value proposition design web app
[music intro] >>hi. i’m devon dean, content director hereat projectmanager.com. today i’m going to teach you how to help sell your project usinga project proposal. a key thing to remember is that people buy from people. don’t expectthe project proposal document that you put together to be taken up by the decision makersin an organization in isolation of any communication you’ve had with them and award funding andresources and mindshare to that project. it’s important to remember this because you canwrite the best project proposal document but without that people interaction you have aslim to no chance of getting your project funded.
while you’re preparing the project proposaldocument it’s really important for you, your project sponsors and the champions ofyour project to go out there and actively lobby the decision makers of your organizationabout your project. use those lobbying sessions and those one on one meetings to actuallyrefine and hone your understanding of what the problems are in your organization andthe benefits that your project can actually realize, that strike a chord with those decisionmakers. in developing your project proposal document i highly recommend in tandem goingout there and actively seeking the feedback of those decision makers so that feedbackhelp you refine and forge the sales pitch you put together in your proposal document.
your decision makers are going to make thedecision whether to thrill or kill that project within the first five minutes of picking upyour project proposal document so it’s really, really critical that you make a big impactright at the start of that project proposal document. the way you do that is in statingthat problem statement. you really need to paint a bleak picture of your organizationthat shows or depicts the problems that you’re having in the organization which could beovercome had your project been in production when those problems occurred. highlight somespecific examples of where opportunities were missed or where risk or costs were incurredthat your project could have prevented or could have gained access to in terms of opportunitiesif your project had delivered by the time
of that event. efficiency gains or general skills upliftare not the messages you want to communicate in terms of looking for those problem benefits.by saying that sally works 50 hours a week and your project is going to solve that problemis really not going to strike a chord for those decision makers. look for those specificexamples of where your company missed an opportunity or incurred costs because your project wasn’tin place. put those in your problem statement. now the vision statement is a section thatneeds to tie your project to the company’s long range strategy and vision and long rangegoals. without tying your project in to your organizational strategy and vision you runthe risk of having your project being looked
upon as a rogue project: it’s out therein the distance, it really doesn’t fit with what we’re doing so you run a risk of nothaving your project being funded because of that reason. you need to tie your projectinto your company’s organizational strategies and vision. benefits further expand upon the vision thatyour project will have, that you paint the picture of that vision. you’re going intoa bit more specific details on what are the things your project will deliver, what newcapabilities or what costs you’re going to avoid by having the project deliverablesin place. be very specific about the benefits and make sure they’re things that are measurable.
the deliverables section further goes intoanother level of decomposition about what your project is going to deliver. it talksabout the artefacts which your projects will deliver and how those will be delivered interms of what the users can expect. a deliverable might be, for example, for a call center projectyou’re delivering new computer telephony integration. that would be a deliverable whenthat call center has that equipment. success criteria are very important to outlinein that project proposal. you need to be able to have smart success criteria which meanit’s specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound. these success criteria, oncethey’re met, give the project owners, the decision makers and the stakeholders 100%confidence that your project has achieved
success. it’s important that you list outthose criteria which everyone is looking at your project to deliver. the next section is talking about how yourproject is going to achieve the deliverables and success criteria and benefits. in hereis where your deadlines are listed, where the project plan comes together and what theapproach to delivery might be for your project. are you going to use external vendors? areyou going to use internal staff? are you going to use an agile approach to delivering thatproject or are you going to use a more traditional waterfall method to enable your project todeliver on its deliverables? lastly, of course, the cost and the budget.here’s where you pull it together and you
show the funding plan for that project andhow it’s going to achieve its deadlines against those deliverables and for the dollarvalue. now if you find in the first section thatyou’re getting into quite a lot of detail that runs past, let’s say, two pages i thinkit’s really important to take the time and consolidate all the high points from theseinto an executive summary for that document. put the high level problem, visions and benefitsin that exec summary. as i mentioned before, decision makers will take about five minuteslooking at your proposal to make sure that it’s something they’re going to fund ordecide that they’re not going to fund it in this year. ensuring those messages areconcise is really critical and by putting
these elements into executive summary if youfind them going long is a really important way for you to quickly communicate those ideas. it’s important to remember the flow of thedocument in the proposal. you need it to flow like a fiction book. you need to tell a storyand paint a picture and leave no stone unturned for your decision makers to ponder. everythingneeds to flow from the start of the problem down to the cost and benefits in terms ofthe key themes of your project need to be expounded upon, need to be mentioned at thestart and then further drilled down upon throughout the rest of your project proposal. if youhave items that you’re introducing in your deliverables, for example, that don’t fitin with solving the problems you’ve identified
up here or fit in with the benefits that you’regoing to realize your decision makers will look at that and it will cause them to thinka little bit more about your proposal in terms of does this proposal really communicate ina tight way the objectives that it’s going to achieve for the organization. it needsto flow. all the items here need to mesh with one another and not introduce any new topicsor any new items as you go along in the project document. your project proposal is one key way for youto communicate your project’s vision and benefits to the organization but a projectproposal in itself is not going to sell your project and get it funded and resourced. onlyyou can do that. only your champions and your
sponsor can do that. like i said in the start,the proposal will help you sell your project and get it funded and resourced but reallyyou need to be there actively lobbying for that project and getting it off the ground. for more project management tips and tricksand to try out our software come join us at projectmanager.com.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar