Proposal Reflections

Agile software development is a set of approaches to software development where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between cross-functional teams and stakeholders. Agile encourages flexibly and rapid response to change while advocating adaptive planning, iterative development, early delivery, and continual improvement. Agile principles can be applied to other disciplines, including proposal management, to support flexible, adaptive processes that reduce waste, time, and cost. This article examines eight key Agile principles and discusses how each can be applied to proposals and the proposal development process. 1. Agile Project Management: Agile project management is a term used to describe project management that uses Agile methodologies. This may include daily stand-ups, collaboration with stakeholders, and continuous integration and availability of working product (i.e., drafts between color team reviews), which have long been standard proposal best pra...

Proposal automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are hot topics in the proposal field right now, particularly as we have transitioned to a largely remote workforce during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Some professionals have angst about the potential negative effects of these tools on the industry; however, many of us are more optimistic about the ways these tools can improve our work-life balance. As demonstrated by the number of Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) Bid and Proposal Con 2019 vendors, many companies are already leveraging proposal automation tools and AI to streamline and enhance the proposal development and management processes. For example, some of these tools are beginning to enhance the response process by pre-populating outlines with “smart” content, some provide basic language and tone analysis, and others support the proposal management process with streamlined document management and control features. In this week’s article, I p...

Bids and proposals can be a tough profession, and particularly during these uncertain times, we may need a little extra motivation and support to help us through the chaos. I’ve updated my trusty Bid & Proposal Professional’s Survival Kit with some special items to help us get through these tough times. This is a great little kit you can put together to brighten a coworker’s day or to welcome a new coworker to the team. Simple and light, it is easy to mail or drop off on their doorstep. I have personally used a version of this survival kit in several office holiday gift exchanges. And if you’re needing just a little extra motivation yourself during these stressful times, I’ve included a few extra words of encouragement with each item below for this week’s blog post. Marker: To remind you to leave a good mark—with your family, your community, your team, and with your customer. During this pandemic, many of us are balancing family life while working from home. In these ...

As we find ourselves stuck at home, many of us are using this time for some Spring Cleaning around the house. While using this time to organize our closets and purge unused items is a great way to keep our minds off the gravity of the pandemic, we can also use some of this extra time to declutter our proposal writing. This week I’ll look at five things you can Spring Clean from your writing to make your proposals easier to understand and score. Long Sentences One easy way to clean up your proposal writing is to avoid cramming two or three main ideas into one long sentence. This can lead to long, drawn-out sentences and disjointed writing. Long sentences will also cause your message to lose focus. When you see a long, complex sentence in your writing, first identify your main points. Then break the sentence into smaller sentences. To do this may require some rewording. See the example below. Example: Company A first identifies qualified personnel to support tasks by eva...