What are proposal color team reviews? [2025 guide]

In high-stakes bidding, proposal quality is the difference between winning and losing. One of the most effective ways to improve your proposal content is through rigorous internal reviews, which the industry calls color team reviews. These reviews ensure that your proposals are compliant, responsive, customer-focused, and compelling. This guide walks you through the proposal review process, explores the key color teams involved, and offers insights into building a winning strategy that consistently delivers high-quality, competitive proposals.

What are color team reviews?

Color team reviews are structured checkpoints during the proposal development lifecycle, each serving a specific function in refining your bid. These teams are usually color-coded: Blue Team, Pink Team, Red Team, Green Team, Gold Team, and White Team. Though some companies may tailor the terminology.

Each review team evaluates different aspects of a proposal, from early strategy to final submission. Integrating color review into your proposal lifecycle can drastically increase proposal quality and win rates. It brings in subject matter experts (SMEs), proposal managers, capture managers, and even senior leadership to stress-test your RFPs.

Let’s explore each color team’s role and how they shape a successful proposal.

💙 Blue Team: Strategy & structure

The Blue Team review happens during the early stages of proposal development and often follows capture planning. This team reviews the win strategy, capture plan, and the structure of the proposal before writing begins. Key players in the Blue Team include capture managers, proposal managers, and business development leads.

The Blue Team ensures the response aligns with customer focus, RFP requirements, and competitive assessment. They also help define the proposal graphics, themes, and messaging that will resonate with evaluators. This early review is critical to ensure that proposal writing starts on the right foundation.

🩷 Pink team: Early draft evaluation

The Pink Team review evaluates the first major draft of the proposal. This team assesses how well the proposal reflects the strategy outlined by the Blue Team and whether it is compliant with the RFP requirements.

Proposal managers bring in subject matter experts and reviewers who can evaluate both the content and the messaging. The Pink Team focuses on responsiveness, proposal structure, and overall persuasiveness. It’s an ideal point to spot gaps, misalignments, or weak sections that need deeper development.

The Pink Team review typically emphasizes customer focus, proposal content alignment, and clarity of value propositions.

❤️Red team: The critical eye

The Red Team Review is the most well-known and often the most rigorous. This review simulates the customer's proposal evaluation process. It usually occurs after the second draft is completed, with the goal of assessing compliance, clarity, and competitiveness.

Red Team reviewers are typically not involved in the proposal writing process. This fresh perspective helps them review with the same mindset as an actual evaluator. The question at this stage is: would this proposal win?

Red Team Reviews focus on:

• Compliance with RFP requirements
• Responsiveness to the customer’s needs
• Strength of win strategy
• Quality of proposal graphics
• Competitive positioning

Multiple Red Team Reviews may be conducted in complex proposals. Understanding what is a Red Team Review and implementing it effectively is essential to refining the final narrative and catching any issues before submission.

💚Green team review: Pricing scrutiny

The Green Team review focuses exclusively on pricing strategy. This team ensures the cost volume is accurate, competitive, and aligned with the technical proposal.

Green Team Review evaluates:

• Pricing review for consistency
• Compliance with cost-related requirements
• Cost realism and feasibility
• Integration of pricing strategy into win themes

This review includes proposal managers, pricing analysts, capture managers, and senior leadership. It’s crucial that the pricing narrative supports the value proposition while remaining within budgetary constraints.

💛 Gold team review: Final polish

The Gold Team Review is the final internal review before proposal submission. It validates the readiness of the entire document: content, formatting, compliance, and delivery logistics.

Gold Team members include senior leadership, proposal managers, and often legal or compliance representatives. They ensure:

• Proposal quality meets brand standards
• No compliance issues remain
• Final proposal structure supports evaluation criteria
• Timely, accurate proposal submittal

This review allows time for final adjustments and ensures every section reflects the voice of the customer and the company’s strengths.

🤍 White team review: The white glove approach

Some organizations add a White Team Review, also known as the white glove review, as an optional, highly detailed check. This team combs through every line of the proposal to ensure complete accuracy and visual polish.

The White Team focuses on:

• Grammar, punctuation, and style consistency
• Proposal graphics formatting
• Document readability and flow
• Alignment between content and evaluation criteria

The white glove review is ideal for high-value pursuits where attention to detail can make or break a bid. It is often used in conjunction with the Gold Team to ensure the highest proposal quality.

Lessons learned: Post review reflection

After the proposal submittal, conducting a lessons learned session can elevate the entire proposal review process. Gather feedback from all color teams and proposal stakeholders to capture insights on what worked and what didn’t.

This is a valuable tool for improving:

• Proposal writing processes
• Color team review coordination
• Role clarity between proposal managers and reviewers
• Use of subject matter experts and business development leads

By documenting lessons learned and updating templates or workflows, your proposal team will continuously improve future efforts.

Building a high-performance proposal team

Color team reviews are only effective if the right people are involved. Building a strong proposal team means engaging:

• Proposal managers to drive timelines and content
• Capture managers to steer win strategies
• Subject matter experts for technical accuracy
• Business development for customer intelligence
• Senior leadership for strategic alignment

It also means preparing each team in advance. Use review guides, mock evaluation forms, and review rubrics to help reviewers stay focused and provide actionable feedback. Educate team members on the expectations and objectives of each color team review.

Integrating reviews into the proposal lifecycle

Color review shouldn’t feel like isolated checkboxes. They must be embedded throughout the proposal lifecycle and managed proactively.

Use these tips to integrate color team reviews more effectively:

• Set realistic timelines with buffers for each review
• Use collaboration tools to track changes and comments
• Create a proposal schedule that includes all color teams
• Align reviews with key proposal milestones
• Use version control to manage inputs from multiple reviewers

The competitive edge of color team reviews

When properly executed, color team reviews turn your proposal development process into a competitive advantage. They ensure that your submissions are not only compliant but persuasive, accurate, and compelling.

A robust proposal review process helps:

• Catch compliance issues early
• Improve responsiveness and customer focus
• Align messaging with win strategies
• Enhance proposal structure and graphics
• Raise the overall proposal quality

For teams aiming to win more business, integrating color team reviews is a proven strategy. Whether you're managing a small pursuit or a complex, multimillion-dollar bid, investing in a disciplined, collaborative review process will consistently set you apart.

Final thoughts: Modernize your proposal review process with SiftHub

Color team reviews are essential checkpoints in the proposal lifecycle, guiding your team from early capture planning to final submission. While each review plays a critical role in shaping proposal structure, ensuring compliance, and aligning with RFP requirements, the process can become cumbersome without the right tools. Version control issues, fragmented feedback, and coordination across proposal managers, capture teams, and subject matter experts often slow things down.

That’s where SiftHub comes in.

SiftHub is purpose-built to optimize the proposal development process. It enables seamless collaboration across color teams, automates version tracking, and consolidates feedback into actionable insights. With AI-driven support for proposal content, competitive assessment, and analytics, your team can stay focused on strategy rather than admin work.

Whether you’re running a Red Team Review, coordinating a Gold Team Review, or finalizing for White Glove Review, SiftHub ensures your proposal team is aligned, efficient, and always moving forward.

By modernizing the proposal review process, SiftHub helps you deliver more compelling, compliant, and customer-focused proposals, on time and with confidence.

Ready to elevate your color team reviews? Explore how SiftHub can help your team win more.