Writing killer proposals!
Many a times PMs may be required to work with EXECs & that could all boil down to penning down some great proposals. Here are few tools that'd help you do that like a PRO...!
The “glue” that “binds”…
A long while ago, browsing through some basic product material I encountered a small snippet over why product management as a function could be essential to an organization as much as also covering what ought to be the changes noticeable once you onboard a PM.
It was something on these lines…:
“After you hire a good product manager, you ought to notice some or all of these changes.
There seems to be a sense of purpose now & urgency in all matters concerning those mainstream goals;
Leaders / EXECs would witness relevant questions getting popped which could be really reassuring whilst pondering over how the teams missed all of that earlier;
Teams get moving faster towards their individual outputs / deliverables;
When it could still be little too early to notice those market-fronted teams move some growth metrics, that’s not altogether impossible either;”
Irrespective of whether the setting is that of an MNC or a growth stage startup, alignment is mandatory across all XFN teams and it may not be enough for all the wheels to be in motion, they ought to be in motion & in alignment to a preset direction.
YES! Product managers are often required to be the glue that binds teams together. That is the indeed one of the mandatory goals, when the methods to get there could vary depending on the organization, stakeholders / teams, situation, goals et. al. Given the limitations that’s hardly easy to pull off in person. And that perhaps forced PMs to adapt to proposal writing or adhering to tools like PRDs, MRDs have found huge popularity and have also seen many waves of evolution over the years. These documents form an integral part of team alignment which is achieved via a shared understanding - the crux of Agile development.
As for the rest of this article, we’d narrow our scope down to consider “proposals only” seem to be the least comfortable area or alien territory for some PMs.
Proposals & Purposes
As I have witnessed it over the years and as much as I see how evident it is given today’s workflows as well, the one place that shows signs of struggles and the need for some kind of a Template is the pre-Strategy / Goals / OKR stage.
PMs would especially identify with this situation while working at startups as they would need to firstly understand the high-level business objectives and then convert them into something tangible so as to gain a buy-in or even evince interest as applicable in some cases. Many PMs find their heads stuck here as there may not be that many resources that come their rescue, also whatever could be found in the name of material could be archaic and not updated to current times, yes, I am referring to those 25+ page proposal templates which nobody would want to write in the first place, forget about finding the motivation to read that document.
With at least the product world and the teams largely embracing LEAN more as a way of life, the size of the proposals seems to have come down as well. And why not?
Down memory lane:
About 15 yrs. back I’ve witnessed the troubles managers used to take to write those lengthy proposals swearing by how that was the norm back then and ought to be filled in so as to even be honored.
Not only did that increase the turnaround / cycle times over writing / presenting / understanding / digesting it also induced more logistic troubles to the workflow.
All in all, it just impeded the process of decision making but never did contribute towards improving it in any sense of the word.
Thanks to all those painful experiences, today we have a much-evolved ecosystem that encourages the use of leaner / shorter forms of proposals that underpin on conciseness & a lot of visuals targeting better idea propagation amongst concerned teams & in no way are they to be deemed as omitting aspects that truly matter to decision making.
What should a proposal contain?
In the parlance of the interfacing with EXECs, a proposal at a broad level ought to be a summarized version that makes its point, concisely.
it could start with an executive summary / objective
highlight the background / main motivations
delve into the problems being faced &
finally touch upon the solution (whilst covering the budget & PnL forecasts)
Start with NOSE
NOSE is a framework that’s been used pretty widely and could be a great place to start as well. The 4 elements that you’d need to get a hang of first are:
Needs - the needs / problems of the incumbent target market / user groups
Outcomes - the outcomes that have been identified, by achieving which one’d be able to add value to the incumbent users / clients
Solution - the incumbent solution that could wholly address those needs / problems fitting the market’s standards at best
Evidence - the research / facts that support the rationale of progressing ahead in a certain direction & pursuing the incumbent idea
Proposal writing Tools
Here’s a few options team use as of today for writing & floating proposals keeping discussions totally focused on THE things that matter.
1) Amazon 1-pager
The all-famous Amazon 1-pager is a great way to put a proposal forward. It’s a high-level overview of the product / business / service as applicable & bears a summary (usually the hook), background, the opportunity & approach. Though nowhere in the template is it specified, one could think of adding many visuals to make it more appealing, which makes sense when your audience, the EXECs & leadership mostly seem hard pressed for time and are always looking for something closer to being called more actionable. This document screams STRATEGY all the way from the top to the bottom.
Resources:
2) Amazon 6-pager
A little more elaborate form in comparison to the 1-pager, this could be considered as a much more detailed version that covers a lot of tactical stuff accentuating the strategy heading over onto a proposing a solution specific to a problem that’s been identified on it as deemed for the no. of quarters the teams want to target.
Resources:
Though not really proposal templates in the true sense of the word, here are some other essential tools that could help you as a PM & your teams gain clarity over progressing with your ideas.
3) Business case canvas
Personally, I’ve been a big fan of this owing to the depth one could get to over analyzing, validating & vetting one’s idea before it could be taken to the proposal stage. Originally coined by Alex Osterwalder it could help you clear up the air & steer clear of all the biases that could otherwise get induced.
Resources:
4) Lean canvas
I’ve always seen the Lean Canvas as a variation / improvised version of the business case canvas with a few subtle changes so as to represent the workflow specifically adherent to the LEAN way of building things.
Resources:
5) Agile PRD
May be shortage of choices for some teams or the fact that they’d want to stick more towards tactical work as opposed to leaving the operating / framing strategies part to the leadership, I have seen how the Agile-PRD could be of use. Menial yes, but it gets the job done.
Resources:
Remember:
Apart from all the tools that a product manager may be expected to build and float to the internal / external stakeholders targeting those tactical bits and of course alignment, the one thing that one would need some mastery over is to be able to write killer proposals.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel as there are a few tools that have been used and periodically revised to suit the current market trends like the ones mentioned in the last section above here. But again, nobody is stopping you from innovating and producing what could be a better version of the current ones as deemed fit given the situation and the demand of the people around.