"Dash is our digital teammate. It works like a proposal coordinator that learns as it goes, keeps us accountable to the process, and makes sure nothing falls through the cracks."
Alyssa Feliho, Senior Proposal Manager, JANUS Research Group
At a Glance
See how JANUS used GovDash to eliminate the blank-page problem, run multiple bids simultaneously across three business units, and raise the capability of its entire team without adding headcount.
- Grew the skill set of the whole team. Operations and other non-sales staff now run capture and proposal work on their own, taking on bids that previously required senior specialists.
- Eliminated the "blank page" with custom, RFP-specific outline generation that gives writers a strong starting point and a clear picture of what the government is looking for.
- Runs multiple bids at once across three business units with a two-person proposal team.
- Treats Dash as a digital teammate that functions as a proposal coordinator: it learns and applies what it learns, provides safety for throughput, and keeps the team accountable to the capture and proposal process.
About Janus
JANUS Research Group is a federal government contractor with more than 25 years of experience supporting defense and national security customers across the Department of Defense, including the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Space Force. With more than 600 employees, including over 35 PhD scientists, JANUS has supported 100+ missions spanning virtual training environments, AI-enabled battle management platforms, and applied science and operational research. Its service lines span SETA (Systems Engineering and Technical Assistance) work, IT, research, test and evaluation (RT&E), engineering, and training, with a niche focus in the space and air domains, including weather and space mission support for the Space Force.
JANUS is organized into three primary business units, each run by a business unit manager with profit-and-loss responsibility and its own bid volume. The Army business unit has a dedicated capture manager, while the other two units share capture leadership, and each unit is supported by a business analyst. Senior Proposal Manager, Alyssa, and one other senior manager support bids across all three units, with most volume concentrated on the Army side. For very small, low-complexity bids, operations staff increasingly run capture and proposal work themselves.
Challenge: Turning a Blank Page Into a Winning Response
As a lean proposal organization, JANUS needed a faster, more consistent way to move from a fresh opportunity to a structured, compliant draft. Several recurring pain points slowed the team down:
1. The Blank Page
Starting from nothing was the hardest part of every proposal. Writers, especially those who don't live in proposals full-time, would freeze in front of an empty document. The team needed something to start from: a structure that captured what the government was actually asking for and translated an often poorly written set of requirements into manageable pieces.
2. Translating the Government's Intent
Subject-matter experts and operational staff often resisted the proposal process because the government's requirements weren't framed in terms they recognized. JANUS needed a way to explain what the government was looking for so contributors would engage rather than push back.
"When you don't know why you're doing something, it sits in your brain and makes you really hesitant. Having a tool that helps you get a very big topic into a very small discussion space, and points out what’s required and what's being evaluated, makes a huge difference and saves a ton of time."
3. Synthesizing Internal Inputs
Strong proposals depend on good data calls and solutioning, getting the right input from SMEs, and translating it into a coherent writing plan. The more granular the questions, the better the data, but synthesizing all of that input into usable content was often time-consuming and manual.
4. A Lean Team Covering Broad Demand
With a two-person proposal team supporting bids across three business units, JANUS couldn't scale by adding people. It needed to raise the output and capability of the staff it already had.
Solution: GovDash Across the Proposal Lifecycle
JANUS adopted GovDash to support the full lifecycle, from pipeline and data tracking through capture and into proposal development. Several capabilities stood out:
- Custom outline generation gives writers a tailored starting structure they can tweak, eliminating the blank page and clarifying the government's expectations up front.
- Structured data calls and solutioning turns granular, well-framed questions into better SME input and a clearer writing plan.
- The Word Assistant and Dash let the team draft directly in Word and then use Dash to reconfigure text, link paragraphs together, and pull in past performance.
- Pipeline and lifecycle tracking gives leadership visibility into bids as they move from opportunity to submission.
As Alyssa puts it, GovDash "did the thinking for me," handling the heavy lifting of structure and synthesis so the team could focus on strategy and substance.
Growing the Team: How GovDash Lets People Do More Themselves
The biggest impact for JANUS has been on its people. GovDash gives every contributor a strong structure and clear direction, which pushes less-experienced team members to a higher level of performance. As Alyssa describes it, the platform is a case of when "rising tides lift all boats."
Operations staff and non-sales contributors are growing their skill sets and increasingly handling bids on their own. Work that once required senior, high-cost specialists can now be done by the team members closest to it, which both develops those individuals and frees up senior staff for the most complex pursuits. The result is a deeper bench: more people capable of carrying a bid from start to finish, and a proposal function that gets stronger with every effort.
Dash as a Digital Teammate
Just as important as the tooling is how JANUS thinks about Dash. The team treats it not as software, but as a member of the team. Dash serves like a proposal coordinator, or a strong junior proposal manager that learns from the team and applies what it learns over time.
Dash also provides safety for throughput. It keeps the team accountable to the capture and proposal process, maintains a to-do checklist, and ensures that even when several bids are running at once, nothing falls through the cracks. That combination of a capable coordinator and a reliable process guardrail is what lets a small team confidently take on more work.
"It provides safety for the throughput. GovDash helps us not worry about stuff falling through the cracks. It forces accountability, and it gives you a checklist: oh, I didn't do that, I forgot to do that, or I don't need to do that, so let's go faster."
Looking Ahead: Orals, Graphics, and Beyond
JANUS is excited to expand its use of GovDash into oral presentations and graphics. The team sees particular potential in turning oral transcripts from meetings and solutioning sessions into finished decks and visuals, extending the same time savings and consistency they've found in written proposals into the presentation and graphics side of capture.
Results: Nothing Falling Through the Cracks
By making GovDash part of the team rather than just part of the toolkit, JANUS has:
- Raised the capability of its entire team, enabling operations and non-sales staff to grow their skills and take on work that previously required senior specialists.
- Saved time and increased output across proposals and RFI responses.
- Standardized and improved its process across all three business units, running multiple bids simultaneously.
- Built accountability into every effort, using Dash and process tracking so nothing slips.
"We've improved our capture and proposal process across our teams and our bids by using GovDash. It allows people to work on multiple things simultaneously. Because it learns and teaches itself, we learn from it. Then we tell it, ’okay, you learned this, now use what you learned on the next opportunity.’”