APMP Foundation: Proposal Schedule Development
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The document outlines the APMP accreditation program's approach to proposal management, emphasizing the importance of developing a realistic timeline and scheduling tasks effectively. It highlights key aspects such as proposal risk management, resource estimation, and kick-off meeting preparation, including guidelines on how to communicate schedules and allocate time for various proposal activities. Overall, it serves as a guide to ensure successful proposal completion by fostering planning and contingency strategies.
APMP Foundation: Proposal Schedule Development
- 1. APMP® Accreditation Programme Communicating Your Plan: Schedule Development, Proposal Risk Management, Kick Off Meeting Management Communicating your Plan © APMP 2005 and Bid to Win Ltd 2010 Version: 0v9
- 2. Communicating your Plan Schedule Development Creating a realistic timeline with milestones that will drive your proposal activities © APMP 2005 and Bid to Win Ltd 2011
- 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
- 11. Communicating the schedule Keep the team informed of milestones, reviews and outputs
- 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
- 22. What is at risk?
- 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
Editor's Notes
- #3: 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.
- #4: 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
- #5: 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
- #6: 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?”
- #7: 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.
- #8: Between 50 and 60 percent of time was allocated to Proposal Development, that is the time between starting writing and having a finished draft.
- #9: 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.
- #10: 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.
- #11: 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.
- #12: 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.
- #13: Nearly every slide could start – do it and do it earlyComes into planning stage prior to kickoff
- #14: 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
- #15: Typical exam questions
- #16: 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.
- #20: 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!
- #22: 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.
- #25: Formal definition
- #27: Mainly production, but also consider key staff unwell etcDuplicate everythingDisaster recovery