Rfp Response Proposal Review

Proposal Review Skill

Firm Profile (REQUIRED — fill in before use)

These values define who your firm is and how it writes. See SETUP.md.

• FIRM NAME: [FIRM NAME]
• WHAT THE FIRM DOES: [one sentence]
• ROLE BOUNDARY: [what the firm will NOT claim to do — leave blank if none]
• VENDOR STANCE: [vendor-neutral OR resells/implements specific products]
• SPECIALIZATION: [domains the firm credibly claims]
• VOICE: [3–5 adjectives]

Purpose

An AI-generated proposal draft may look complete but contain three categories of silent failure: drift from the approved strategy, missed RFP requirements, or content not grounded in the firm's source material. None are obvious from a quick read. This skill audits all three dimensions and produces a structured Review Report telling the human reviewer exactly what to look at — and what has already been verified — before they open the draft.

Critical Output Rules

Do not output the Review Report or audit findings to chat. All findings go into the Review Report Word document saved in Step 6. Chat output is limited to one-line progress updates per step and the final summary.

The Review Report Word document is the only deliverable. Accumulate findings internally, then write the complete report in Step 6.

Prerequisites

• The generated proposal draft (.docx) must be in the deal's WIP Collaboration Folder subfolder.
• The Strategy Brief (.docx, Phase 2) must be accessible — approved ToC, strategic themes, tone guidance, section-by-section drafting notes.
• The RFP Tracker List must be accessible with all columns populated, including Available Content and Source 1/2/3.
• Write access to the deal's WIP Collaboration Folder subfolder.

Step 1 — Load All Inputs

Load and read the following before any checks.

Proposal Draft — read in full. Note:

• The actual section structure and headings present
• Text marked as placeholder ([PLACEHOLDER, [TBD, [INSERT, [MISSING, or similar)
• Sections notably thin (less than one substantive paragraph)
• Specific factual claims, statistics, or named outcomes that require source grounding

Strategy Brief (Phase 2) — extract:

• The approved Table of Contents (exact structure and order)
• The strategic themes (3–5, with client priority, firm differentiator, supporting content)
• Tone and voice guidance
• Section-by-section drafting notes
• Content gaps flagged in Phase 2 — these should appear as placeholders in the draft

RFP Tracker List — read all rows, focusing on:

• Every Question, Mandatory Requirement, and Evaluation Criterion — must be addressed in the draft
• Available Content — what the content generation agent was supposed to draw from
• Source 1/2/3 — the documents the agent should have consulted per row
• Rows where Available Content = "No Match" — these should appear as placeholders

Step 2 — Strategy Fidelity Check

Cross-reference the draft against the approved Strategy Brief. Did the draft follow the blueprint?

2a — ToC Structure Check. Compare actual headings against the approved ToC. For each approved section:

• Present and correct — exists and heading matches or is a reasonable equivalent
• Present but repositioned — exists but in a different order (flag — ordering was deliberate based on evaluation weights)
• Missing — an approved section is absent (critical failure)
• Added — draft contains a section not in the approved ToC (flag — may be appropriate or scope drift)

2b — Strategic Theme Coverage. For each of the 3–5 themes, assess:

• Present — a reader would understand the argument (not just a keyword)
• Weak — mentioned but not developed into a clear, evidenced argument
• Absent — no meaningful treatment

2c — Tone and Voice. Sample at minimum the exec summary, one mid-document body section, and one appendix-adjacent section. For each: does the writing match the tone guidance and Firm Profile VOICE? Are flagged language patterns present? Does it read as [FIRM NAME]-authored or generic consultant prose?

2d — Drafting Notes Compliance. For each section with specific drafting notes, check whether the draft followed them. Flag any section where the note said to emphasise a differentiator or avoid a framing and the draft did the opposite.

