Proposal Layout

Thinking about a proposal, it’s not always clear that it is similar to grant writing. Looking at the layout of a grant, we need an executive summary, statement of need, description of the project (problem and solution), budget, information about the writer, and a conclusion.

So, who writes proposals? Everybody does from the self employed to employees of a big corporation. Even students write proposals but all of these proposals are for different reasons. Generally when we look at a proposal, it is a solution to a problem. Sometimes the problem is not obvious to the company and sometimes the solution is not what they are looking for so not all proposals are accepted.

There is no right or wrong way to write a proposal however there is a suggested way and not everybody follows this format. First things first, research before doing any kind of work. If the company you are writing to doesn’t use immigrants and you are writing a proposal to write a hiring policy for immigrants to help their Human Resource department follow the law, sending that proposal to them would be a complete waste of time because you did not research and ensure that the company would need your solution to HR not understanding immigration laws.

Here are a few things that should be included in the proposal:

Executive Summary

This is a general summary of the statement that you are making. It’s also a summary of everything that the person would anticipate to read within the proposal. This would be roughly one page long and prepare the reader for what they’re going to be reading. Look at this as an introduction paragraph in a research paper.

Statement of Need

Without a clear understanding of what the problem is, how can the reader be expected to understand the solution. The people these things are being sent to are very busy and they need things to get to the point.

Description of Project

The problem has been clearly stated and so now what does this project do to solve the problem, how is the project laid out, what is it going to do and who is it going to target. Basically answer who, what, where, why, and how.

Budget

None of this is going to happen without money so how much money are we talking about. Is it going to cost an extraordinary amount of money or is it going to be very cheap? Explaining each and every penny of how the money is going to be spent is important. These companies work hard for their money so they’re going to be hard about spending it on you or your project.

Information about Writer

Often this is just a summary of the writer or the company if this is a proposal from a company. Sometimes people want to know who is making this suggestion and why they are qualified to give the solution to us.

Conclusion

This works just like a paper, you are to conclude by summarizing the main points of your paper and what to remember. This is also the last chance to make a point or impact on the reader.

Now that we have a proposal written, modifying it to fit each company is the last step. Not every company you send this proposal to has the same guidelines for proposal submission so be sure that each and every company has what they have asked for. Don’t try to send a “one fits all” solution to each company. This is also where research comes in. Understanding what you are suggesting, who you are talking to, and how it benefits them and then modify it to fit.

Scheduling

When working in a group, it’s important to have long term and short term goals defined and deadlines set. That’s not impossible without having due dates and a schedule with priorities defined and set in place but it is unrealistic to expect everybody to have the same perspective on what’s a priority or when something should be due. That’s where a well-defined schedule would come in. Creating a schedule that’s ideal for anybody and everybody is impossible for several reasons.

Often when a schedule is created, the person creating the schedule does not consider what other people want unless the other person is in the same room with them and speaks up at that moment. People are busy and are not always working on one project or assignment so when creating a project schedule, here are some things to remember:

– Who is working only on this project, these people have the most flexibility unless they are working with suppliers and then that restricts their flexibility.

– What kind of creativity is required. There is no forcing creativity so sometimes giving a few weeks extra helps take off the stress and enables the creative juices to be flowing.

– Something that might be easy to one person might be difficult to another. If that person is trying something new or is new to the department, that doesn’t mean flexibility on a deadline should be given but that also doesn’t mean leave them hanging. Be sure to pair knowledgable people with the new person and remember what those knowledgable people are doing might need a bit more time than usual because of their additional duties.

– Emergencies happen and they are impossible to predict. Always create schedules with some extra time for flexibility in case of an emergency but have firm deadlines and stand ground if necessary at times where too much extra time has been given and something needs to be produced.

– What are the long term goals and when are they due, how can they be broken down to short term goals. Short term goals enables people to know where they are within a project and if more time is needed to reach the long term goal.

