The Importance of the Pink Team in the Proposal Process

During the proposal process, reviews are necessary for developing winning proposals. Yet, color team reviews can be difficult. This is especially true when teams are ill-staffed, disorganized, or lack leadership in the team review process. Strong review teams are critical to improving a proposal’s evaluation score. One proposal review team, the Pink Team, is imperative not only for developing a bid’s winning strategy, but also for ensuring compliance requirements are met.

Color Team Reviews in the Proposal Process

Color-coded proposal reviews are an accepted industry practice. The end goal of a color review is to refine RFP responses at multiple structured checkpoints throughout the proposal development lifecycle in order to win. In general, proposal reviews are comprised of six different teams.

Each review team has a different goal and is made up of various team members across the organization. The following summarizes each color team and their purpose in the proposal review process:

• Blue Team: This team prepares, plans, and schedules for the entire proposal team, ensuring a streamlined review process. Blue team members are largely responsible for ensuring that the proposal outline is correct and complete, and for identifying win themes and information gaps. At handoff, each section should be assigned to one of the proposal writers.
• Pink Team: Pink Team members develop core proposal content and message. This group’s focus is on narrative, detail, and messaging, not grammar or punctuation. The Pink Team relies on the Blue Team’s outline and direction to develop content.
• Red Team: The Red Team review handles positioning and compliance. Members of the Red Team are primarily from management, legal, and compliance teams. Red Team reviews heavily assess proposal content from the evaluator’s perspective to validate compliance with RFP requirements.
• Green Team: This review team provides pricing, formats the proposal, and ensures responsiveness to the RFP’s requirements. Members of technical, management, writing, and cost teams make up the Green Team. Pricing should reflect the proposal’s solution, and all details must match the format requested in the RFP.
• Gold Team: The Gold Team review and feedback processes focus on cleaning up the proposal and ensuring consistency in content and proposal graphics. Senior leadership and managers comb through each section to confirm compliance, accuracy, and alignment with value propositions.
• White Team: Also called the White Glove Team, this group gives final approval before submission. Business development leads and executives serve as stakeholders in this phase. They check visual errors and confirm readiness for the final submission.

The Role of the Pink Team in Proposal Reviews

The Pink Team review is critical in proposal reviews, since they evaluate overall proposal quality. The Pink Team decides if the outline meets the requirements of the RFP. During this checkpoint, reviewers ask: Are win themes clear? Is the message aligned and customer-focused?

The Pink Team proposal review is not about proofreading. Instead, it determines whether the draft meets compliance requirements, aligns with evaluation criteria, and supports proposal success. For some teams, the documents are storyboards or mockups that simulate near-final content. This allows the review team to refine drafts and transform ideas into a well-defined proposal writing strategy.

Challenges in the Pink Team Proposal Review

Each review team is met with a different set of proposal challenges in the review and development process. The Pink Team often faces vague or conflicting feedback from subject matter experts (SMEs) and other team members. Because the draft is still evolving, reviewers may struggle to align with capture planning objectives.

The Pink Team’s role is to confirm planning: capture managers should ensure strategies, the proposal outline, and compliance checklists are ready for review. Post-review, the Red Team provides annotated recommendations and actionable feedback to further refine the proposal content. Without this preparation, proposal writers risk missing responsiveness and weakening proposal quality and win potential.

Pink Team Review Expectations and Checklist

The Pink Team’s goal is to confirm planning, compliance, and readiness. Their expectations include:

• The proposal is 60–70% ready for submission
• Draft is fully compliant with the RFP
• Outline presents a strong, customer-focused narrative
• Drafted content and graphics support the proposal’s approach
• Any required SME resumes are included for submission
• References are clear for the compliance review

Not every proposal team has the resources for a full sequence of color team reviews. Still, following the team review process and embedding structured checkpoints can improve proposal quality and overall win rate.

Conclusion: Why Pink Team Reviews Drive Proposal Success

Color-coded reviews are an essential part of the proposal development process. The Pink Team, in particular, provides a critical checkpoint that shapes the winning strategy, improves persuasiveness, and ensures compliance with RFPs. Together with the Red Team, Gold Team review, and other phases of the team review process, they help organizations align their proposal development lifecycle with competitive advantage.

By investing in the right review and feedback processes, businesses can improve proposal quality, reduce cumbersome errors, and increase the likelihood of winning proposals.

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