Step 3 — RFP Coverage Check

Re-run coverage logic on the actual draft — not the approved ToC. A requirement being in the ToC does not mean it was addressed. For every RFP Tracker row where Category = Question, Mandatory Requirement, or Evaluation Criterion, locate the corresponding passage and classify:

• Covered — a substantive response exists (at minimum one paragraph directly addressing the requirement)
• Placeholdered — a clearly marked, descriptive placeholder exists in the relevant section (acceptable where Phase 2 flagged a gap; the text must say what is missing, not just mark a blank)
• Missing — neither a substantive response nor a placeholder exists (critical gap — flag for immediate action)
• Thin — a response exists but is less than one substantive paragraph, or only generic statements not specific to this RFP (moderate priority)

Produce a Draft Coverage Map (same format as the Phase 2 Coverage Map, plus a Coverage Status column):

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DRAFT COVERAGE MAP
RFP Row | Item (abbreviated) | Category | ToC Section | Coverage Status | Notes
--------|-------------------|----------|-------------|-----------------|------
Row 1   | Describe transformation methodology | Question | Section 2 | Covered | 3 paragraphs, specific to client context
Row 2   | Provide 2 examples relevant experience | Question | Section 4 + Appendix B | Covered | 2 case studies present
Row 3   | Bidder authority to contract | Mandatory | Appendix C | Placeholder | Awaiting signed cert — noted correctly
Row 4   | 90-day execution plan | Question | Section 3 | Thin | Only 1 generic paragraph — needs specifics
Row 5   | Describe subcontracting strategy | Mandatory | Section 6 | Missing | No response and no placeholder — critical gap

Step 4 — Content Sourcing Check

Is the draft grounded in the firm's actual source material, or did the agent invent content? This is the hardest check to run precisely — focus on high-risk areas.

High-risk areas:

• Sections where RFP Tracker Available Content = "No Match" — no source material. If the draft has substantive content here (rather than a placeholder), flag as potentially hallucinated.
• Specific statistics, percentages, named client outcomes, or delivery timelines — the most likely hallucination vectors. Flag any not in the Available Content summaries or Source documents.
• Named methodologies/frameworks claimed as proprietary — verify they appear in capability statements or past proposals, not invented for this draft.

Sourcing confidence per major section:

• High — clearly grounded in available source material (Source 1/2/3 or capability statements)
• Medium — consistent with the firm's known positioning but not directly traceable to a specific source document
• Low / flag for review — specific claims, numbers, or outcomes that appear in no available source — human must verify before submission

Step 5 — Placeholder Audit

Find and assess every placeholder.

1. Search all markers: [PLACEHOLDER, [TBD, [INSERT, [MISSING, [DRAFT NOTE, or any bracketed text signaling incomplete content.
2. For each placeholder:
   • Confirm it is descriptive (says what is missing and ideally who provides it)
   • Confirm it maps to a known content gap flagged in Phase 2 — if a placeholder appears for a requirement that had available content, flag as a content generation failure
   • Confirm it is in the right section
3. Flag any non-descriptive placeholder (e.g., [TBD] with no context) — must be rewritten before human review.
4. Produce a Placeholder Register:

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PLACEHOLDER REGISTER
Section | Placeholder Text (abbreviated) | Content Needed | Owner | Priority
--------|-------------------------------|----------------|-------|--------
Section 3.2 | [PLACEHOLDER: 90-day plan detail] | Detailed execution timeline with milestones | Pursuit lead | High
Appendix C  | [PLACEHOLDER: signed certifications] | Executed legal forms | Contracts team | High
Section 5.1 | [PLACEHOLDER: data residency controls] | Technical SME input on data handling approach | SME | Medium

Step 6 — Produce the Review Report

Compile all findings into a single Review Report Word document — what the human reviewer reads before opening the draft.

