Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Applied to Proposal Software

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can also be applied to helping you understand your needs with regards to proposal software. Most people look for proposal software by writing down every feature they can think of in a “wish list” and then surveying software packages for those features. Building a Hierarchy of Needs for proposal software can help you understand whether the features meet your needs much better than a wish list can.

At the bottom of the pyramid is storage. You need a place to put your files. A laptop or a LAN can provide this. If you stay at this level, you may not need anything else.

However, most proposals require multiple people to have access. Some may be subcontractors who do not have access to your LAN. Even those within your company may benefit from access at multiple locations, including home. Making the information for your proposal accessible via the web is a great way to facilitate this. However, access via the web comes with a host of security concerns. Who has access to which files? Who controls that access? How secure is the access via the Internet? Accessibility and security are often competing goals. The more you have of one, the less you have of the other. To satisfy your needs at this level, you have to find the right balance for you. And your proposal software has to support it.

Once your proposal information is stored and accessible, you need to be able to find and use the information. To meet your needs the proposal software must provide the right search and retrieval tools to enable you to quickly locate the information you need. Most packages provide at least a simple keyword search feature. But finding the right files after a few years of accumulation can become tricky. More powerful search and retrieval features can greatly improve your ability to get the most out of your proposal data.

Once you have secure storage and can find your proposal data, you are ready to get to work. For proposals, this means that you need document management features for version management. Collaboration features that enhance your team’s ability to work together on the document and facilitate review and discussion are also very useful.

After you have a platform that provides document management and collaboration, the next level up is workflow support. Workflow support enables you to set up processes with routing, notification, approval, etc. for the document. Workflow support is tricky to get right. If you have to be a programmer to configure it, you’re probably not going to get much use out of it. You should definitely test drive a workflow system extensively before committing to it.

Beyond workflow, at the top of the pyramid, is domain support. For proposal software, this means proposal specific features like templates, RFP requirements parsing, cross-reference matrix support, etc. Unfortunately, the differences between companies in the way people do proposals from one company to the next mean that even if a package has a feature you want, it may not work the way you need it to. There will be very few, if any, proposal software packages that meet your needs at this level. The only one we know of that supports all levels of the hierarchy is Privia, by SpringCM.

Curiously, when most people talk about proposal software, they immediately jump to the top of the pyramid when they describe the features they want. Maybe these features seem precious because they are so rarely well executed. However, it’s the base of the pyramid that you really need to get right. You can make great improvement simply by focusing on storage, access, security, search, and retrieval. If you add in a little document management and collaboration you’ll have a nice platform. Anything beyond that and you’re into advanced territory. When you look at your proposal software requirements in terms of a Hierarchy of Needs, it can really help you understand what is most important so you can make sure you get it right.

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