The Shipley Process — developed by the Shipley Associates consulting firm — is the most widely adopted capture and proposal methodology in the federal contracting industry. It divides the business development lifecycle into seven sequential phases, each with defined activities, decision gates, and deliverables.
The seven phases are: Strategic Planning, Long-Term Positioning, Capture Planning, Proposal Planning, Proposal Development, Post-Submittal Activities, and Negotiation. Each phase has a review gate where leadership decides whether to continue investing resources in the pursuit.
Shipley's core principle is that winning starts long before the RFP drops. Contractors who engage only at the proposal stage are already behind competitors who shaped the requirement during the capture phase.