Orange You Glad: A Modest Proposal (As It Were) to Help Thrive Through Challenging and Normal-Ish Times

by Todd Packer, CF APMP

Note: This article is a re-print of a previously published article.

Introduction
Forgive me. New to Zen.

So, no disrespect intended, a beginner’s draft riddle to spark deep insight – a “koan”: “Before the proposal begins and after it ends, where is your proposal team?”

During any proposal effort your team is clear. As outlined in the APMP BOK, your allies – including professionals with skills in sales, capture, writing, graphics and technical fields – the whole kaboodle with kit that transforms a dreary list of font sizes, page lengths and requirements into an epic quest for the thrill of triumph and the grace of success.

But the in-between time, if it happens – the luxury of catching one’s precious breath during a lull in proposal activity.
What happens then? How can we build and repeatably sustain a proposal community that will make each proposal effort better and improve win rates and quality of each effort?

In this article, I offer an idea informed by the many, many challenges the world faced in 2020, to hopefully spark conversation and innovation in the care – and, yes, feeding – of the most critical component of capture excellence as well as the greatest gift of this profession: Your proposal team.

Let’s start to peel this…no…not an onion…I’ll get back to you on the metaphor.

Let’s start.
Dealing with pandemic related issues in 2020 compounds the already sometimes overwhelming stress bid and proposal professionals face. To mitigate this, for this article, I want to focus on mitigating the risk of stressors outside the proposal effort on the performance of proposal teams already stretched to, and beyond, their limits of endurance.

As a freshly minted Foundation-level Certified Proposal Management Professional, I would also like to offer an idea for a risk management solution that can be repeatable, sustainable and integrated into one of the best practices for proposal and capture success: Color Team Reviews.

How can proposal managers sustain the team’s motivation to deliver often, well and kindly between and beyond each proposal effort? How can we assess the lessons learned for the people critical to perseverance across multiple efforts?
And how can proposal managers sustain teams facing unique individual and team performance in 2021 and the challenging, “not quite returning to normal ever, ever again” (let’s just say ‘normal-ish) future we now face?

With this challenge in mind, I propose a new Color Team Review, scheduled regularly, to look at lessons learned across multiple proposal efforts, and also to serve as a safe, focused and kind “check-in” on how everyone important to our team’s work success is, well, is. Now it’s time for this idea to bear fruit.

A New Review of Color
Accordingly, I respectfully propose, as it were, a new color review to serve the following: build the team continuously, honor the lessons learned, and prepare for unknown adventures.

The Orange Review. A “scrum of scrums,” the Orange Review gives the Proposal Manager the opportunity to assess experiences across multiple proposal efforts, to identify gaps qualitatively and quantitatively, to mitigate unresolved conflicts from the sometimes emotional gate review process (e.g.,”Go/No Go”) and to safely express fears and gratitudes about a shifting organization, marketplace and world. Oh, and to celebrate. Please, remember to bring good snacks.

The Orange Review Structure:

• Periodic (e.g., monthly, quarterly) and regularly scheduled
• Prioritize: across current active proposals, then active capture efforts, then recently concluded efforts, then dive into lessons learned from other efforts (e.g., “blast from the past,” previous work experiences)
• Goal: ID gaps and changes in relationships that can be addressed with outreach to forge allies and build, or rebuild, trust.

Why Orange?
To be honest, the particular color came to me for a few reasons:

1. As a dad, one of the jokes I appreciate is the exhausting “banana” knock knock joke: Knock, knock. > Who’s there? > Banana > Banana who? > Knock, knock. > Who’s there? > Banana. > Banana who? > Knock, knock. > Who’s there? > Orange. > Orange who? ORANGE YOU GLAD I DIDN’T SAY BANANA!
2. My mom grew up in the Great Depression – she would often tell the story that for the holidays it was a great joy as a kid to get an orange as a present.
3. The Cleveland Browns US football team did well in 2020– so, saw a lot of orange (and brown) here in the APMP Greater Midwest Chapter (GMC) stomping grounds of Northeast Ohio
4. I, um, really, really like eating oranges.

Oh, and, to my knowledge, “orange” hasn’t been used for a proposal Color Team color. Here’s a structure to consider for the proposed periodic Orange Team reviews:

A deeper dive into the “Observe” step, using the structure of the knock-knock joke, can be used as a tool to help participants spend time discerning how the issue of concern affects their success with creating a sustainable proposal capture and win process.
This table outlines a format that can guide an action agenda for the meeting:

I was inspired to develop this approach from some exposure to the “Five Whys Process” model of root cause analysis. As described by the American Society for Quality [Excerpted from “FIVE WHYS AND FIVE HOWS” which includes details and examples of this methodology, accessed at: https://asq.org/quality-resources/five-whys]: “The five whys and five hows techniques constitute a questioning process designed to drill down into the details of a problem or a solution and peel away the layers of symptoms. The technique was originally developed by Sakichi Toyoda who stated that “by repeating why five times, the nature of the problem as well as its solution becomes clear.”

This technique aids experts seeking to understand the source of problems and to identify solutions, such as engineers seeking to understand the failure of components in a system or managers analyzing barriers to optimal organizational performance. I see it also as a strategy to delineate distracting elements on a path to finding a more satisfactory and actionable explanation – e.g., multiple bananas before you get your orange.

Wrap-up and Your Turn to Share
With this Orange Review idea, one win theme: Seek to nurture the organizational relationships critical for success.
Please, be prepared – ugliness may emerge. Discussions in these reviews may reveal:

• Consistent performance inadequacies – HR
• Patterns of unethical behavior
• Abuse of team members
• Shifts – external threats and alliances beyond the organization
• Some one, or many, may not be able to concentrate due to stress, grief or loss

However, these sessions can hopefully honor the strengths, successes and supports that team members have found effective and wish to enhance and repeat for other current and future proposal efforts, including:

• Unexpected positive response from internal or external resources
• “Above and beyond” activities that deserve to be acknowledged
• Organizational and technical “hacks” that helped save time and reduce frustration
• Inspirational stories and small victories that help build team morale and efficacy
• Best practices to sustain trust and solve problems to enshrine in your evolving proposal process

I don’t know if the Orange Review can work, but I would like to try. It’s part of my vision for what we do that’s beyond the tedium of documents, deadlines and doldrums. I see each proposal as a promise, we, through APMP, are shepherds and guardians of the promise of deliverance, quality, integrity and excellence.

One more thing: orange yourself. Often.

Proposal work can be lonely and highly stressful find help if you need it. Seek gratitude, gentleness and grace in the workplace and the world. Find fun stuff and occasional silliness (I’m a fan of puns and playing with words)

So. The Orange Review. Do you find it appealing? Let me know what you think.

The time for giving, and for forgiving, is upon us. Is a pun. Us.

OK. I’ll stop. Forgive me. And thank you.