CMP Decision Making & Problem Solving 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A capture team must decide whether to partner with a small business that offers unique technical capabilities but has a weak past performance record. Which tool BEST structures this trade-off?
- SWOT analysis
- Decision matrix with weighted criteria (Correct answer)
- Fishbone diagram
- Monte Carlo simulation
Correct answer: Decision matrix with weighted criteria
A decision matrix allows the team to weight technical capability against past performance risk and other factors for an objective comparison.
Question 2: During a Black Hat review, the team identifies that a competitor likely has an inside track with the customer. What problem-solving step should follow?
- Immediately contact the customer contracting officer
- Develop counter-strategies to neutralize the competitor's advantage (Correct answer)
- Abandon the pursuit and reallocate resources
- File a protest preemptively
Correct answer: Develop counter-strategies to neutralize the competitor's advantage
Black Hat findings should drive counter-strategy development, such as differentiating your solution or expanding your own customer relationships.
Question 3: Which scenario BEST illustrates satisficing in a capture management decision?
- Choosing the teaming partner with the highest past performance scores
- Selecting the first teaming partner who meets the minimum qualification threshold (Correct answer)
- Evaluating all possible partners before making a selection
- Deferring the teaming decision until the RFP is released
Correct answer: Selecting the first teaming partner who meets the minimum qualification threshold
Satisficing means selecting the first option that meets an acceptable threshold rather than optimizing across all possibilities.
Question 4: What is the PRIMARY risk of using group consensus as the default decision-making method for all capture decisions?
- It produces overly aggressive proposals
- It can suppress dissenting views and lead to groupthink (Correct answer)
- It always results in delayed timelines
- It eliminates the need for a capture manager
Correct answer: It can suppress dissenting views and lead to groupthink
Over-reliance on consensus can create groupthink, where social pressure silences critical perspectives and leads to flawed strategies.
Question 5: A capture manager must solve a customer pain point that has not been officially stated in any document. Which technique is MOST appropriate to surface this latent need?
- Reading the draft RFP thoroughly
- Conducting targeted customer interviews using open-ended questions (Correct answer)
- Reviewing competitor proposals from similar awards
- Analyzing the customer's budget submissions
Correct answer: Conducting targeted customer interviews using open-ended questions
Open-ended customer interviews are designed to surface unstated needs that customers may not articulate in formal requirements documents.
Question 6: A team is divided between two proposal themes. The capture manager uses a 'devil's advocate' role to challenge each theme. This technique primarily helps to:
- Speed up the decision-making process
- Identify weaknesses in each option before committing (Correct answer)
- Build consensus among team members
- Assign accountability for the final decision
Correct answer: Identify weaknesses in each option before committing
The devil's advocate role stress-tests each option by deliberately arguing against it, exposing weaknesses before a commitment is made.
Question 7: When should a capture team apply Occam's Razor as a decision-making principle?
- When selecting the most expensive solution to signal quality
- When choosing between competing explanations for a customer's behavior (Correct answer)
- When building the price-to-win model
- When writing the executive summary
Correct answer: When choosing between competing explanations for a customer's behavior
Occam's Razor advises preferring the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions when multiple hypotheses explain the same observation.
CMP Decision Making & Problem Solving 3
A capture team must decide whether to partner with a small business that offers unique technical capabilities but has a weak past performance record.
Which tool BEST structures this trade-off?