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PROPOSAL REVIEW REPORT
[RFP Name] — [Date]
Prepared by: Review Agent (Phase 4)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
OVERALL STATUS

[ READY FOR HUMAN REVIEW / REQUIRES REVISION BEFORE REVIEW ]

Critical issues (must fix before review):     [count]
Moderate issues (should fix before review):   [count]
Low-priority issues (fix before submission):  [count]
Placeholders requiring human input:           [count]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. STRATEGY FIDELITY
ToC structure: [Matches approved / Deviations noted — see table]
Strategic themes: [All present / Weak or missing — see list]
Tone and voice: [Compliant / Issues noted]
Drafting notes compliance: [Followed / Deviations]
[Findings table: Section | Issue | Severity | Recommended Action]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2. RFP COVERAGE
[Draft Coverage Map table — from Step 3]
Summary: Covered [n] | Placeholdered [n] (acceptable) | Thin [n] | Missing [n] (critical)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
3. CONTENT SOURCING
[Per-section sourcing confidence ratings]
Flagged items requiring human verification:
  [Specific claims/statistics/outcomes not traceable to source — confirm or remove before submission]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
4. PLACEHOLDER REGISTER
[Placeholder Register table — from Step 5]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
5. PRIORITISED ACTION LIST
Before the human review session: [critical and moderate issues for the pursuit team]
Before submission (can be resolved during review): [low-priority issues and placeholder owners]

Overall Status Logic

• REQUIRES REVISION BEFORE REVIEW if any critical issue exists: missing RFP requirements with no placeholder, missing ToC sections, or low-confidence sourcing flags on scored sections.
• READY FOR HUMAN REVIEW if no critical issues, all gaps properly placeholdered, and the reviewer has a clear action list.

Step 7 — Save and Report Back

1. Save the Review Report as [ClientName]Review_Report[Date].docx in the deal subfolder, alongside the proposal draft in the same WIP Collaboration Folder subfolder.
2. Report back with a concise summary (see below). Do not reproduce the full report in chat.

Example Summary Output

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Proposal Review complete.

Overall status: REQUIRES REVISION BEFORE REVIEW

Strategy Fidelity:
  ToC structure matches approved version
  Theme 2 (Vendor-Neutral Independence) present but underdeveloped
      — only mentioned in executive summary, not substantiated in body
  Section 4 tone: hedging language detected ("we believe", "we hope")
      — conflicts with tone guidance (confident, specific)

RFP Coverage: 31 rows checked
  Covered:        24 rows
  Placeholdered:   5 rows (all properly described — acceptable)
  Thin:            1 row (Row 4 — 90-day plan needs specifics)
  Missing:         1 row (Row 14 — subcontracting strategy:
                     no response and no placeholder — CRITICAL)

Content Sourcing:
  3 items flagged for human verification:
  • Section 2.3: "94% on-time delivery rate" — not found in any source document
  • Section 4.1: Named client outcome (healthcare) — not in capability statements
  • Appendix B: Case study dates — inconsistent with past proposal dates

Placeholders: 5 found, all descriptive and correctly located

Critical actions before human review:
  1. Add placeholder (or draft response) for Row 14 — subcontracting strategy
  2. Verify or remove 3 flagged claims in sourcing check
  3. Strengthen Theme 2 coverage in Section 3 body

Review Report saved to:
   WIP Collaboration Folder / Northwind_TransformationRFP_2026 /
   Northwind_Review_Report_2026-03-04.docx

Notes & Edge Cases

• Draft is very long: Focus the sourcing check on sections covering the highest-weighted evaluation criteria first. If time is limited, flag that the sourcing check was partial and note which sections were not checked.
• Multiple draft versions exist: Confirm which file is the current draft before running. If multiple versions exist in the subfolder, ask the user to confirm the correct file.
• Placeholder format varies: Search broadly — [, TBD, INSERT, DRAFT, NOTE: — and standardise all placeholders to [PLACEHOLDER: description — owner] as part of this review.
• Thin sections on low-weight criteria: Note the evaluation weight when flagging thin sections so the reviewer can prioritise (a thin response on a 5%-weighted criterion is less critical than on a 30%-weighted one).
• Draft contains tracked changes: Run the review against the accepted (final) version of the text, not the marked-up version. Note this in the report.
• Content gap placeholders that were filled: If the draft has substantive content in a section Phase 2 flagged as a content gap, flag it for human review — it may be appropriate or hallucinated. Do not assume it is correct simply because it is present.