View
756
Download
2
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
The Project Manager’s Survival Guide to Bids, Tenders and Proposals
APM Contracts and Procurement SIG
David Warley CPP.APMP Fellow
Agenda
Project and business development lifecycles
Project organisation and governance
Customers, competition and win strategy
Surviving the proposal phase
Controlled close
Conclusions and actions
Bids are Projects:
Project Definition: “A temporary organisation established to achieve a defined objective within a specific timeframe.”
One View of the Business Development Lifecycle
Source:
APMP® Body of Knowledge
“An Introduction to the Business Development Lifecycle”
http://newbok.apmp.org/bok/introduction-to-the-business-development-lifecycle/
World of
Opportunities
Bids and Projects share similar lifecycles:
Opportunity Assessment
Pursuit / Capture
Proposal Negotiation Handover to
Delivery
Start Up Initiation Delivery Stage(s)
Final Stage Post Project
Selected Opportunity
Your turn:
A B C
What management products / exhibits would you expect to have at a Start Up review?
List common issues with Start Up process
Suggest checklist items to aid preparation for Start Up review
Integrated Project
Emerging Project
Lagging Project
Start early
Positioning Pursuit Proposal Negotiation Delivery
9
Project Organisation and Governance
• Creating a Controlled Environment for your bid
Project Organisation and Governance
Let’s get organised:
Direct
Manage
Deliver
14
Bid Executive
Bid Manager
Team Leader
Senior Supplier
Senior User
Team Leader Team Leader
Bid Support
SMEs
SMEs
SMEs
SMEs
SMEs
SMEs
Designing a bid team organisation:
Bid Team Roles:
• Business Interest Bid Executive
• User Champion Senior User
• Provide Resources Senior Supplier
• Deliver the bid Bid Manager
• Manage Area of Offer Team Leader
• Create Response Parts Team Member
• Support the Board Bid Assurance
• Support the PM Bid Support
Business Development Resources:
15
Services Manager
Programme Director
Account Director
VP Business Development
Account Manager
Bid Manager Sales
Executive
Proposal Manager
Services Manager
Systems Architect
SME Quality
Manager Product
Specialist
Technical Expert
Graphics Designer
Technical Author
Internal Auditor
Roles define: • Accountabilities • Activities performed • Product types created • Competencies required
Resources are mapped to roles according to skills and availability
Working with partners
• Prime Contractor
• Sub-contractor
• Alliance / Joint Venture
• …
What is the commercial
relationship?
• Documented
• Agreed split of work
• Pre contract
• Post contract
Is there a teaming
agreement?
• Reporting
• Communication
• Location and facilities
Working arrangements
Create a controlled environment
Management
• Governance
• Sponsorship
• Process
Bid Managers • Getting the ‘charter’ right
• Agreement on ‘controls’
Cost
Timescales
Quality
Scope
Risk
Benefits (Business Case)
Get the right charter for your bid
Set clear tolerances on controls
Customers, competition and win strategy
Customers, competition and win strategy
• De-mystifying sales voodoo
• Defining and communicating strategy
“If you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and speak my words.”
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Understand your Customer
Issues, Motivators and Hot Buttons
• Issue • Any problem or concern that
may be affecting the Prospect
• Motivator • An issue that causes the
Prospect to want to act
• Hot Button • An issue that is high in the
list of Prospect’s concerns
Motivators Hot Buttons
Issues
low
low
high
high Customer Orientation
Feature Function Advantage Benefit
-ve Discriminator
+ve Discriminator
Differentiator
Deg
ree
of
Dif
fere
nti
atio
n
Aspect of your offer
What the feature does Feature of the offer that might provide
a benefit to the buyer
Feature that differs from the competitor’s
offer
Feature that provides more benefit to the buyer
than the competitor’s offer
Solution to an issue, reduction in cost or
increase in value
Feature that provides less benefit to the buyer
than the competitor’s offer
Do you Speak Sales?
