Matt Handal has written a truly useful guide to the proposal management process — the set of steps and processes you should codify in handling RFP/project responses.
While proposal management may lack much in the way of glamour, it is at the core of future business opportunities for most architectural and engineering practices. Mess up on this stuff, and you’ll either be chasing (and even worse, winning) unprofitable jobs — or you’ll be missing out on the work you should win to sustain your practice.
Handal suggests that you can’t just take a proposal process template off the shelf and use it, because each practice/business will have its own circumstances and unique requirements. However, he points out the various steps and elements that are common to all proposal systems, and so you should be able to build something that works for you (and yes, you need to put it in writing, because otherwise it will be hard to maintain/manage.)