– Color coding helps to know who is responsible for a submission this week and what kind of things are supposed to be completed by the month’s end. If there’s no color-coding sometimes that leads to confusion which leads to frustration and can possibly lead to more time wasted.

Some of the most important things are: stay firm but fair, if somebody needs extra time and the project allows give it to them, don’t go too far with being flexible, focus on short and long term goals, and be clear on the big picture.

Collaboration Tools

There are a lot of different ways to collaborate with your project team and as a project manager, it’s important to know which ones are able to provide the type of collaboration you want your team to be involved in. There are a lot of options and they are listed below. These different options enable your team to do different things.

Group Communication – interaction between 3 or more people. Usually small groups are from 3-20 people and large groups could contain as many as 3,000 people.

Private Social Networking Platforms – Social networking platforms are popular these days and enable a group of people to act as a community online. Private platforms enable groups to do this without anybody else having access to their information.

Document Sharing – Creating and sharing work online and being able to access these documents elsewhere and enabling others to access the same documents either to view or also to modify.

File Sharing –  The same thing as document sharing but with files.

Workgrouping and Team Collaboration Workspace – A virtual workspace that’s online and enables team members to work together as a group. It’s basically a workgroup collaborative environment.

Web Presenting – Presentations that are placed online and watched by people elsewhere. This is using technology to deliver your presentation, powerpoint or other types of visual presentation to your audience that’s internet-based.

Whiteboarding – When you place files on a whiteboard that’s online. This usually refers to an online white board and is to be used the same way as a traditional white board.

Co-Browsing – The same thing as web-browsing but you are doing it with other people too not just yourself. Usually this occurs when two or more people access the same website at once.

Large-Audience Webinars (100+) – Webinars are web conferencing that enables live meetings, trainings, and presentations via the internet. When this occurs, people receiving training and so forth are at the computer and the presenter is presenting via the internet.  These softwares enable you to present to more than 100 people at once.

Clearly there are many other ways you could collaborate with your team online and they are the following:

Virtual 3-D Immersive Collaboration, Web-conferencing, Screen-Sharing, VoIP – Audio Conferencing, Instant Messenging, Video Conferencing, Chat, Event-Scheduling, Project Management, Collaborative Writing, Collaborative Visual Reviewing, and Mind Mapping and Diagramming

While these are other ways to interact with others online, there are limitless ways to communicate with your peers at work, it’s up to you to find the best way to work with others and figure out the most useful way to complete a project.

For a list of options for each of these different Collaborative tools online go to Best Online Collaboration Tools.

Understanding Cultures

When getting ready to go to work, we are constantly trying to understand what we are getting into especially since we are working for a company and the company has their own culture however lets look at something even harder.

Suppose you were an international project manager. Not only do you have to understand your own company’s culture but you also have to undersand the culture of the place you are going or where the project is to be taking place. Not only that but if people from all over the world are coming to work with you, you’d need to be able to understand their individual cultures in order to avoid misunderstandings and unnecessary conflict.

When we are getting into something as confusing as that, we need to sit down and figure out our game plan. Are we going to understand everything from each and every culture, no, but we need to have a basic understanding of common curtesy and norms. One example would be going to another country and desks are messy everywhere but back home, it’s considered unorganized and you’d naturally assume the person is not getting anything done.

Clearly in that case, you need to be sure that you are not taking that the wrong way. We as people need to understand that no 2 people are alike and if we were to come across somebody that had those type of desk habits, we’d need to be able to adopt an understanding that it’s part of their culture and vice versa. Nobody is to be expected to change overnight to fit a single culture.

The respect that we practice enabling people to continue to be comfortable, as they have traveled abroad to work with you and are in unfamiliar territory, is something we’d expect in return if we were in their shoes. It’s always wise to practice the golden rule, treat others the way you want to be treated. If you do that, you’ll go a long way in the business world! This is true, especially with the understanding that you take the time to study individual cultures and their practices.

