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hi i'm devin deen content director here at projectmanager.com today i'm going to teach you how to help sell your project using a project proposal now key thing to remember is that people buy from people so don't expect the project proposal document that you put together to be taken up by the decision makers in an organization and isolation of any communication you've had with them and award funding and resources and mind share to that project it's important to remember this because you can write the best project proposal document but without that people interaction you have a slim to no chance of getting your project funded so whilst you're actually preparing the project proposal document it's really important for you your project sponsors and the champions of your project to go out there and actively lobby the decision makers of your organization about your project use those lobbying sessions and those one-on-one meetings to actually refine and hone your understanding of what the problems are in your organization and the benefits that your project can actually realize that strike a chord with those decision-makers so in developing your project proposal document I highly recommend in tandem going out there and actively seeking the feedback of those decision-makers so that that feedback can help you refine and Forge the sales pitch that you put together in your proposal document now your decision-makers are going to make the decision about whether to thrill or kill that project within the first five minutes of picking up your project proposal document so it's really really critical that you make a big impact right at the start of that project proposal document and the way you do that is in stating that problem statement you really need to paint a bleak picture of your organization that that shows or depicts a the problems that you're having at the organization which could be overcome had your project been in in production when those problems occurred highlight some specific examples of where opportunities were missed or where risk or cost were incurred and that your project could have prevented or could have gained access to in terms of opportunities if your project delivered by the time of that event wrote efficiency gains or general skills uplift are not the messages that you want to communicate in terms of looking for those problem benefits by saying that Sally will works you know 50 hours a week and that your projects going to solve that problem is really not going to strike a chord in those decision-makers look for those specific examples of where your company missed an opportunity or had an incurred cost because your project wasn't in place put those in your problem statement now the vision statement is a section that needs to tie your project to to the company's long-range strategy and vision and long-range goals without tying in your project into that cut into your organizational strategy and envision you run the risk of having your project being looked upon as a rogue project it's out there in the distance it really doesn't fit with what we're doing so you really you run a risk of not having your project being funded because of that reason you need to tie your project into your company's organizational strategies and and vision benefits further expand upon the vision that your project will have that you paint the picture of that vision you're going into a bit more specific details on what are the things your project will deliver what new capabilities or what cost you're going to avoid by having the project deliverables in place so be very specific about the benefits and make sure they're things that are measurable the deliverable section further goes into another level of decomposition about what your project is going to deliver it talks about the artifacts which your project will deliver and how those will be delivered and in terms of what the users can expect a deliverable might be and as an example for a call center project you're delivering new computer telephony integration so that would be a deliverable from that project when that call center has that success criteria are very important to outline in that project proposal you need to be able to have smart success criteria which means it's specific measurable achievable realistic and time-bound these success criteria once they're met give the project owners the decision-makers and the stake hole a 100% confidence that your project has achieved success so it's important that you list out those criteria which everyone is looking at your project to deliver next is the next sections really talk about the how your project is going to achieve the deliverables and success criteria and benefits so in here is where your deadlines are listed where the project plan comes together and what the approach to delivery might be for your project are you going to use external vendors are you going to use internal staff are you going to use an agile approach to delivering that project or you're going to use a more traditional as waterfall sort of method to enable your project to deliver on its deliverables and lastly of course the cost and the budget here's where you pull it together and you show the funding plan for that project and how it's going to achieve its deadlines against those deliverables and for the dollar value now if you find in the first section that you're getting into quite a lot of detail that runs past let's say two pages I think it's really important to take the time and consolidate all the high points from these into an executive summary for that document okay put the high-level problem visions and benefits in that exec summary as I mentioned before decision-makers will take about five minutes looking at your proposal to make sure that it's something that they're going to fund or decide that no they're not going to fund it in this year so ensuring that those messages are concise is really critical and by putting these elements into executive summary if you find them going long is a really important way for you to quickly communicate those ideas and it's important to remember the flow of the document in the proposal you need it to flow like a fiction book okay you need to tell a story and paint a picture and leave no stone unturned for your decision-makers to ponder everything needs to flow from the start of the problem down to the custom and the costs and benefits in terms of your key themes of your project need to be need to be expounded upon or need to be mentioned at the start and then further drill down upon throughout the rest of your project proposal if you have items that you're introducing for example in your deliverables that don't fit in with solving the problems that you've identified up here or fit in with the benefits that you're going to realize your decision-makers will look at that and start it'll cause them to think a little bit more about your proposal in terms of does this proposal really in a tight way communicate the objectives that it's going to achieve through it for the organization so it needs to float all the items here need to sort of mesh with one another and not introducing any new topics or any new items as you go along in the project document now your project proposal is one key way for you to communicate your projects vision and you compete and benefits the organization but a project proposal in itself is not going to sell your project and get it funded and resourced only you can do that only your champions and your sponsor can do that so like I said in the start the proposal will help you sell your project and get it funded and resource but really you need to be out there actively lobbying for that project and getting it off the ground for more project management tips and tricks and to try out our software come join us at projectmanager.com