Storyboarding - Seeing the Importance and Avoiding the Pitfalls
By: Pete Turck

Sometimes we just have to learn things the hard way.  If you have ever worked on proposals before you might have heard the term storyboarding as a way to outline and organize a proposal.  A lot of people know what storyboarding is but frequently (until you commit to it as part of the process) it's viewed as just another "thing" that "can't possibly fit" into a tight proposal schedule.  

But...after sitting through countless Pink and Red Team (draft and final proposal review teams) reviews (and I'm speaking from personal experience here), you will eventually get REALLY tired of hearing the following comment "well, it's all here but you don't tell a compelling story, your organization is poor and I can't see your win themes".  
Eventually you will realize that you actually save time, by avoiding unnecessary rewrites, if you take the necessary time in the beginning to storyboard and....more importantly, if you do it correctly.

Increasingly, due to budget constraints and the fact that many of your technical writers have customer requirements, proposals are done virtually.  This makes storyboarding even more critical but you need to avoid the following mistakes:

1.  You need to train and/or retrain your writers on storyboarding before the RFP is released. Failure to do so WILL be counterproductive, your writers will not understand what they are doing, why they are doing it and how to it correctly.    
2.  If teammates will be writers than they need to have a review as well.  
3.  Post the storyboards (even if you are doing them virtually) in one location e.g. proposal room, or even an office hallway (assuming access is controlled) and allow a day for others, including company leadership to come though and post comments. Remember: only constructive criticism!
4. Update the storyboards, as appropriate based on comments, and conduct a review.
Storyboarding, when done correctly, saves time and will significantly improve your win rates!

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