Gail & Jim Greenwood, Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

Copyright © 2000 by Greenwood Consulting Group, Inc.

One of the nice features of the SBIR and STTR programs is the opportunity to get feedback on your proposal once the agency has picked the winners for a particular funding cycle. Each agency does the "debriefing" on an SBIR/STTR proposal a little bit differently—some require that you request it while others give it to you automatically, some provide it in writing while others give it to you verbally—but all are required to make this feedback available to you. We heartily suggest that you take advantage of the debriefing, whether you won or lost.

The ugly truth is that SBIR and STTR are competitive programs, and chances are you will not win every time you submit a proposal. Recognizing that you spent a lot of time and thought in preparing your submittal, the debriefing can be a reasonable reward for your efforts in the event that your proposal is not funded (although it is probably like being named "Miss Congeniality"). The debriefing can give you some idea of what the reviewers understood (or misunderstood) about your proposal and what they did and did not like about it. That’s good information in case you plan to resubmit the proposal for the next funding cycle—it gives you some idea about how the resubmittal should differ from the original and help you decide whether it is even worth your while to resubmit it. Even if you don’t resubmit it (or if you are working with an agency where resubmittals are not allowed), you usually will learn something valuable from the debriefing that you can incorporate into future proposals.

Prepare to be a bit miffed about what is said in the debriefing. After all, that proposal was your baby, and you had invested a lot in it. You may get angry in that you feel the reviewer misunderstood your project, or that they were a bit arrogant in their remarks. There have even been a few instances that we’re aware of in which the debriefing demonstrates that a reviewer screwed up.

The first thing to do when you see the debriefing, therefore, is to calm down. The second thing is to let the comments sink in for a few days or even weeks. If, after that period of "reflection," you concur with some of the comments, then decide how you will incorporate them into your resubmittal or into your future proposal attempts. If you think some of the comments are just plain wrong, then have someone review your proposal and the debriefing (in that order) and ask them whether they agree with the reviewer. This, of course, needs to be someone who will give you honest feedback.

If you still conclude that some of the comments are in error, then don’t write your congressman. Instead, try to briefly describe your concern in writing (if you can’t write it down clearly and briefly, then that’s a sign that you really haven’t got your thoughts organized). Share it with the SBIR program manager for the agency (or component thereof) to which you submitted the proposal, and ask for their feedback. That correspondence should not be derogatory or threatening—your goal is to communicate your concern and to see if the agency rep concurs or has another perspective that might help you understand where the reviewer was coming from.

Remember that we said earlier that you should request a debriefing whether you win or not. It is somewhat counter-intuitive to ask for this feedback when you win—something about that old saying "don’t’ look a gift horse in the mouth." But there’s no such thing as a perfect SBIR or STTR proposal, and therefore the debriefing can help you understand what the reviewers liked and disliked about your winning proposal. Whatever they liked you can emphasize during your Phase I effort (and in your progress and final reports), and whatever they disliked can be mitigated during the Phase I project. Therefore, by the end of Phase I, you can demonstrate that you were responsive to the reviewers’ input and you can talk up the features of your work that they liked the most—both can help you in your quest for Phase II funding.