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Shipley Process

A structured business development, capture, and proposal methodology known for its colour-team reviews and decision gates.

A structured business development, capture, and proposal management methodology developed by Shipley Associates and widely adopted across government contracting and other competitive procurement environments. The Shipley Process provides a disciplined framework for managing the pursuit lifecycle, from opportunity qualification and capture planning through proposal development, reviews, production, and submission. It is best known for its standardized color-team review process, decision gates, and clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and deliverables. While many organizations tailor the methodology to their own processes, its objective is to improve proposal quality, compliance, efficiency, and win probability through consistent, repeatable practices.

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Thirty to forty questions. Sometimes a hundred. Capabilities, features, integrations, data handling, FAR and DFARS compliance, export controls, FedRAMP, CMMC, NIST. Almost every answer already exists somewhere in your organisation, written well, reviewed, and approved. The work is not thinking. The work is finding the good version of an answer you have written eleven times before, and rewriting it to fit the way this buyer asked the question.
An independent 3PAO auditor and VisibleThread founders explain CMMC, FedRAMP, and compliance deployment options for federal contractors.
Layer on Davis-Bacon wage provisions, DBE and MBE participation goals, Buy America requirements on federally funded infrastructure, and CUI handling on defense installations, and the document burden bears no resemblance to a commercial RFP. Most proposal software was built to answer questionnaires. AEC teams must dissect solicitations, demonstrate compliance, and carry commitments into delivery.

Related Glossary Terms

The official compilation of permanent U.S. federal laws, providing the statutory basis for many contracting requirements.
A global classification system used to categorize products and services for procurement and spend analysis.
A unique 12-character identifier assigned via SAM.gov to organizations doing business with the federal government, replacing the DUNS number.
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