PROPOSAL MANAGEMENT

1.Designing the RFP Process, Part One

The RFP emerges from a decision made today to improve the environment sometime in the future.  Management employs an RFP development approach to methodically clarify a problem situation and seek its resolution.  In the process of writing the RFP, management “applies sound reasoning backed by hard earned wisdom gained from broad experience reinforced by practical insight into the organization”. RFP development remains a daunting challenge.

The organization of the RFP is a design challenge which when resolved links RFP development with the management decision to award a contract.  Rather than relying on intuition in building the RFP, competent management employs design to navigate the many tarpits of hidden danger. The knowledge you gain here will assist you in writing your next RFP.  Although this ebook covers only a single aspect of RFP design inquiry, it will still improve the quality of your next RFP and enrich the quality of your participation in work life.

2.Designing the Proposal (RFP) Process, Part Two

The organization of the proposal process is actually a problem of design - the linking pin between RFP development and the awarding of a contract.  Rather than intuitively throwing the proposal process together, competent management designs it as a human activity system.  This section will examine the process of designing the proposal process.  From the foregoing, you can see that in the context of human activity systems, design becomes a goal-driven, situation resolving activity.  Is not the proposal process a goal-driven, situation resolving process?

3.Using the Design Architecture to Propose the Decision Support System

The Decision Support System (DSS) project commences because someone had ideas about the value of the DSS or because someone thought that a DSS would eliminate or prevent certain problems.  Perhaps the Marketing Vice President became convinced that a DSS would make novel connections in sales data that would open a new range of sales possibilities. Through the dynamics of design, the DSS proposal team explores the environment of ideas and problems.

4.Summarizing the DSS Proposal Design Architecture

Designers usually implement Decision Support Systems (DSS) projects in environments that continually evolve to accommodate the implementation of new business strategies and operational technologies.  Consequently, your problem is not only to implement a DSS, but to implement it in an environment compatible with other I/T initiatives within your company or organization.

5.Navigating the Successful Proposal Process, Part One

Continuing the development of new products makes little sense if you carelessly attempt to enter the marketplace.  Business is high gear competition.  Success, therefore, demands well tested concepts, carefully built plans, abundant innovation, product acceleration, and the formulation of insightful rules of business wisdom.  For market entry, this means that management attains the requisite competence in market entry decision making.

6.Navigating the Successful Requirements for Proposal Process, Part Two

The proposal process basically consists of a problem on one side in the guise of the client or customer, and a solution on the other in the guise of the consultant or vendor.  Most often, a client requests a vendor to respond and the vendor responds.  At a very high lunar level, the proposal process is as simple as this.

7.Attaining Personal Proficiency in the Proposal Process, Part One

I believe in the competitive nature of proficiency.  I have centered my entire vision and mission on the desire to assist you in becoming more competent in whatever you do and overcome whatever challenges life brings your way.

8.Attaining Personal Proficiency in the Proposal Process, Part Two

The core skills comprising this competency are self-evident.  You have doubtless heard about them before now.  Although experts have examined these skills sets for many years, the introduction and spread of information technology has complicated them considerably.

9.Identifying the Decision Support System Proposal Audience

From the earliest inception of proposal development, the expert proposal team thinks about its audience.  The same is the case for you. To begin the DSS proposal, think about your audience and remember what you have already learned previously in the earlier E-Books where we argued that proposal development is a set of actions that occur within a larger proposal process usually beginning with a customer or client.

10.Successfully Applying the RFP Series in the Workplace

How can you use this series in your present or future situations? Your success requires the appropriate level of knowledge and an appropriately attained depth of emotional competence.  I have added this E-Book to assist you in transferring your new knowledge to work challenges. I congratulate you for getting to this point.  Now let me frame this E-Book for your continual development as a professional throughout your career.

11.Mastering the People Side of Requirements Analysis, Part One

While one of the challenges for people in the requirements engineering profession is not to think like computers, I designed this topic to remind you that you are a human being working among human beings.  To a large extent, this topic will be the most challenging for you.

12.Mastering the People Side of Requirements Analysis, Part Two

This E-Book in the Fundamentals of Requirements Analysis series presents a way of evaluating the human dimension involved in defining a set of requirements.  It complements the content presented throughout this series.  Although you already know that the people side of RA is a core component of any RA environment, you should now realize that you can engage this dimension using a disciplined approach to human relations.

13.Designing the Proposal (RFP) Process, Part Two

The organization of the proposal process is actually a problem of design - the linking pin between RFP development and the awarding of a contract.  Rather than intuitively throwing the proposal process together, competent management designs it as a human activity system.  This section will examine the process of designing the proposal process.  From the foregoing, you can see that in the context of human activity systems, design becomes a goal-driven, situation resolving activity.  Is not the proposal process a goal-driven, situation resolving process?

14.Solving the Success Formula of RFP Development

We need to remember that desired results in themselves do not translate into benefits.  Benefits only occur when the desired results provide something beneficial to the enterprise.  Your organization may find automation to be a wonderful desired result, but if this result negatively impacts the future of the larger enterprise, your desired result becomes an apparent benefit rather than an authentic benefit.  Benefits can be tricky.

15.Taking Care of the Details in Requirements Analysis

In this E-Book, I discuss some of the associated details that make success in RA possible.  If you fail to excel in these fundamentals, the essentials of RA, you will experience a life of continual desperation as a professional analyst.  If you fail to master many of the details presented within this series, you will not be able to achieve what you should achieve as a competent Requirements Engineer.