Importance of Translation

Whenever doing business with anybody in another country, you’d think that it’d be important for you to have an interpreter or a reliable translator available. Not everybody places importance in those sort of resources and attempt to do translation themselves. How peeved would you be if somebody made a proposal to your company and they did not take the time to check for grammar and spelling errors? Already, they have made a bad impression and probably wasted your time with a proposal so badly done that you aren’t interested in reading it or looking at it.

That example already made me uncomfortable because I want to be able to enjoy anything that comes across my desk and have a difficult decision on what would be best for my company but if only one good project comes across my desk and everything else was trash, then that would only mean one thing to me. There aren’t enough good workers in my company but lets say 1/2 of those that ended up in the trash were from foreigners that did not take the time to have a translator translate the ideas they have in their first language. I just lost half of my great ideas because people weren’t willing to take the time to get a translator and ensure their work was correctly submitted.

There are other things like presentations and invaluable interactions. When going to another country, do you open a book and try to wing it or do you make effort to have an interpreter there? There is nothing wrong with having an interpreter, it shows that you are fully aware that this is a serious interaction and it’s important to you to make sure everything comes across as clearly as it can. Nobody has time to learn a whole new language just for a meeting or just for a trip abroad.

Translation shouldn’t be looked at as something we shouldn’t take advantage of. These people are people that are proficient in both languages which makes them a great asset to the company and that’s something that companies should look into if they are working with people from other countries or even cultures. We also need to remember that many companies don’t think in terms of human capital and that is where some of them fail. People are the most invaluable asset any given company can have and how they use them, that’s just where they have to decide how important it is to have the right people or mold people into the best they can be.

One big example I have heard from others is about how they went to a workshop and the main speaker was speaking a mixture of two languages during the whole presentation because he knew both languages and did not want an interpeter on stage with him. Now, the problem is half the presentation only half the audience understood him and then the other half of the presentation the other half understood him. Is this really an effective approach?

What is a Project Manager

When deciding whether a project manager job is appropriate for anybody we need to first understand what a project manager is and their duties.

A project manager has many different responsibilities but the most obvious thing is pretty obvious, manage a project! That is not the single most important thing they are doing because it doesn’t matter what they think, it’s only important to a specific degree that their project succeeds. Another thing to keep in mind is to understand what the long term project objective is. If a project is a failure in your eyes, it may not be a complete waste because it has only cost the company thousands of dollars as opposed to something that might have ended up costing them hundreds of thousands.

A few things that a project manager may have to do include the following:

– Set up a budget with upper management or on their own
– Create a team of highly qualified people from different departments
– Determine what the project plan should look like
– Do risk analysis and determine risk management
– Assist in creating the charter
– Assign responsibilities for each team member
– Facilitate meetings
– Be the mediator in difficult situations
– Create reports and report back to upper management
– Track and ensure project stays within 3 pre-determined constraints (Time, Quality, and Money)
– Decide with upper management or team which is more important speed, quality or money and follow through.

Being able to put up with upper management possibly putting your project on the back burner and looking for ways to cut your budget is a big thing we have to deal with as project managers. A few competencies that a project manager should have include the ability to work in teams, strong leadership skills, patience, perseverance, and ability to accept criticism whether it’s constructive or destructive.

Not everybody is able to deal with the pressure of presenting things to upper management only because they buckle under pressure and on top of that they have to deal with their team being angry at them because something isn’t going their way or another person got more money than they did or their wish-list wasn’t met to their full expectations. There’s a lot to pay attention to when you are a project manager and usually you won’t be appreciated.

Scared away yet? I hope not because when everything goes wrong and then goes right, your patience will be rewarded at the end. If you work hard, try to make the project work, meet the business’ expectations whether it succeeds or fails, the outcome of any given project is rewarding. If you don’t work hard, don’t try your best, and don’t put forth enough effort and aren’t able to have patience to work with members of your team, you really should reconsider being a project manager.

Yes, I know there’s not a lot of choice in what sort of training you will get as a project manager but you have to remember that 90 percent of project managers (maybe less now) aren’t trained for this particular job.

Best of luck!