Announcing the first APMP ANZ Mentoring Program
A Fantastic Year for Certification in Our Region
2019 has seen the largest number of people achieve one of the three certification levels than any other year in our Chapter history. All in all, 60 of our members have achieved some level of certification this year: 46 Foundation, 11 Practitioner and 3 Professional. There are now 183 people with certification in our Chapter. You can see the excellent growth in the chart below. That’s the good news.
But this still means that way more than half of our Chapter members have no certification level at all. So, why not make APMP certification your professional goal in 2020? There will be more opportunities to do that than ever before with both Foundation and Practitioner workshops plus the introduction of a mentoring program.
Certification Workshops for 2020
More certification workshops are currently being planned for 2020, as follows:
Foundation: This is an intensive all-day workshop that prepares you for the 1 hour Foundation paper based exam, which is taken at the end of the day. You get told your result before you leave. The cost for the course (for APMP members) is $1,000 plus GST. This cost includes the $550 exam fee but excludes the APMP Proposal Certification Study Guide (BOK Edition), which should be purchased in advance online from the APMP bookstore (www.apmp.org).
Practitioner: This is a new workshop for our Chapter. It is a 3 hour information session about the new 2.5 hour on-line exam. It runs through a practice case study and the types of questions in the exam. Each workshop will be held near the end of the day to minimise impact on work schedules. The cost is yet to be decided but will be a nominal fee only to cover some materials and a venue.
The schedule for Foundation workshops for the first half of 2020 are shown in the table below (subject to minimum numbers). Practitioner workshop dates (and cost) are currently being worked out and will be published in the new year. The certification workshops are all run by Nigel Dennis CPP APMP Fellow.
The dates for the Foundation workshops for the rest of the year are as follows:
Certification Mentoring Program
One of the best ways for professional development and growth is to have a mentor. So, in 2020 the APMP ANZ Chapter will be introducing a formal (but not onerous) mentoring program for all three certification levels. This will be modelled on successful programs that other Chapters around the world are using. More information will be published early next year.
Foundation Success
There have two more Foundation workshops held since our last newsletter. So congratulations to the following people who all passed the exam
Perth (3rd December): Susan Danford, Catherine Salter, Rhona MacLean, Benn Rayner
Brisbane (10th December): Heloise Freeman, Krystal Giacomantonio, Bradley Misso, Aleshia Mudge, Nicola Nixon, Andrew Robinson, Lyndell Thompson, Railene Turner-Rose
Does your CFO know how much money, time and morale is wasted on your bids and proposals?
Your bids & proposals – On time, On spec (compliant), On budget?
By Jeremy Pollard, Shipley Asia Pacific
‘Pick any two’ is a popular expression in project management. As a project, getting a compliant bid submitted on time suggests your third aspect – proposal budget, e.g. labour and materials – ends up ‘giving’ or being adjusted all the time.
How does this keep happening? According to the BD-Institute, the Number 1 Proposal Management Best Practice – is that the ‘offering and other competition baselines be in place before kicking off the proposal’. And, that the majority of practitioners saw this best practice as “critically important”. So far, so good.
Yet, 30% reported only “seldom, if ever used” or “occasionally used” implementation of this practice.
As highlighted in the 2018 STUDY REPORT – Proposal Best Practices – Importance versus Usage – authored by Howard Nutt, Executive Director of the BD-Institute, and Co-Sponsored by the APMP 21st Annual Southern Proposal Accents Conference, and supported by the BD-CMM Community of Practice: “A perennial challenge for proposal managers is having to write proposals around offerings that are still being developed, as it is challenging to describe what has not been defined”
Think about that for a minute. How much wasted time effort, and yes money, impacts your budget in this sort of unproductive effort?
Time and money wasted on poorly managed solutions, bids and proposals is often a result of poor leadership and budget management.
But it’s worse than just money because it also often speaks to a poor, even toxic culture where the team time is disregarded and abused. e.g. a significant consequence of imperfect proposal process is typically sacrificing of after-hours and weekend personal time by team members.
Exceptions? That said, in some organisations, especially smaller teams, there may be situations where people willingly put in extra effort for the common good, sometimes with time-off-in lieu, for example. And various conditions, not always imperfect or immature process or management – for example, a degree of responsiveness to customer or competitor changes – may require adapting or reworking, with little or no notice. Take care to avoid the exception becoming the rule.
How to fix this? The secret to reducing bid and staff impact costs (and winning more bids)?
Start early. Left shift your #winwork efforts, begin discussing and scoping your solution earlier. Intelligent #pursuit or #capture efforts make better proposal planning possible, and the most effective way to reduce money and time wasted over and over again.
And have your teams get back their personal lives again.
But how can I make a difference? Acknowledging this is not the sole responsibility of bid writers or bid managers, what can you do about a problem where the source or cause is another team or group?
Begin with these three steps.
- Do your homework. Collect and collate data with your colleagues about the number and value of the bids and proposals worked on over the last 2/3 years – classified by incumbent Vs competitive. Track the time you’ve been given, and the number of pages of new and boilerplate content involved (more on this in another article) – in particular, where possible, how far from the news of the project and how close to the submission due date was the solution finally locked down and able to be written about properly? Get time with your CFO or finance team and explain what you are doing, and why. Get their support and assistance with sourcing and validating the data and conclusions.
- Engage your stakeholders. Meet and talk with the sales and BD people working with the customers and your technical/product/solutions people – hear their side of the story, practice your best reflective listening – ensure they feel listened to and understood. You are not trying to change their mind, their behaviour – yet. Just listen — document what you hear.
- Encourage and support more pre-tender activity (Capture). Discover what Capture training your sales and BD colleagues have undertaken, and actually put into practice (often a gap). Ask to understand how they feel the process works. Consider steps or aspects where you and your colleagues could add value. Offer to join opportunity assessment and capture or pursuit milestone meetings. Help out with early Capture draft executive summaries.
Read research, papers and books on best practice business development and Capture. Ask to do the same Capture training as your BD and sales colleagues. Keep talking with your stakeholders – including finance – on the benefits of starting earlier – which also helps with more accurate and consistent Price To Win, and superior revenue forecasts.
Conference Update
Two months ago, 170 proposal professionals from Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the Middle East came together in Melbourne to celebrate our industry and learn how each of us can make a difference. Delegates were treated to presentations from some exceptional international speakers, as well as some fantastic local content from our Australian tribe.
A highlight was hearing from APMP’s global CEO Rick Harris, who braved a long-haul flight from Washington DC to learn why the ANZ conference has such a good reputation internationally. Thanks to our keynote presentation by Mike Parkinson, we also have a better understanding of the value of a good infographic. Here is our 2019 conference in numbers:
If you want to see what all the fuss is about, join us for the 2020 APMP ANZ conference in Sydney next August 26-27.
What would you like to know more about?
Click on the drop down menus on the top tab to learn more about the ANZ Chapter or APMP International.