Develop an onboarding plan for training new employees at all tiers of the organization.

Risk Area
Organizational Stand-Up: Ensure the timely identification & allocation of adequate resources to support near-term program objectives.
Risk Management Planning: Implement a robust system for tracking risks and executing mitigation strategies as outlined in the program proposal.
Metric-Driven Oversight: Design a top-down metrics architecture to support performance measurement for both internal management and customer reporting.
Award Fee Strategy: Finalize award fee plan, set customer expectations & establish action plan.
EVM-Integrated Scheduling: Develop a fully integrated master schedule that aligns cost and schedule baselines in preparation for Earned Value Management.
Early Milestone Success: Initiate early efforts to prepare for critical milestones and customer reviews, ensuring readiness and alignment across teams.

QuickStart® Implementation

For each of the twelve transition risk areas, the SMA QuickStart® solution offers a disciplined and structured process to drive the risk to low. Our seasoned team of QuickStart® specialists can respond quickly to your needs and implement a plan tailored to your unique situation.

Supporting High Profile Programs

We have successfully implemented our QuickStart® solution on some of the most significant programs in US history. On each program, our QuickStart® team dramatically reduced transition risk through:

Early preparation of customer review packages
Develop highly-integrated program baselines
Focus communication with key customer decision makers
Disciplined capability ramp up driven by program priorities

Our experience in proposal development, program management and customer communications on 3,000+ proposals and 200+ programs provides us with a comprehensive understanding of the challenges associated with the critical proposal to program transition. We understand that the decisions and processes made, or not made, during the transition period can impact performance and profitability for the rest of the program. Our QuickStart® solution provides the process, people and leadership to mitigate transition risk.