16.Identifying the Core Activities of RFP Development

Problem identification is not simply a matter of vigilance and quality assurance.  It is more a matter of several complementary factors including personal interest, functional perspective, cross functional cooperation, big picture thinking, intra-organizational partnerships, and operational efficiency.

Many situations generate problems in a work environment.  We identified several of these above.  An abbreviated way of looking at these is to realize that last year’s solution is this year’s problem.  Change occurs so rapidly today that problem generation has become a permanent fixture in the landscape of modern enterprise management.  You might say that while everything else is changing about us, problem generation had remained a constant challenge to manager and executive alike.

17.Identifying the Stages of the Proposal Process

In the last two E-Books, I discussed a few of the more important concepts that help define the proposal process.  In this ebook, I move from concept to design by identifying the core stages of the proposal process.  You can group these stages by conceptual phases, segments, or redundant cycles.  Whatever you decide to do, however, remember the proposal process occurs not through discrete tasks but as iterative duties that must meet the needs of the organization at each point in the process.

18.Expanding the Space of Requirements Analysis

Engaging a disciplined approach to Requirements Analysis is a significant activity that can contribute to or hinder the success of a given project, naturally depending on many factors.  Organization capability, attainment of technical skills, level of competence, social styles, psychological maturity, intelligence, management support, budgets, organization history and culture, a host of environmental factors, and stakeholder dispositions and expectations represent just a few of the factors that contribute to the success or failure of systems, operations, and/or program analysis.  Clearly as a new or practicing Requirements Analyst, you have entered a dense jungle as you embark on your current assignment.

15.Identifying the Activities of the Proposal Process

On the vendor side of the proposal process, the reception of the RFP commences the pre-proposal set of activities.  Since vendors understand that time is money, they employ formally designed processes to control the cost of proposal preparation and to save time and reduce labor.  As you can see from the outline above, vendors do many things in response to a customer’s problem situation.

The generation of the RFP begins with the identification of a need for some type of change such as the resolution to a problem, the removal of a deficiency, the adoption of a new business strategy, and so forth.  It is imperative to remember that you directly link the need for the RFP to the corporate mission, strategy, or business plan.

16.Clarifying the Different Kinds of Proposal Requests, Request for Information (RFI), Request for Quote (RFQ), Request for Proposal (RFP)

In the first e-book in the series, we discussed the three most common types of requests submitted by customers - the Request for Quote, the Request for Proposal, and the Request for Information.  In this module, we will take a look at each of these and identify their difference and similarities.  Generally in some books and organizations, managers view RFPs and RFQs interchangeably - as if they were the same.  But this is far from the truth.  The RFQ and RFP are distinct documents having different causal actors.  The following will clarify.

As a basic cost document, the contents of the Request-For-Quote differs significantly from that of the RFP and the RFI.  While the RFP and the RFI contain detailed technical and management sections, with the price section supporting these, the RFQ contains a detailed pricing section with the technical and management sections referring to this.  In the RFQ, it is not unusual to eliminate the management and technical sections altogether.

17.Attaining Proficiency in the ITIL Proposal Process

I believe in the competitive nature of ITIL proficiency. I have centered my entire problem-solving vision and mission on the desire to assist you in becoming more competent in whatever you do and overcome whatever challenges life brings your way. This series will increase your proficiency as an informed participant in the proposal process. It provides enough core information to satisfy your cognitive or intellectual appetite.

The architecture of design is worth learning.  It gives you the ability to actively shape your future rather than passively be shaped by it.  Competence in this E-book is essential for any job you will ever hold that has anything at all to do with transformation, change or moving from a current situation to a desired situation, whether designing a work team, developing an RFP, organizing a project team, designing an organization, or guiding the evolutionary unfolding of your own life.

18.Designing Strategies for Effective RFP Development

Generally, a strategy is a plan or series of moves intended to win a result.  In RFP development, a strategy is the team’s development plan of action for producing a winning proposal. More specifically, the strategy is the approach used by the RFP development team to obtain a proposal of an effective problem solution at an acceptable cost.  In using such a strategy, the RFP team designs an RFP which encourages vendors to respond with a unique selling proposition.

As far as I know, the job description of managers does not include reading minds.  A smart person, however, learns to be sensitive to the needs of those on whom they depend for their success.  I believe that it is a good practice to get to know a vendor personally prior to submitting an RFP.  I like to find out about the response team, how they evaluate RFPs, their constraints in delivery, and who will be the customer representative.

19.Attaining Personal Proficiency in the Insider Threat Prevention Proposal Process TBD

I believe in the competitive nature of ITIL proficiency. I have centered my entire problem-solving vision and mission on the desire to assist you in becoming more competent in whatever you do and overcome whatever challenges life brings your way. This series will increase your proficiency as an informed participant in the proposal process. It provides enough core information to satisfy your cognitive or intellectual appetite.

The architecture of design is worth learning.  It gives you the ability to actively shape your future rather than passively be shaped by it.  Competence in this ebook is essential for any job you will ever hold that has anything at all to do with transformation, change or moving from a current situation to a desired situation, whether designing a work team, developing an RFP, organizing a project team, designing an organization, or guiding the evolutionary unfolding of your own life.