by James Townsend
One of our most popular InfoStrat solutions isGovCon CRM. At some point, most government contractors reach a point where they are no longer content to track their sales pipeline in a spreadsheet and the adopt a customer relationship management (CRM) product to manage the capture process.
Unfortunately, the most popular CRM products such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales do not contain the opportunity fields, capture processes or reporting that a government contractor needs. They do not reflect all the stages for a government sale such as presolicitation, request for information, request for quote, best and final offer, oral presentations, downselecting and more.
User stories are descriptions of a process from the point of view of a user role. They do not include technical details of the implementation but they capture business rules and data elements that are tracked for a specific scenario.
Unfortunately, the most popular CRM products such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales do not contain the opportunity fields, capture processes or reporting that a government contractor needs. They do not reflect all the stages for a government sale such as presolicitation, request for information, request for quote, best and final offer, oral presentations, downselecting and more.
User stories are descriptions of a process from the point of view of a user role. They do not include technical details of the implementation but they capture business rules and data elements that are tracked for a specific scenario.
User stories which describe your sales processes are essential to determine the scope of the project and create a roadmap for an implementation.
To create user stories for GovCon CRM, first identify how many capture processes you follow. Do different programs have distinct business processes or track different data? If they use the same processes and data, you can create fewer user stories. Often our clients have some variation among types of opportunities which affect the business process flow.
Here are some user stories that you are likely to need:
To create user stories for GovCon CRM, first identify how many capture processes you follow. Do different programs have distinct business processes or track different data? If they use the same processes and data, you can create fewer user stories. Often our clients have some variation among types of opportunities which affect the business process flow.
Here are some user stories that you are likely to need:
- Opportunity creation. When do you create an opportunity and start tracking it? Who creates opportunities? Should any opportunities be created automatically, such as when a solicitation is posted by a customer? Is there more than one kind of opportunity that you track which requires substantially different fields and forms, such as the difference between a task order and a blanket purchase agreement?
- Opportunity process. What are the stages for an opportunity? Do you have gate reviews, such as a bid/no bid meeting? Do different types of opportunities require different processes?
- Price quotes. Do you use other tools to create quotes? Will the product catalog in Dynamics 365 provide the functionality that you need to generate a quote? Do prices from suppliers need to be updated?
- Opportunity closing. When do you move an opportunity from Active to Closed? Which users can close an opportunity? Do you want to automatically close opportunities based on events such as not bidding when an RFP due date passes?
- Project or order creation. After you win an opportunity, what do you want to happen? Create new project codes in your timesheets? Create an order in your ERP system? Both?
- Sales quotas. Do you assign sales representatives quotas? How are territories defined? When is quota retired? How are option years and future contract modifications handled in terms of sales recognition?
InfoStrat GovCon CRM contains standard data elements and workflows which meet substantially all of typical government contractor requirements, but you are likely to want to customize them to match your business rules as closely as possible.
User stories are at the heart of requirements analysis in the Agile methodology. They also serve as the basis for your test plan.
For more on our GovCon CRM solution, see:
GovCon Information Services: A List
Handy CRM Views and Graphs for Government Contractors (GovCon)
When Government Contractors Know They Need Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
6 Simple CRM Tips for Small Government Contractors
InfoStrat's Quick Start for Dynamics 365 for Government Contractors (GovCon)
For more on our GovCon CRM solution, see:
GovCon Information Services: A List
Handy CRM Views and Graphs for Government Contractors (GovCon)
When Government Contractors Know They Need Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
6 Simple CRM Tips for Small Government Contractors
InfoStrat's Quick Start for Dynamics 365 for Government Contractors (GovCon)