“Isabel has taken her skill to dissect and simplify, and given us an easy-to-use and enormously helpful guide to proposal responses.” Career, leadership and executive coach and trainer
Proposal teams vary a lot in how many folks they involve, and how the work is organized into roles. So start by thinking about that work: 33 distinct proposal tasks in 7 categories. No matter the type, scope, or scale of the proposal, all of these need to be done and managed to some extent.
Looking up and out
- Managing the pursuit
- Supporting the executives
Setting the framework
- Selecting and equipping the proposal team
- Drafting the proposal schedule
- Determining security requirements
Understanding what the client wants
- Understanding the contract
- Understanding the Work
- Asking questions to clarify the requirement
- Making requests to change the requirement
- Leading the Bidders’ Conference team
- Attending the Bidders’ Conference
- Leading the site visit team
- Attending the site visit
- Providing client expertise
Making and costing a plan
- Managing solution development
- Developing the solution
- Costing the solution
Managing the proposal elements
- Managing the proposal team
- Managing the submission mandatories
- Managing the writers/Managing a volume
- Managing the subcontractors
- Managing the graphics
- Managing the proposal schedule
Creating, improving and submitting the proposal
- Making a table of contents
- Managing theme development
- Writing the RFP response
- Editing the RFP response
- Producing the document
- Reviewing the document
- Managing team reviews
- Managing executive reviews (Red Teams)
- Delivering the proposal
Improving your capacity
- Getting ready for the next time