The critical essence of capture management

Defining what is a good capture manager is easy. You need the ability to manage multiple people from multiple disciplines and keep a single-eyed focus on the objective of winning a contract.

It sounds pretty straightforward, but once you dive into it, as we’ve done in this month’s cover story, it gets a lot more complicated.

After editing the stories and speaking with a few other individuals myself, I’m left with very little doubt that a capture manager is a breed apart.

Let’s put aside the sports analogies for a moment about the thrill of competition and rush of victory. Capture managers want to win, but beyond that, they believe they are going to win, every single time.

That level of confidence helps them rebound from the inevitable defeats and keep pushing forward. It also fuels their ability to inspire and motivate others.

Along with the desire to win the next great skill is the ability to direct and coordinate others. Here the sports analogies flow. They are more point guard then shooting guard; more quarterback then star wide receiver. They have to see the entire field and find the best way to score.

In this era of task-order contracts and narrower windows for responding to requests for proposals, they are in short supply. And as companies reminded us over and over as we worked on this special report, they are fiercely guarded assets.