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To win, you must offer a Program Manager with customer recognitionDuring the proposal creation process, there are several key roles. Among these are the Capture Manager (Top Management's representative to the proposal team), the Proposal Manager (has two responsibilities: discover the best case, and do the best job of communicating that case), and the Program Manager-Designate (the individual to lead the program during program execution). The importance of the Program Manager-Designate (I say "designate", as this individual is not yet in charge of the program, but will be, upon award) cannot be overestimated. Why is that? First, customers buy not only an organization, but customers also buy people. The single most important "people" the customer has an opportunity to "buy" is the Program Manager. This is the individual with first-line responsibility -- and corresponding authority -- to ensure successful execution of the program. Therefore, if the customer either doesn’t know the Program Manager, or knows and doesn’t like that individual, then the entire organization, and the entire proposal, is "swimming upstream" in that competition. Second, the proposal team needs a countervailing force to the Capture Manager, and the Marketing Manager. Those two proposal team members' primary concern is winning the competition, and they are typically not nearly so concerned about how to execute the program, and / or how to make money on the program at the offered price. The Program Manager, on the other hand, knows (or should know) the implications the proposal has for program execution. So the Program Manager brings to the proposal team that "steady hand" that prevents over-promising, or under-bidding, in the proposal. Typical Problems Achieving this in Practice
Summary Placing the right Program Manager-Designate on the proposal team has two benefits: It sends the right message to the customer, and it improves the probability that the proposal, as submitted, can be executed at a profit.
Written by John Lauderdale. Published by Organizational Communications, Inc. Republished with permission.
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