As proposal professionals, we know the reality of hard work, long hours, deadlines, and stress. Members of the proposal team often have day jobs, too. Creativity, productivity, and contemplative abilities… Continue reading How to reduce stress and make fun a priority

I recently returned from the largest gathering of capture and proposal professionals in the world: APMP Bid and Proposal Con 2015 in Seattle, WA. Capture and proposal professionals – be they managers, coordinators,… Continue reading APMP: Bigger is better!

Meetings are essential in business and proposals, but they also waste a lot of time. We groan about the weekly proposal staff meeting because it takes away from productive time… Continue reading How to implement 3 meeting best practices

I started working proposals for a small business directly out of graduate school with no knowledge of federal contracting and about 3 hours of on-the-job-training. Increasing the pressure, 4 months… Continue reading How to use confidence to lead proposals

What do customers really want? As capture and proposal professionals, that question haunts us. We work very hard to understand customer hot buttons and craft our solution accordingly. However, too… Continue reading How to activate your listening campaign

Dear Proposal Doctor, How can we stop the seemingly endless cycle of color reviews? My capture manager forces the pink and red reviews way too early in the schedule and… Continue reading How to stop the endless cycle of color reviews

Instead of writing about all the things companies should do to be more successful in their business acquisition efforts, I thought I would lead off the year by writing about… Continue reading 20 BD habits to kill off in 2015

IT projects today frequently employ an Agile development approach. At the 2014 APMP-NCA Mid-Atlantic Conference, Maryann Lesnick looked at these Agile approaches, and in particular the Scrum model, to answer the… Continue reading Does Agile project management have a place in proposal management?

Dear Proposal Doctor, My capture manager and solution architect are tired of the daily standup meeting and want to discontinue it. Others are grumbling as well. In fact, I can’t… Continue reading How to make daily standup meeting more productive

There is nothing more I dread than a Red Team II or even Red Team III. It means the entire bid and proposal team didn’t produce a compliant, strong, and… Continue reading How to avoid problems during a Red Team