Feature
Proposal Manager - A Perfect Fit for Professional Communicators
by Judith Herr
Editor's Note: In an article titled "The Joy of Proposal Work" (December 2005 IEEE PCS Newsletter), Judith Herr's 10 "lessons learned" encouraged professional communicators to consider contributing their skills, talents, and expertise to proposal and grant efforts. In her article this month, she provides information on how professional communicators could get started in proposal projects.
Help Wanted: Immediate Opening for Proposal Manager
|
Although a realistic "help wanted" advertisement like this may never be posted to Craig's List or a newspaper, the request does come close to asking for the qualities and skills that contribute to success at managing large efforts to win government contracts or secure grants. Professional communicators with project and team management experience have the right talents, skills, expertise, and accumulated experience to successfully manage and coordinate these highly complex efforts. After all, we have energy, enthusiasm, and the ability to do the following:
- Satisfy all project requirements
- Analyze targeted audiences; design information to communicate effectively
- Motivate and coordinate high performance, geographically dispersed workgroups
- Multi-task without panic
- Interview and coach subject matter experts
- Conduct reviews; incorporate comments; resolve disagreements, often using virtual tools for communication
- Coordinate all stages of communication projects
- Write, edit, coordinate, produce/distribute final proposal (hardcopy/electronic)
- See the humor in the ironic as challenges mount, unanticipated pitfalls and consequences emerge, and requirements change
- Market the professional communicator's ability to deliver on time and within budget
Proposal managers test their stamina, resourcefulness, and ability to get things done through and with subject matter experts, managers, and administrative staff pulled together quickly into ad hoc teams. Proposals require intense effort and rapid decision-making during a short period. Procrastination is not an option.
Getting Started in Proposal Work
To understand how to approach your company or client to persuade them you are the right choice to work on, coordinate, or lead their proposal effort, you need to know why large and small businesses need our support. They need professional help for the following reasons:
- The schedule is accelerated and unforgiving.
- Dedicated staff do not have the time to work on the proposal.
- Careful analysis to ensure proposal directions are followed is crucial.
- Proposal teams are often ad hoc and fluid, built on the fly.
- Companies that partner on one proposal may compete on opposite teams for the next.
- Preparing proposals involves coaching the team, writing, editing, facilitating virtual collaboration, audience analysis, multi-tasking, and attention to detail.
Few professionals who have expertise in all these areas--but most professional communicators do! To get started, request to do the copy edit, participate in the production effort, or write and revise résumés and the personnel section for a proposal. After contributing as an editor, professional communicators rapidly learn the language of proposal work and become familiar with the specialties of the bidding team.
Be available to do the Personnel Section
To contribute to a proposal effort the first time for your employer or as a contractor, approach a member of the proposal team to explain that you are the logical choice to write and verify information for the proposal personnel section.
Personnel sections often require profiles and résumés for key personnel and a summary table that demonstrates all requirements are met. Often the technical communicator is the most qualified team member to design and draft this section. During evaluation by the offeror, frequently the personnel section is the highest weighted.
For some proposals, an additional benefit to the personnel section writer/editor is discovering that a professional communicator will best meet required skills, experience, and talents for the contract. In which case, writers may suggest inclusion of their own résumés--and inclusion in the project, if the bidder wins the contract.
Learn the Language of Proposal Work and of the Subject Matter
As in any new field, professional communicators must learn to speak the language to collaborate on proposals; both to communicate with proposal team members and to write and edit intelligently about the services or products offered.
During the process of preparing proposals, common phrases bandied about include win themes; answer the mail; requirements-driven outline; red team, blue team, gold team, green team; FedBizOps (government web site for posting solicitations); request for proposal (RFP) including "Section L" (proposal instructions in the RFP); "Section M" (evaluation criteria in the RFP); organizational conflict of interest; hot buttons; compliance matrix, etc., etc., etc. … The good news is that after working on one proposal, professional communicators quickly learn the language and are indistinguishable from proposal pros.
The Proposal Process
The proposal process has five phases. Although professional communicators can bring valuable skills and experience to the entire process, they are crucial in Phase 3, which involves the actual writing, editing, review, and production of the proposal document. Often RFPs require both hardcopy and electronic submittals. The phases follow.
Phase 1: Before the Request for Proposal (RFP) is issued
Preparing for the issuance of an anticipated RFP includes the following:
- Visiting potential clients; attending professional meetings to interact with counterparts employed by the targeted agency or company
- Exploring partnering with other companies to satisfy anticipated requirements
- Assessing potential key personnel to bid; updating corporate capabilities statements; assessing available proposal team members
- Reviewing business strategic plan
Phase 2: Proposal approach planning and team kickoff
- Studying RFP (and frequently published preliminary draft RFPs) for unanticipated requirements or "show-stoppers"
- Making bid/no bid decision
- Collecting and submitting to offeror questions for clarification
- Preparing RFP requirements-driven proposal outline
- Draft schedule, team contact list; select team communication tools
- Develop "win themes"; analyze competitor strengths/weaknesses
- Draft storyboard; design style for graphics, tables, cover, electronic and hardcopy format
- Hold kickoff meeting – make writing assignments
Phase 3: Proposal preparation process
Frequently proposal teams work virtually to complete proposals with globally dispersed writers, illustrators, and editors collaborating using secure web-based tools. The Proposal Manager/Coordinator usually is responsible for the following:
- Establishing firm deadlines for all assigned action items
- Refining graphics, tables, design elements; re-enforce win themes
- Monitoring/ enforcing the version control system
- Drafting profiles/résumés for proposed key personnel
- Conducting substantive edit
- Updating the compliance matrix
Phase 4: Internal and adversarial review process
During the proposal process, the proposal team and other reviewers conduct both content and editorial reviews to refine the final document. The proposal manager/coordinator is the facilitator for the reviews and responsible for comment resolution and incorporation. A review panel of senior managers, familiar with the targeted contract work, conducts an adversarial review of the final draft and grades the effort.
Phase 5: Production/delivery of required hard and electronic copies of proposal
After delivery of the final proposal on time and in accordance with all delivery instructions, the offeror's contracting officer and panel of evaluators may request response to additional questions and a presentation by the proposed key personnel. In their presentation, key personnel may be required to address key points of the proposal, respond to questions, and address scenarios provided by evaluators to test problem-solving abilities of the proposed key personnel. The professional communicator often prepares or edits the presentation and coaches key personnel in presenting.
This five-phase proposal process is remarkably consistent from one proposal to the next. After you have one or two proposals under your belt, you may find that you are close to being an indispensible employee or contractor. As a professional communicator, you have skills and experience adaptable to accomplishing the work that needs doing--writing, editing, reviewing, and production of the required proposal document.
****************
Judith Herr, of Well Chosen Words, brings 19+ years experience contributing to complex proposal efforts. Winning efforts resulted in clients receiving substantial contract
awards from government and other organizations. Judith’s range of experience and expertise includes information technology, management, occupational/public health,
environmental, training, and community development. She thrived for three years in Belgium and three in Malaysia.
An enthusiastic supporter of professional networking, Judith provides volunteer support to several organizations and presents at conferences. She is an STC Fellow and is on the Board for STC. Judith's website is http://www.wellchosenwords.biz.