Proposal Process and Procedures
If you do a lot of proposals, you can benefit from formalizing your proposal process and studying best practices. A well organized and planned proposal process can eliminate much of the chaos and last minute panic that so often haunts proposal development. Well thought-out proposal procedures will also help you coordinate efforts and help you win more proposals.
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7 Principles That Should Guide Your Proposal Process Here is a set of principles that can help guide the design of a successful proposal process. They provide a set of standards that you can assess your proposal against. After all, if you don't know your goals, it's difficult to achieve them. 5 Keys To A Successful Proposal Process Implementation Having a process defined and documented is only the start. Most companies struggle to get their process implemented. Here are some tips that can help you survive the experience. 50 Signs That It Is Time To Re-invent Your Proposal Process If any of these signs apply to your organization, then it may be time to throw out your proposal process and reinvent a new one. Do You Have a Proposal Process, Or Just Think You Do? If you ask a proposal specialist whether they have a process, they will almost always answer "yes." It would be embarrassing to do otherwise. Yet, if you examine how things actually get done, you'll find most of them are not actually following a process. Do you fall into any of these traps? A Less Painful Way To Implement A Proposal Process If you want to consistently win your proposals, you need to formalize your processes. Unfortunately, a fully mature process is difficult to achieve. Even if you can get all the details right, getting everybody up to speed, able, and willing to execute them can be a nearly impossible challenge. So we thought we'd share some of the secrets we've picked up over the years. Surviving Quick Turnaround Proposals. Some people think that quick turnaround proposals are simply a matter of following the same proposal process, only doing things faster. Some people are also wrong. 11 Questions Your Proposal Process Should Answer How do you know if your proposal process is delivering what it should? Here are 11 questions that your proposal process should answer. Why We Don't Use Storyboards To Plan Our Proposals Storyboards are a planning tool that many people have heard of, but very few have implemented successfully. Find out where it makes sense to use them, where it doesn't, and what we use instead. Must Wins — How To. When a "Must Win" opportunity arrives, companies tend to suddenly get heroic and want to do things the right way. However, by focusing on the wrong things, they take chances instead of actually doing things better. A new way to look at process Instead of looking at process as the flow of deliverables at milestones, try looking at it as a series of goals and standards to be met. Configuration management during proposal development. One overlooked file version conflict during final production can ruin a perfectly good proposal. How do you maintain control of the proposal in spite of all the changes that occur? Past performance record keeping In the past, project references were static summaries that were often kept as a collection of re-use files. With the advent of past performance evaluations, this way of keeping project information may no longer meet all of your needs. What To Expect When You Are Assigned The Role Of Business Developer Some companies have dedicated Business Developers, and others leave the task to their project managers. Regardless of your background, if you are assigned the role of Business Developer, then you need to know what is expected of you. What To Expect When You Are Assigned The Role Of Capture Manager Congratulations! You have the most challenging job in business development. It is also the most important. The only chance you have of succeeding is understanding what is expected of you.
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60 Questions to Determine on How Well You Know the Proposal Process We are beginning to develop a curriculum for teaching the CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process. We are starting by creating an assessment for each component that a student can take to see how well they comprehend the most important points. The first step we have taken towards creating the assessments is to identify questions that are answered in the process documentation. We thought we’d make the first 60 questions available so those who wish to see them or challenge themselves can have at them... How to Know When it’s Time to Abandon Your Proposal Process I recently found myself advising a company to skip its process. It’s not that the process was bad. It was an excellent process — I know, I wrote it. However, in order to achieve their goals they had to abandon the process. Find out why you might need to make the same decision. Case Study: Preparing for Your First Proposal There is a big difference between reading the guidance provided by a process and understanding the consequences if you skip steps. Real understanding only comes when you start using the process to do real world proposals. Share one company's lessons learned from their first proposal. Taking Advantage of Proposal Lessons Learned People often hold "lessons learned" meetings after a proposal submission. If you really want to use these sessions to improve your proposal quality, you need to re-think how you collect your lessons learned, and what you do once you have them. Find out how to turn lessons learned into positive change. Managing the Transition from Business Development to Proposal People struggle to make the transition from the business development process to the proposal process. Most of them compound the struggle because they are looking at it the wrong way. 101 Things Your Business Development Process Should Address What makes a process successful are the tools that people use to execute the process. You need to make it easier for your stakeholders to execute a proposal using your proposal than it is to execute a process without your process. The tools and job aids you offer will determine how easy that is. Here is a list of 101 things that should be part of your business development process. Process vs. Checklists When you have a chance to re-write your business or proposal development processes, if you start by drawing a flow chart, there's a good chance you process implementation will fail. Luckily there's a better way... What is a Black Hat Review? The name itself sounds mysterious. Because it is. It sounds like it might involve espionage. And it might. But just what is it and how can one increase your chances of winning a business opportunity? Planning Proposal Admin and File Structure Saves Money Two issues that cost companies money and should be addressed early in the planning process are: 1) In-house staff and outside consultants are expensive and their time on site needs to be thoroughly planned in the administrative sense. 2) An effective proposal file structure must be in place prior to beginning the writing effort. The structure should be simple and concise, and one that allows the writers to write efficiently within the proposal's time constraints. Proposal planning If there is one universal rule for proposals it would have to be plan before you write and write to the plan. The Real Reasons Nobody Uses Storyboards on Proposals Storyboards are one of those things that everyone recommends as a best practice, but hardly anyone actually uses. Here are some of the reasons why... What We Really Need (But Aren’t Getting) From Storyboards The first step in developing a better alternative to storyboards is to be clear about what we need from our proposal planning efforts. Here is a list of things you need in order to successfully plan your proposal content. The proposal lifecycle Here is a high-level view of the stages a proposal typically goes through. It's a good orientation for someone new to preparing proposals in response to Government RFPs. The proposal lifecycle (realist’s version) Everything in this article has actually happened to me, although not all on the same proposal.
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Put a written process into place immediately and get everyone on the same page. Click here to find about the process we recommend...
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The CapturePlanning.com MustWin Process
It's our solution to late starts, teams that don't work together, and reviews that provide too little guidance too late to do any good.
Provides off-the-shelf written process documentation for capturing business.
For companies that do large proposals, it offers the most benefits and is our best value.
