| name | proposal-critique |
| description | Analyze a completed proposal from the perspective of an implacable buyer/negotiator. Produces a diagnostic with weighted scorecard, bottleneck checklist, improvement playbook, concrete rewrites, and offer-to-proposal fidelity check. LOW interactivity — diagnostic output, user reads and decides. Use after template-formatting is complete.
|
Goal
Evaluate a completed business proposal from the buyer's perspective — not as a friendly reviewer, but as an implacable procurement negotiator looking for leverage, weaknesses, and reasons to demand concessions. Produce a comprehensive diagnostic that identifies what works, what fails, and exactly how to fix it.
Inputs
- Context Document:
deals/[NombreDeal]/00-context/context-document.md
- Offer Design:
deals/[NombreDeal]/02-offer/offer-design.md
- Proposal:
deals/[NombreDeal]/03-proposal/proposal.md
- Scorecard reference:
shared/references/critique-scorecard.md
- Bottleneck checklist:
shared/references/bottleneck-checklist.md
- Template:
shared/templates/04-proposal-critique.md
Output
deals/[NombreDeal]/04-evaluation/proposal-critique.md
Core Principles
-
Buyer's perspective, not seller's. Adopt the mindset of "un negociador de contratacion y compras implacable." Look for: leverage extraction points, pricing weaknesses, desperation signals, ambiguity that can be exploited, missing proof, weak guarantees. This is not surface copy critique — it is deep negotiation analysis.
-
Evidence-based scoring. Every score in the scorecard must cite specific evidence from the proposal document. No vague justifications like "could be stronger" — point to the exact section, sentence, or absence that justifies the score.
-
Fixes are concrete. The Improvement Playbook does not say "improve the guarantee." It says "In Section 8.1, replace the current guarantee text with a specific stress-test mechanism that tests [X] before go-live, with binary pass/fail criteria and full refund if fail." Rewrites provide actual replacement text.
-
Fidelity matters. Check whether the proposal faithfully translates the offer. Missing elements, weakened language, or inconsistencies between offer and proposal are critical findings.
Procedure
Phase 1 — Absorption
- Read
deals/[NombreDeal]/03-proposal/proposal.md in full.
- Read
deals/[NombreDeal]/02-offer/offer-design.md in full.
- Read
deals/[NombreDeal]/00-context/context-document.md in full.
- Read scorecard reference:
shared/references/critique-scorecard.md.
- Read bottleneck checklist:
shared/references/bottleneck-checklist.md.
- Read template:
shared/templates/04-proposal-critique.md.
Phase 2 — Section A: Exec Summary
- Identify the 3 biggest strengths with evidence.
- Identify the 3 biggest weaknesses with negotiation impact.
- Identify the 3 highest-leverage fixes (changes that would most improve conversion).
Phase 3 — Section B: Scorecard
-
Score each of the 10 criteria (1-10 scale):
Value Equation (60% weight):
- Dream Outcome claro y especifico (12%)
- Perceived Likelihood: mecanismo + plan + control (18%)
- Time Delay reducido: time-to-value (12%)
- Effort & Sacrifice reducido: friccion (10%)
- Value Stack / percepcion de deal (8%)
Proposal That Converts (40% weight):
- Deliverables especificos + criterios de aceptacion (10%)
- Scope y limites (8%)
- Proof / credibilidad (8%)
- Risk reversal / safeguards (8%)
- Buying friction: pricing + next steps (6%)
-
For each criterion: score with specific evidence from the document.
-
Calculate weighted total using the formula from critique-scorecard.md.
-
List all fragilities (criteria scoring below 6).
Phase 4 — Section C: Bottleneck Checklist
-
Run the 9 binary checks from bottleneck-checklist.md:
- One-liner A to B in Z without X
- Why believe? (mechanism + steps + success criteria)
- Time-to-value (quick win 7-14 days)
- "What do I have to do?" (client inputs + DFY clarity)
- Auditable deliverables ("done when...")
- Scope + not included + change process
- Proof (1-3 hard assets)
- Risk reversal (conditional guarantee/test/remedy)
- Pricing + decision + next steps
-
For each: PASS, PARTIAL, or FAIL with specific evidence.
-
Count totals. Interpret: 7+ PASS = ready; 4-6 = needs fixes; <4 = significant revision.
Phase 5 — Section D: Improvement Playbook
- Identify top 10-12 fixes ordered by leverage (highest impact first).
- For each fix:
- Diagnosis: What is wrong (specific)
- Impact: Why it weakens the proposal (negotiation/conversion perspective)
- Concrete change: Exactly what to do
- Where: Which section of the proposal
Phase 6 — Section E: Rewrites
- For the 3-5 weakest sections, produce concrete rewrite blocks.
- Each rewrite is actual replacement text the user can copy-paste.
- Provide 2-3 variants for the most critical rewrite.
Phase 7 — Section F: Translation Check
- Compare Offer Design to Proposal systematically:
- Items successfully translated (3-5 elements)
- Items missing or weakly translated (3-5 elements)
- Inconsistencies between offer and proposal (data, metrics, claims that don't match)
Phase 8 — Completion
- Write summary: weighted score, 2-3 sentence executive assessment, estimated impact of applying fixes.
- Assemble full document using template structure.
- Save to
deals/[NombreDeal]/04-evaluation/proposal-critique.md.
- Present key findings to user: "Proposal scored [X]/10. [Y] bottleneck checks passed. Top 3 fixes: [list]. Full diagnostic saved."
Anti-patterns
- Friendly, surface-level critique. This is a buyer's negotiation analysis, not a peer review. Be ruthless.
- Scores without evidence. "7/10 — solid" is useless. Cite the exact section and quote.
- Generic fix recommendations. "Improve the guarantee" is not actionable. Specify the exact change.
- Skipping the translation check. Offer-to-proposal fidelity is where silent value loss happens.
- Producing the critique without reading all three source documents. Context informs what the client actually said; offer informs what was promised; proposal is what's being delivered.
- Rewrites that change the strategic direction. Rewrites improve the proposal's execution, not the offer's strategy. If the strategy is wrong, that's feedback for offer-design.
