Think of the technical work you’re familiar with: electricians, carpenters, plumbers, HVAC specialists, painters, heavy-equipment operators, pilots, communication engineers, drivers, software coders. Think of the administrative work: accounting, logistics, policy, procurement, scheduling.
Over 30 years I met folks who were proficient in doing, supervising, managing, and costing a wide range of work. Every one of these folks had methods shown to work most of the time. They had schedules and checklists. They had standards, and troubleshooting methods for when they didn’t meet standard, and structured ways to improve. They had training programs for newbies and graduated certification programs for more senior staff. They had documentation of all the above.
Now think of all the ways that work can be bundled into services. Radar O&M. Airport O&M. Property management. Design and construction of buildings, highways, light-rail transit systems, ships, military vehicles. Policy administration for hundreds or thousands of employees. Every bundle of services I ever tried to sell had a layer or five of coordination, scheduling, and communication processes over and above the processes required to make the individual disciplines function well. That’s how the world works, when it does.
Proposals shouldn’t be any different. If you’re still winging it–if every late night is a surprise–then today is the right time to step back and think about your proposal processes. To get some that are better. You can start by searching this site’s posts by any of these categories: managing schedule, standards, proposal teams, reviews, workflow; checklists; training.
Is it a lot of work? Yes. Does it work? Also yes. If you need more encouragement than that to get started, then read Seth’s post from today.