When I started in proposals, nobody showed me how to schedule one. To this day, nobody has. Most proposal managers don't get scheduling training, so they schedule based on what makes sense.
Here is a schedule that makes perfect sense. The proposal is due at 2pm. It takes 4 hours to print and bind, and 2 hours to drive to the client's office. As long as you're in by 8am, everything is fine.
That scenario is 100% logical. It also gives me an ulcer just thinking about it.
If you walk in 15 minutes late because of traffic, you no longer have enough time to print the proposal and get it to the client. There is absolutely no float in that schedule.
What is float in a proposal schedule?
Float is the difference between when an activity can start and when it must start. An activity with no float often lands on the critical path, and anything that goes wrong on the critical path ripples through your entire plan.
I work with professional schedulers and landed in many CPM scheduling seminars, which is where this idea comes from. It changed how I plan proposals.
Where to put the float
Say Bob needs two days to write the initial draft of the technical approach, but you can afford up to three. You have one day of float. The logical thing is to extend Bob's deadline by a day.
Don't do that. Put the day on a task you control. If Bob's draft gets reviewed for three days and then you take a day to format, add the spare day to formatting. If the draft or the review takes an extra day, your cushion absorbs it.
Try it yourself:
Yellow line: deadline, end of day 7Slipped or past deadline
One day past the deadline.
You handed the float to Bob, so nothing protects you. Now you can only spend less time on other tasks or add hours and people. Neither makes the proposal better.
Why more time doesn't fix it
You've probably thought, "If I only had more time." But if the RFP gave you an extra week, you would likely still be finalizing the proposal on the day it's due. That's Parkinson's Law: work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
Technical staff aren't being jerks when they push proposal sections off. It's human nature. People put off hard, unpleasant work until the last minute. Plan around that reality, and be honest with your coworkers, because they need to trust you.
Plan backward from the due date
Start with the due date and work backward, with one big activity per day. Put a full day for travel before the due date, even for a local client. If you ship a proposal overnight and something goes wrong, you find out by mid-morning and still have time to reprint and send a courier.
Don't leave your fate in someone else's hands. And think about how it looks when your proposal arrives at the last minute. What does that say about how you'll deliver the client's project?
In Parkinson Planning, I take you step by step through how I schedule proposal efforts, with the word-for-word scripts I use to get a commitment from your team.
See the whole course
I've submitted over 1,000 proposals and created Proposal Management Mastery. The American Institute of Architects included my relevancy formula for proposals in The Architect's Handbook of Professional Practice.