Do you know what happens when the government releases a Request For Proposal 8 business hours before the start of the Christmas weekend?\u00a0<\/p>\n
This.\u00a0 This is what happens.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The RFP Before Christmas<\/strong><\/em> The RFP dropped in the holiday season When up on my Skype there came such a beep They looked as distressed and confuse’d as me, With a chart and a graphic and a bulleted list, “Now Pink Team! Now Red Team! Now Gold Team & Blue! Like pages before the Proposal Lead sees, Integration! Develop! Innovate and deploy, Application! Location! Technology! Data! The Skype beeped again, and I realized that, gee, ‘Cause your section goes right in front of fourteen I spoke not a word, but went straight to my work, And the Skype session closed, and to Red Team it went; T’was the night before Christmas, and through every house \/ You could hear the keyboards and the clicks of the mouse…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[53,32,34],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2310"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2310"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2315,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2310\/revisions\/2315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u00a0
\nT’was the night before Christmas, and through every house
\nYou could hear the keyboards and the clicks of the mouse.
\nMy copies were stacked by the printers, but none
\nof the sections that I had been writing were done.<\/p>\n
\nGovernment contracting, there\u2019s no rhyme or reason.
\nI had just settled in to re-read what I’d wrote
\nwith a bit of a cough from that 3AM throat,<\/p>\n
\nthat I closed seven browsers to take a quick peep.
\nAnd there on the screen like a nightmare moonbeam,
\nWas a multi-Skype session with half of the team!<\/p>\n
\nnot too surprising at a quarter past three,
\nWhen, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
\nBut a Proposal Response Co-Facilitateer!<\/p>\n
\nI knew in a moment it must be Catalyst!
\nMore rapid than eagles the milestones came,
\nAnd she whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!<\/p>\n
\nGet up, you contractors, we’ve got work to do!
\nTo the management volume! To the technical, too!
\nNow write away! Write away! Hurry up, you!”<\/p>\n
\nOur words took shape fast in an effort to please.
\nSo up to the page limit our sections we wrote,
\nWith domains full of change, and some technical bloat.
\n\u00a0
\nAnd then, in a twinkling, I saw on the Skype
\nA Box full of Boxes for each section to swipe!
\nAs I copied and pasted for part Three-point-three-two
\nI knew what I wrote about SOA was true.<\/p>\n
\nAnd our management sections now read like a joy
\nA bundle of services working together
\nWith a vision and strategy to make it all better.<\/p>\n
\nOur processes fix everything that’s the matta.
\nThis proposal will win, there\u2019s no question or doubt,
\n‘Cause with Catalyst we don’t leave anything out!<\/p>\n
\nthe Proposal Response Co-Facil’ wanted me!
\nShe had a bright smile as she cheerfully said,
\n“Are you done with it yet? Can we put it to bed?<\/p>\n
\nand the Appendix is ready, if you know what I mean.
\nThis Proposal’s Main Thrust, and we’d better not lose,
\nor we’ll all be out looking for new walking shoes!”<\/p>\n
\nAnd I checked all my graphics (though I felt like a jerk).
\nAnd I laid my pen down, and hit print and hit send,
\nAnd I wondered when all of this prop-work would end.<\/p>\n
\nBut they said that we hadn’t even half made a dent
\nin the PWS – non-compliant was right!
\n“Cancel New Year’s for all! We’re writing tonight!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"