Writing Successful Proposals: It's All About the Numbers

As managers we have all been faced with situations where we needed to invoke change. Maybe we’ve had too few or too many employees. Maybe we needed to add a new piece of equipment or get rid of an old one. Maybe we needed a new facility. The common element in all of these change initiatives is that, most likely, we’ve had to convince someone at a higher level that action was needed.

A successful proposal must address two critical factors. The first is relevance; that is, why is the topic of the proposal important? The second is impact—what pain will be alleviated and/or what gain to the organization will be achieved by adopting the change?

One might think that relevance would be self evident. Your shop is part of the organization, therefore the organization will benefit from adopting your initiative. Unfortunately, this may not be the case. The in-plant competes with all facets of the organization for scarce resources, and administrators have to make tough choices when deciding where to make investments. If the proposal cannot show a direct contribution to the core purpose of the organization, it is not likely to be approved.

When we talk about impact, we must show both the value of the proposed change and why the change is important. The pain could be high costs, missed deadlines, poor image, or any number of other adverse outcomes. Gain is just the opposite. In our role as in-plant managers, gain usually refers to reduced costs, improved quality and/or expedited delivery. All are important, and all must be linked to the organization’s core purpose.

Moreover, when we talk about impact we need to be as specific as possible. Craft your argument with facts and data, and avoid relying on opinion. You might also research successful proposals from different areas of your organization to use as models.

A common scenario with my higher education clients goes like this: “You need how much for a new digital press? Do you know how many faculty the university could hire for the same amount of money? Or how many labs could be upgraded? Or how many classrooms remodeled?” It’s all about the money, so if you want to your proposal to be approved, you need to show why it’s important and how the organization will benefit.

Anatomy of a Proposal

Mission: It is important to establish your role in the organization’s success, so your proposal should begin by restating your purpose and why what you do is important. Many times the in-plant manager skips this step or makes a general mission statement like “Printing Services exists to print stuff,” but he or she overlooks why this may be important. An effective mission statement does both: “Printing Services provides timely printed materials of the highest quality at competitive prices in support of the university’s academic mission.”

Problem Statement: Next you want to describe the pain. What is the problem that you are addressing, and why is it important? A common theme for in-plants is the need to upgrade or replace production equipment. As in-plant managers we may know that a particular piece of equipment is declining in efficiency, but we need to express our perceptions in terms the administrative suits will understand. “The two-color press is 20 years old and should be replaced” isn’t enough. You must also include data. How much have maintenance costs gone up? Are parts still available? Are newer presses more efficient? Will a newer press improve your production rate?

Methodology: This section is a snapshot of your thought processes and the assumptions you made in arriving at a solution to the problem. You might begin by describing the steps you took to arrive at your recommendations. This could include contacting vendors, attending trade shows and networking with other in-plant managers, as well as online research.

You should also identify assumptions used to clarify the analysis. These could include price discounts, reserves for service, benefits, labor costs and the like. Be sure to include assumptions of future revenue performance, especially if you recover your costs.

Alternatives: The decision makers in your organization—the folks that will read and approve or disapprove your proposal—expect to see evidence that you have evaluated multiple solutions before arriving at your final decision. They want to know that you have considered a range of alternatives, so be sure to include them.

Analysis: The suits at the executive level look to us to manage the resources we are given to do our jobs. That means in order to make a change we have to demonstrate the advantages of adopting the proposal—the gain—as well as the costs to the organization of not approving your solution. The analysis should include complete income and expense estimates for each proposed alternative.

Measures based on qualitative criteria, customer service and print quality for example, may be used as part of the analysis if they are supported by quantitative data. If your customer satisfaction survey indicated widespread displeasure with your delivery times, for example, addressing that issue would have a role in the analysis; however a proposal based primarily on qualitative analysis is not likely to succeed in most cases.

Recommendation: This is where you build your case by explaining the complete details of your