Completes the module Communicating your Plan from the Bid to Win APMP Foundation Accreditation Preparation programme.
Covers the Schedule Development, Proposal Risk Management and Kick Off Meeting Management KCAs from the APMP Accreditation Syllabus
3. Learning Objectives for Schedule
Development
understand how to tailor proposal tasks to suit
the proposal
fully understand your organisation’s processes
assess client timescales and estimate the
resources required to execute the proposal
produce a cost budget for a routine proposal
Syllabus Requirement
4. Consider a Realistic Schedule
If you fail to plan
then you’re planning to fail … so ...
Proposal Guide 238
5. Consider a Realistic Schedule
If you fail to plan
then you’re planning to fail … so ...
Available Time
Proposal Guide 238
6. Consider a Realistic Schedule
If you fail to plan
then you’re planning to fail … so ...
Available Time
Planning
10 – 20%
Proposal Guide 238
7. Consider a Realistic Schedule
If you fail to plan
then you’re planning to fail … so ...
Available Time
Planning Proposal Development
10 – 20% 50 – 60%
Gold
Team
Proposal Guide 238
8. Consider a Realistic Schedule
If you fail to plan
then you’re planning to fail … so ...
Available Time
Planning Proposal Development Production
10 – 20% 50 – 60% 20%
Proposal Guide 238
9. Consider a Realistic Schedule
If you fail to plan
then you’re planning to fail … so ...
Available Time
Contingency 10%
Planning Proposal Development Production
10 – 20% 50 – 60% 20%
Proposal Guide 238
10. Consider a Realistic Schedule
If you fail to plan
then you’re planning to fail … so ...
Available Time
Contingency 10%
Planning Proposal Development Production
10 – 20% 50 – 60% 20%
Writing and
Reviewing
Strategy Kick Off Story Red Deliver
Review Board Team Bid
Review Gold
Team
Proposal Guide 238
12. Tailoring Tasks to the Proposal
Do it and do it early
Do it every time and at every new stage in the process
If you start late in the process, go back and examine
what you have missed and decide what you need to do
Add milestones such as review dates
13. Typical Proposal Process Milestones
Key Milestones:
Final
Go / No Proposal Final
business
Go kick-off proposal
case
decision meeting review
review
14. Assessing Proposal Timescales
Work back from due date
• Allow 15% of total time for start-up and planning
• Allow 20% of total time for final review, amendment & production
Schedule contingency time (up to 10%)
Have defined start and end dates for activities
Schedule tasks in parallel not in sequence
Review dates must be regarded as absolute
Syllabus Requirement
15. Estimating resources required
Graphics per page 2 every 3 pages
Simple graphic 1–2 hours
Complex graphic 2–6 hours
New material
Adapting boilerplate
Formal review
Translation
Proposal Guide 238
16. Estimating resources required
Graphics per page 2 every 3 pages
Simple graphic 1–2 hours
Complex graphic 2–6 hours
New material 4 pages per day
Adapting boilerplate
Formal review
Translation
Proposal Guide 238
17. Estimating resources required
Graphics per page 2 every 3 pages
Simple graphic 1–2 hours
Complex graphic 2–6 hours
New material 4 pages per day
Adapting boilerplate 20 – 40 pages per day
Formal review
Translation
Proposal Guide 238
18. Estimating resources required
Graphics per page 2 every 3 pages
Simple graphic 1–2 hours
Complex graphic 2–6 hours
New material 4 pages per day
Adapting boilerplate 20 – 40 pages per day
Formal review 40 pages per day
Translation
Proposal Guide 238
19. Estimating resources required
Graphics per page 2 every 3 pages
Simple graphic 1–2 hours
Complex graphic 2–6 hours
New material 4 pages per day
Adapting boilerplate 20 – 40 pages per day
Formal review 40 pages per day
Translation ~1500 words per day
Proposal Guide 238
20. Elements of a Cost Budget
Professional
advisors Production
Reviewers
costs
Delivery
Contributors
costs
Sub
Management
Contracts
Facilities
£$€ Travel
Syllabus Requirement
21. Proposal Risk Management
• Recognise proposal risks
• Help to establish a proposal risk management
policy
Communicating your Plan
Proposal Guide 229
Syllabus Requirement
23. What is at risk?
Project Proposal
Methods Methods
24. Proposal Risk Management
• Risk
– The chance exposure to the adverse consequences of future
events
• Risk Analysis
– A formalisation of the common sense that capture managers
apply to their opportunity
• Risk Management
– A process designed to remove or reduce the risks which
threaten the achievement of objective
25. Addressing Risk Management
Why have a • Improves the likelihood of success
Risk • Increases visibility of risks
Management • Adds realism to achievement of
proposal deadline
Policy?
Risk • Tolerate / Accept
• Terminate (avoid)
Management • Treat (mitigate)
Options • Transfer
26. Risks to the proposal – what is your
risk response strategy?
