Thanks so much to the early adopters and feeders-back!
Here’s another virtual-book-reading video and free excerpt. Enjoy!
Term: Level Playing Field
Indicates that a competition is fair; that is, not predetermined that it will be awarded to an unofficially selected bidder, nor even skewed to favour a preferred bidder. The actual objective of most technical authorities and contracting officers; the nominal objective of all of them.
Perversely, focusing on achieving the perception of a level playing field drives more labyrinthine procurement rules and regulations than does pursuit of the actual objective.
Lessons Learned or Lessons Collected?
Things rarely turn out precisely the way we hoped.
Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we can figure out why.
If we find the lesson and learn from it,
it might be even more valuable
than if we’d simply gotten lucky.
– Seth’s Blog
Forget “rarely.” In Proposal Land, things never turn out precisely the way we’d hoped.
We lose the bid.
We win the bid but have trouble making money.
We come up with a profitable plan but can’t persuade anyone to do another proposal, ever again.
So do a lessons-learned exercise every time, gathering external and internal feedback. And then add a lessons-learned review at the start of your proposal process so you can start out smarter. Don’t let this effort degenerate into “lessons collected.”
Related posts:
RFP Responses for Small Business: Step Four
No Upside in Re-litigating
Skateboarding is not my sport. I know you’re surprised. I’m not sure what decided it: my lack of balance, coordination and strength, or my unwillingness to break my neck. Yet, somehow, today’s piece by Seth resonated for me.
One of the most difficult things to do in skateboarding is to learn to ‘drop in’. This is the commitment at the top of the ramp. One moment, you’re standing still, at the abyss, and the next you’re committed, fully engaged with gravity.
The worse thing you can do is half.
When you sort of commit, you’re likely to fall.
The rule is pretty simple: If you’re going to bother going skateboarding, then you’ve already decided. In this moment, you’re not making a new decision. You’re simply acting on what you said you wanted to do in the first place.
Decide once. It’s fine to opt-out. But once you decide, there’s no upside in re-litigating your decision, particularly when it leads to needless risk and wasted effort.
Like skateboarding, working on proposals is an all-out effort. And the decision of whether to exert that effort is made when you agree to do it. As each new demand arises, you’re not making a new decision.
A Kick-off of Another Sort
The Bottom Line
I’ve published my work memoirs, and am selling it for charity. I hope you can help me make a difference.
The Details
In 2014 I published a technical manual on proposal development — my work for 25 years — using little stories to illustrate many of the points I was making. It was a whack of work: the writing, the revising, the laying-out, the marketing. A. Whack. Why had no one warned me?