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The capture plan: customer, competition, solution

Practitioner20 min

By the end you can

  • Write the customer's issues in their words.
  • Decide what you must learn before the RFP.
No regulation requires a contractor to write a capture plan; it is a working practice. This lesson borrows its structure from the planning the government does for its own buys.

Agencies plan their buys. The FAR says agencies shall perform acquisition planning and conduct market research for all acquisitions 1. A written acquisition plan opens with the need: introduce the plan by a brief statement of need 2, and summarize the technical and contractual history of the acquisition 3.

Mirror that order. Section 1 of your capture plan is the customer's need, in the customer's own words. Section 2 is the history of the work: who does it now, under what contract, and how it was bought last time.
Check 1
How does the FAR say a written acquisition plan should open?

Customer: their words, not yours

You are allowed to ask. General information about agency mission needs and future requirements may be disclosed at any time 4, and the FAR encourages exchanges of information from the earliest identification of a requirement through receipt of proposals 5.

Worked example. Contractor A's notes from an industry day record the program manager saying "we lose two days every time a ticket is reassigned". The capture plan keeps that sentence word for word as customer issue 1, instead of rewriting it as "needs improved efficiency".

Check 2
When may general information about agency mission needs and future requirements be disclosed?

Competition, solution and the unknowns

Bids2Bank saves what Find Opportunities showed about a SAM.gov notice when it was added to My Bids 6, and the bid page labels that snapshot "as shown when added", never as verified 7. Treat it as the dated starting point for the competition section, not as settled fact.

End the plan with a list of unknowns, each with an owner and a date: what you must learn before the RFP. Anything still unknown on its date is either a pricing risk or a reason to no-bid.

Worked example. Contractor A's unknowns list reads: "1. Will the follow-on keep the same three sites? Owner: capture lead, by the March industry day. 2. Does the incumbent subcontract the help desk? Owner: BD, by April. 3. Is the budget growing? Owner: capture lead, from the agency's published budget, by April."

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