Internal reviews during the development of a proposal are disruptive to the team and expensive. So you really want to make sure this effort increases the team’s chance of winning by more than it costs. If you are to convene or chair a review board, here are a four tips for running effective reviews. They are all based on a single sentence: “The only useful advice is the advice a team can and will take.”

1. Select reviewers who have credibility with the team. Advice from reviewers who are seen as less than competent by the team is often dismissed. Taken too far, this can turn into a serious red-herring for a review board chair. By definition, reviewers are typically less experienced in the subject matter area than the writers. But that is an accurate proxy for the actual evaluation team. Most technical proposals are reviewed by less technically versed reviewers. Teams do need to be reminded that they are not writing for specialists, but for the generalists who are specialists in reviewing proposals, but not necessarily in a specific discipline. 
2. Discourage grandstanding by reviewers. Reviewers commonly want to establish their credentials by making statements like: “this team has ignored the most basic principles of proposal writing and let me now explain.” Most likely, the team is very familiar with the basic principles, but is struggling with applying them. The reviewer statement “team should have proof read the document before the review” sounds too simple to argue with. However, it does ignore the complexity of producing a 1,200-page, self-consistent document that is written by 28 contributing authors. Reviewers need to find only one inconsistency to feel productive. The team needs to find them all. 
3. Guide reviewers towards consensus recommendations. Contradictory advice is bound to occur as reviewers will have different views of what they are reading. Many of these contradictions will naturally resolve if you give reviewers plenty of time to interact prior to talking to the team. This does not mean that there needs to be agreement on every detail. It can be very helpful for teams to see that different readers come to different conclusions based on the same text. This should cause the writers to further clarify the content and strengthen the structure of the text. Watch out in the process for “strong reviewers” who disagree with the majority and are trying to push a minority perspective. Treat it as a red flag, if a reviewer wants to provide their own, separate report to the writing team without input from the other reviewers.  
4. Focus on constructive, strength-based advice. Have you heard of the “bring me a rock” challenge? You ask what kind of rock and the answer is: “I will tell you when it is the wrong one.” You may not expect this to happen, but too often a reviewer may write a finding similar to: “Section G.2 is unclear. Fix!” The section was probably clear to the writer, so this leaves the writers with no guidance. Or my favorite: “Create a compelling summary graphic for the executive summary.” If the reviewer cannot at least sketch-out what they have in mind, it is probably not an actionable recommendation. Constructive advice reads like: “The table summarizing the performance in section B.7 is highly effective. Summarize the discussion in H.8 in a similar table and replace the narrative with the new table. This should save at least 1/2 page and be easier to parse.”

The most useful suggestions that you can give reviewers is probably to put themselves in the writers’ shoes. What would be helpful, if they were the writers of the section? What would they need to know to make this a winning proposal? But above all, acknowledge the work the team has put in to come this far and how much time and dedication it takes. If you and your review board are taking the team as seriously as they have taken the challenge, you are on the right track to deliver actionable advice the team is ready to take on.