Know your competition
“If you know the enemy and know yourself,
your victory will not stand in doubt”
Sun Tzu: “The Art of
War”
Our Weaknesses
STRATEGY STRATEGY Sweet Spot
• Mitigate Our Weaknesses
• Highlight Our Strengths
• Neutralize Their Strengths
• Ghost Their Weaknesses
Their Strengths
Our Strengths Their Weaknesses
Customer’s Issues STRATEGY STRATEGY
Sour Spot
Base Your Strategy on Discriminators
Customer Issue /
Buying Criteria
Your
Company
Competitor
1
Competitor
2
System Availability
Reduced Footprint
Experienced Vendor
Team
50% Reduction in
TCO
++
Savings in current
year
(Current Vendor)
(Current Vendor)
Bidder’s Comparison Matrix (an example)
Communicate strategy in your opportunity plan
Develop strategy statements:
• WHAT you are going to do
• Mitigate, neutralise, highlight, ghost
• HOW you are going to do it
• Simple description of the approach
Strategies can apply to:
• Solution
• Teaming
• Price and Terms
• Proposal
Develop your solution and target win price early
Solution
• That delivers what the Prospect wants
Price
• Within the Prospect’s budget
• And your acceptable margins
Your turn:
A B C
List sources of customer and competitive intelligence
Suggest ways to analyse the quality of intelligence
Suggest ways to keep solution costs within target costs
Surviving the Proposal Phase
Surviving the Proposal Phase
• Controlled execution
• Managing time, cost and quality
When the RFP arrives:
Confirm the requirements
• Systematically strip requirements from the RFP (you need SMEs)
• Carefully extract any tendering requirements
• Build a compliance matrix
Generate questions for the Prospect (there may be a deadline)
Identify actions for the solution team
Freeze the solution
Finalise your Proposal Stage plan
RE QUALIFY!
• Gate / Stage Review required
Prepare a robust topical outline and content plans for writers
A robust outline
MECE
Uniquely Assignable
Compliant
Sample content plan
http://newbok.apmp.org/bok/content-plans/
Kick off:
A well prepared and executed kick-off is the #1 work winning practice
APMP® Benchmarking Study 2002
Winning proposals are compliant, responsive, focused and easy to evaluate • Compliance
• means strict adherence to the RFP
• means «question is answered»
• Responsiveness • means addressing the prospect’s
underlying needs
• means «they know what my issue is»
• Focused • means «why choose us» is evident
• benefits and discriminators are clear
• Easy to evaluate • answers are easy to find
• document is easy to navigate
• key information is highlighted
Requirements
Underlying Needs
Responsive answers
Compliant answers
Advice to SMEs
Answer each question directly
• Demonstrate compliance
• Don’t waffle
Provide evidence in support of your answer
• What
• How
• Who
• When
• Where
• Why
Use boilerplate if needed to support your answer
ATFQ
Metrohopper™ Installation ?
(Informative, but no benefit)
Man in Shorts ?
(That would be a ‘Horse Title’)
Figure 6: Installation. One man can do it! Metrohopper’s
light weight and packaging mean that a single engineer can
safely and quickly complete on-site installation. This means
that you’ll be in service faster and achieve quicker savings
than with typical transmission solutions.
Ah! That’s better.
Metr
ohopper™
is
a t
rade m
ark
of
Nokia
Solu
tions
and N
etw
ork
s
© P
hoto
gra
ph c
opyri
ght
Nokia
Solu
tions
and
Netw
ork
s Include interpretive action captions with graphics
Keep progress visible:
Daily Stand Up Meeting Proposal Management Plan
Proposal Responsibility Matrix Content Plans
Daily Management Tools
Your turn:
A B C
List issues in managing a distributed team. Suggest ways to address them.
List issues with managing external partners. Suggest ways to address them.
Suggest ways to maintain visibility of status and progress with your team.
Learn from experience
Seek out lessons learned before
each stage
Include lessons learned in
project plans
Implement lessons learned
“lessons learned” but not implemented are merely “lessons noted”
Project closed or just abandoned?
• Even losing bids have value • Management products
• Plans, strategies, tools • Re-usable outputs • Relationships formed
• What did we learn? • What works / what doesn’t • Customer & Market Intelligence • Effort Metrics
• What will we change? • Ineffective techniques • Broken processes • Skills gaps
Ahead of it’s time?
Or an opportunity
missed?
Archive all bid products
Implement lessons learned
Managing improvement
Frameworks:
• IUK Routemap
• SCAMPI
• P3M3
• BD-CMM
Tools:
• DECA
• Helmsman
Use gates as readiness assessments
Fix issues before starting
Conclusions and Actions
Conclusions and Actions
• Applying this in the work place
• Personal Action Plans
Some useful resources:
Web resources:
• APMP BoK: http://newbok.apmp.org (APMP member subscription)
• Outperform toolkit: http://bids.outperform.co.uk/
• Intrastructure UK Procurement Routemap: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infrastructure-procurement-routemap-a-guide-to-improving-delivery-capability
Texts:
• The Bid Managers Handbook, David Nickson (ISBN:9780566088476)
• Bids, Tenders and Proposals: Winning Business Through Best Practice, Harold Lewis (ISBN: 9780749456108)
• Powerful Proposals - How to Give Your Business the Winning Edge, Bacon & Pugh (ISBN: 9780814472323)
This presentation was
delivered at an APM event
To find out more about
upcoming events please visit our
website www.apm.org.uk/events