From Outline To Upload Week 2: Week 2: Draft Your Full Scope of Work + Commercialization Plan
Week 2 is about converting the backbone from Week 1 into two sections reviewers actually score you on: a complete scope of work (SOW/work plan) and a commercialization plan that shows that you understand both the government customer and the real market.
This is also the week where teams either stay in control or start the slow slide into last-minute rewrites. Your week 2 goal: A complete draft of your work plan/SOW and a commercialization plan that is specific, defensible, and aligned to your technical approach.
Part 1: Draft the full scope of work (SOW/work plan)
A strong SBIR/STTR work plan does three things at once:
Proves feasibility (you can execute)
Proves logic (the tasks actually achieve the objectives)
Proves you can manage risk (you know what could go wrong and how you’ll respond)
Use this structure to draft fast without getting vague:
Task 1: Project setup + requirements confirmation
Deliverables: kickoff notes, finalized success criteria, updated risk register
Task 2: Technical approach / development / experimentation
Deliverables: prototype, model, algorithm, test harness, etc.
Task 3: Testing + evaluation
Deliverables: test plan, results, performance metrics, comparison baseline
Task 4: Transition planning / implementation pathway
Deliverables: integration plan, deployment considerations, user workflow, etc.
Week 2 SOW “quality checks” (do not skip):
Every technical objective maps to at least one task and at least one measurable deliverable
Each task has: what you’ll do, how you’ll do it, what you’ll deliver, and how you’ll prove it worked
The timeline is realistic (dependencies make sense; no “everything happens in parallel”)
You can explain the work plan in plain language without hand-waving
If you want a reference point for what “complete but readable” looks like, use a funded technical volume as a calibration tool rather than guessing.
Part 2: Draft the commercialization plan (the section that quietly decides winners)
Most first-time proposers treat commercialization like marketing copy. Reviewers treat it like evidence.
A strong commercialization plan answers:
Who buys this and why now?
What is the adoption path (inside government and outside government)?
Why you (and not a better-funded competitor)?
What happens after Phase I? (Phase II pathway, pilots, transition partners, revenue model)
Week 2 commercialization template (simple, reviewer-friendly headings):
Target customers + use cases (government + commercial)
Competitive landscape (what exists; why it’s not enough)
Differentiators (technical + operational)
Go-to-market / transition pathway (how it gets adopted)
Business model + pricing logic (high level, defensible)
Risks + mitigations (procurement, integration, security, etc.)
Do not invent market numbers or citations. If you use AI to speed up ideation, you still need to verify claims and keep it grounded.
Want to read a winning commericalization plan? Check out our funded proposals here.
How to use AI this week (without letting it write for you):
AI can be useful in Week 2 if you treat it like a proposal operations assistant, a researcher and a stand in evaluator—not a ghostwriter. Use it to (1) compare your work plan against solicitation priorities and flag potential gaps, (2) check for jargon and propose commonly understood language, and (3) sanity-check commercialization coverage (did you miss any competitors?). Do not use it to generate a full work plan from scratch or to find citations for your market beliefs. And please don’t feed your internal company data to an open chatbot.
If you want a practical, volume-by-volume approach, here’s the guide we use and here are our favorite prompts. Last but not least, some agencies prohibit the use of AI tools entirely or require disclosure of what tools you used and how. Make sure everyone on the team working on the proposal knows the limitations of the agency and is aligned to your org’s internal AI use policies.
Should I use an AI government proposal writing tool?
We tried, and our win rate tanked. Learn from our mistakes, save your money, and don’t do it, just use NotebookLM for free and our prompt best practices.
Your Week 2 checklist (done by Friday)
Full SOW/work plan draft complete (tasks, subtasks, deliverables, dependencies)
Success metrics defined for each objective
Commercialization plan draft complete using the headings above
One internal review focused on: feasibility, clarity, and alignment (not grammar)
A “compliance sanity check” pass so you don’t lose points later to formatting or missing requirements
What’s Next?
In week 3 we break down the cost volume to create a budget.