Key personnel
IT failure Insufficient
absence
resources
Know the
size of
your print
task
Have a contingency
Test run your production system plan
27. Kick Off Meeting Management
• Ability to prepare for kick-off meetings
• Brief kick-off meeting attendees
Communicating your Plan
Syllabus Requirement
28. ALWAYS Run a Bid Kick-off Meeting
and allow time to prepare for it
Invite the right Kick-off Briefing
• ~ 15 percent of the people Package
available time • Where
• Plan before the kick- • Managers, • Comprehensive
• When
off meeting • Sales, • Distributed ahead of
• Who the kick-off
• Specialists,
• What
• Proposal Contributors,
• Partner Companies Prepare a
Planning
complete agenda
Proposal Guide 97
29. Prepare a comprehensive kick-off
package
Copy of
Draft Executive customer’s
Summary request for
proposal
Proposal Storyboard
Strategy templates (if
briefing paper being used)
Competitor Schedule &
Profile/Analysis Responsibilities
Customer Kick-off Contact list
Profile
Package
Proposal Guide 97
30. Briefing Kick-off Meeting Attendees
Establish a tone of competent, professional
proposal leadership and management
Establish additional ground rules for
tele-conference kick-off meetings
Present a briefing of the kick-off “package”
31. Quick Quiz Question:
What proportion of the available time should
you allocate for unplanned activities?
a) 5%
b) 10%
c) 25%
d) 40%
32. And the answer is:
B. About 10% of the available time
should be allocated for contingency
33. e-torial preparation
• Read the topic Production
in the APMP Guide
• Complete Exercise Six
Proposal Scheduling
• Attempt Half Hour Paper 1
• Watch the slide-cast session
on graphics by Colleen Jolly
Notas del editor
This session aims to help you identify the milestones in proposal development and to schedule your proposal activities.Whatever scheduling tools you use – MS Project, Excel, Visio – you should be able to produce a schedule which the whole bid team understands and adheres to.
By the end of this this session1. Schedule tasks in parallel 2. Define start and end dates3. Metrics for writing 3. Reasons for drafting and polishing text rather than re-writing
All proposal development work is, in essence, timeboxed. We don’t get an option on when the completion date isSo planning is about how we allocate the time that is available and checking that the schedule is realistic
Considering a schedule from “time now” until the submission deadline, where “time now” is usually event triggered, for example by the issue of the RFP, let’s look at how best practice bidders allocate the available time.These figures are the result of research by the APMP where essentially a range of bidding organisations were asked “How did you allocate the time?”
They said that they allocated between ten and twenty percent to planning BEFORE starting the development and writing.Fifteen percent would be a good norm.
Between 50 and 60 percent of time was allocated to Proposal Development, that is the time between starting writing and having a finished draft.
Twenty percent remained for activities after the writing has finished. That is:Final Review and amendmentPublishing / layout / printing / finishingPackaging / shipment and deliveryCollectively these tasks are referred to as Production. This 20% figure was first arrived at in the days of printed proposals.Interestingly no research since then has indicated that the impact of electronic publishing and submission would change this recommended figure. Perhaps that’s because with greater technical sophistication there seem to be more things to go wrong or that need final adjustment.
The more arithmetically alert among you will have spotted that 15 plus 55 plus 20 is less than 100%The difference is your contingency or buffer time. You should allocate about 10% of the available time for things that slip or were missed from your plan.
The contingency is your buffer time. You can allocate the buffer all at the end or to protect important milestones, that is up to you.It’s important that it should be YOUR buffer and not padding for others.In essence your plan will show earlier finish times to protect your NO SLIP schedule and key milestones.In your plan factor in the important milestones, team reviews and management check-points.
Use whatever proposal planning tools are appropriate to your organisation.Use a VISUAL representation of your schedule to communicate key end dates and milestones to your team.
Nearly every slide could start – do it and do it earlyComes into planning stage prior to kickoff
These are typical milestonesNote: At this stage the Go/No Go decision may be in the past but is included for completenessAlign reviews with the colours
Typical exam questions
Now that you’ve developed your schedule driven view top down it’s appropriate to do some ‘bottom up’ based estimates to gauge resources required and also whether your plan is realistic.Your starting point is your outline and page budget.Here are some metrics that you can use based on general industry experience.You should develop your own internal metrics based on Lesson Learned. Knowledge of thes industry metrics is what’s tested in the exam.
This is the normal rate for non-technical translation. A technical translator may take more time.Don’t forget to allow for two way translation if the target document is the version that will have contractual precedence.It might prove important to know what’s being committed to BEFORE you submit your offer!
Separate proposal risks from project or performance risksThe proposal risks we are probably most concerned with are those that affect the schedule.However, we still need to bear in mind reputational and credibility risk.
Formal definition
Mainly production, but also consider key staff unwell etcDuplicate everythingDisaster recovery