Proposal Land

Better RFP Responses & Management
 
Proposal Land

Advice to Procurement Professionals: Keep It Simple

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Where are we at? Is 2.4a.2 done?
What about 2.2a.2? And 2.3a.2?

I’m listening to two editors trying to sort out what’s done and what’s not.

I’m not sure. I finished 2.1a.4 yesterday
but I don’t think I’ve seen 2.4a.2.

 

 

Where’s Ryan Gosling when you need him?

I understand the impulse to keep related sections together and to number similar sections similarly. The problem arises when there are too many levels. What looks logical and tidy on a spreadsheet, where you can indent or add colour to distinguish sections, doesn’t look quite so clear in other formats; for example:

  • 2.1a.1, 2.1a.2, 2.1a.3, 2.1a.4 – experience sections – corporate
  • 2.1b.1, 2.1b.2, 2.1b.3, 2.1b.4 – experience sections – key personnel
  • 2.2a.1, 2.2a.2, 2.2a.3, 2.2a.4 – technical plans
  • 2.2b.1, 2.2b.2, 2.2b.3, 2.2b.4 – other technical requirements
  • 2.2c.1, 2.2c.2, 2.2c.3, 2.2c.4 – operations plans
  • 2.3a.1, 2.3a.2, 2.3a.3, 2.3a.4 – staffing plans

Worse than its eye-crossing appearance, though, is that it’s impossible to keep it straight when talking about it.

Im. Possible.

If you want to know four things about each bidder (experience, technical plan, operations plan, and staffing plan) for, say, three major technical functions (fleet management, facilities maintenance, logistics), then consider one of these instead:

  • Assign a different number to each of the major things-to-know and a letter to each function:
    • 1A, 1B, 1C – this keeps together all the experience responses
    • 2A, 2B, 2C – this keeps together all the technical plans
    • 3A, 3B, 3C – this keeps together all the operations plans
    • 4A, 4B, 4C – this keeps together all the staffing plans
  • Flip the organization and assign a different number to each technical function and a letter to each of the things-to-know:
    • 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D – this keeps together all the responses related to fleet management
    • 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D – this keeps together all the responses related to facilities maintenance
    • 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D – this keeps together all the responses related to logistics

Does it matter whether you start with a number or a letter? No.

Does it matter whether you organize by thing-to-know or by technical function? Not really. People think of these things differently. You might have a preference based on how you’re going to evaluate the response, and that’s fine.

What does matter is that you don’t get into three-level numbering before you’ve asked for a word of response. What does matter is minimizing (or eliminating) the dagnabbed decimals.  What does matter is using no more numbers and letters than you absolutely need. After all, 10 files numbered 1 to 10 will sort just the same as if they were numbered 2.2a.1, 2.2a.2, 2.2a.3, 2.2a.4, 2.2a.5, 2.2a.6, 2.2a.7, 2.2a.8, 2.2a.9, 2.2a.10, and nobody’s head will explode.

Keep. It. Simple.

 

 

Related posts:

Advice to Procurement Professionals:

A Man Walks Into a Bar – Riff #6

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A dangling participle walks into a bar.
Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender,
the evening passes pleasantly.

If your eye tends to slide over words when you read, filling in meaning as you go, you might not even see dangling participles.  Explaining what’s wrong with this construction snarls us up in grammar jargon like “subject” and “modify,” usually generating glazed eyes in the explainee. Maybe a visual will work better.

Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender,
the evening passes pleasantly.

In English sentence structure, the orange bit is talking about the green bit. It doesn’t matter that you don’t mean it that way: That’s the way it works.

It *does* matter that it doesn’t make sense.

The good news is that it’s easy to fix. You can introduce a new subject — sorry, green bit — that does make sense with the orange bit.

Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender,
Sam finds that the evening passes pleasantly.

Or you can change the structure of the sentence.

Sam enjoys a cocktail and chats with the bartender:
The evening passes pleasantly.

Does it matter? Yes, because gramatically correct writing is part of a professional presentation. I don’t want to overstate its importance: Correct grammar is a hygiene factor, not a motivating one. You won’t earn marks for getting it right, but you could lose marks for getting it wrong.

 

 

Check out this National Post article, 2020 Oct 20 for a similar example of a misplaced modifier:

As a relatively new virus, Jenne said there’s still a lot of unknowns about how easily COVID-19 spreads.

A Man Walks Into a Bar – Riff #5

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A run-on sentence walks into
a bar it starts flirting.
With a cute little sentence fragment.

If you don’t see what’s wrong with the first line of this joke, you’re in good company.

Run-ons are a common type of error. Among college students in the United States, run-on sentences are the eighteenth most frequent error made by native English speaker . . .
– grammarlyblog

(That’s from a post titled, “How do you correct run-on sentences it’s not as easy as it seems.” Hahaha.)

Run-on sentence:
Two complete ideas stuck together
without adequate punctuation.

That’s It. Don’t do It.

Do this instead:

A run-on sentence walks into
a bar, and it starts flirting.

Or this:

A run-on sentence walks into
a bar. It starts flirting.

Feeling daring? Try this:

A run-on sentence walks into
a bar: It starts flirting.

How does this happen in Proposal Land? The running-on, not the flirting. Quite often the culprit is writers jamming together existing text from more than one source, or cutting out extraneous text, and not carefully reading the result. That’s it.

As for the sentence fragment (as above & below), it’s just a sentence missing a subject or a verb or (gadzooks) both. They can be effective in small doses, but in large quantities they’re annoying. Choppy.

Often the easy fix for fragments is to attach them to the previous sentence:

They can be effective in small doses,
but in large quantities they’re annoying and choppy.

If that’s awkward to do, then add words to make a complete sentence:

How does this happen in Proposal Land?
By “this” I mean the running-on, not the flirting.

Run-on sentences have been used to interesting effect in literature but have no place in technical writing. Nope, not even one.

Sentence fragments have been used to excellent effect in blogs (ahem) but have little place in technical writing. You can consider using them if you’re writing a summary or introduction that wants some punch.

Just remember: Clarity trumps style.

 

The Work

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When written or said with a capital “W,” the Work in Proposal Land is the sum of the products, services, and data that the client wants to buy. Obviously that’s important to know when deciding whether to bid and when making a plan to deliver the Work. But its use goes beyond that.

What’s the Work?

In many situations this is the first question to ask because the answer forms the basis of *any* plan to do, you know, some work:

  • Putting together a response to an RFP
  • Reviewing a proposal section
  • Agreeing to a contract to “edit” a proposal

What’s the scope? What-all has to be done? What shouldn’t I do? What things are optional?

What’s the standard? Am I targeting quick-and-dirty, good-enough, or damn-near-perfect? Does it vary by task? By section?

Who do I work with? Who sends me work, who helps/interferes with my work, and who approves what I’ve done?

What’s the schedule? ASAP?  Date (and time) certain? (In Proposal Land, “Whenever I get to it”never seems to be an option.)

What’s. The. Work.

If I don’t know this, I don’t know nuthin’.