One of my readers posted a useful comment about proposal schedules in response to my posting about my latest project being off-kilter. Although I'm not able to apply his suggestion to this project (for reasons that I don't want to address right now), his comment reminded me of the absolute necessity of developing a schedule for every proposal.
A proposal schedule should be developed before you begin work on your proposal. The schedule can be in the form of a gantt chart, as was suggested in the comment, or you can use a monthly calendar, your proposal outline, or a simple listing of items and activities/due dates. Use the format that works best for you and your team members. Personally, I use all of these schedule types, depending on the complexity and length of the proposal effort.
At a minimum, your proposal schedules should contain:
- Due dates of each section, including the due dates of all drafts and the final product, along with the name of the person or persons responsible for the section.
- Dates of status review and other meetings related to the development of the proposal.
- Dates during which each section -- as well as the final proposal -- will be reviewed, and the name(s) of the reviewer.
- Holidays or other days during which no one will be working (haha).
- Dates reserved for proposal production (printing, copying, assembly, etc).
- Date on which the proposal must be shipped out or delvered.
It may take a while to develop a workable schedule. I often start by working backwards from the proposal due date, delivery date, and production date. And, since it is rare that the initial schedule will be met, you will probably need to do regular updates.
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