Posted by BJ
One of the proposal managers with whom I’ve been working, one who is relatively new to the job, has been reluctant to embrace planning of proposal efforts other than in the most casual way. He is comfortable just providing a due date to the SMEs and writers and leaving it at that.
Recently, the workload has picked up a bit. And the near future holds a veritable wave of incoming efforts. This prompted me to be coaching him regarding the need to do some real planning as I knew he would quickly be overwhelmed and things would be out of control without some more formal plans in place.
As I told him, “Planning is about ‘keeping your ducks in a row.’ Up until now, you’ve only had one or two ducks and it’s been fairly easy to keep them in a row. You’re going to need plans in place when these other ducks show up and you need to keep them in line.”
One of the proposal managers with whom I’ve been working, one who is relatively new to the job, has been reluctant to embrace planning of proposal efforts other than in the most casual way. He is comfortable just providing a due date to the SMEs and writers and leaving it at that.
Recently, the workload has picked up a bit. And the near future holds a veritable wave of incoming efforts. This prompted me to be coaching him regarding the need to do some real planning as I knew he would quickly be overwhelmed and things would be out of control without some more formal plans in place.
As I told him, “Planning is about ‘keeping your ducks in a row.’ Up until now, you’ve only had one or two ducks and it’s been fairly easy to keep them in a row. You’re going to need plans in place when these other ducks show up and you need to keep them in line.”