Project bids are involve formal and informal criterion. These are qualitative, quantitative, and social. The latter are often informal. They can directly jeopardize a qualified project bid from being selected. Even more concerning is that they can undermine a project. The result is that it doesn’t receive the support it needs to perform effectively throughout its lifecycle.
Becoming a project manager requires understanding the context and industry. Project management is defined by the products and services delivered. It also depends on the industry for the role and the company culture.
PROJECT BIDS – PITFALLS to CONSIDER
Role Typologies: Some companies prefer temporary or contract roles to hiring for permanent positions when a permanent role is a better fit for future state sustainability
Stability: Temporary and contract roles have fewer protections than permanent roles
Support: Temporary and contract roles often vary in support that would be available to permanent roles
Constraints: Companies and recruitment agencies often propose that term and contract roles are preferred due to budgetary constraints
Reasoning: The mention of these budgetary constraints exist for long term, short, and very short roles
Metrics: Short term engagements are evaluated similarly to long term engagements
Risks: Shorter engagements often lack enough time to gain traction in order to be considered a successful velocity prior to the end date of the engagement, at which point extensions are considered
Standards: Project approach and fit-for-purpose are evaluated based on company culture, maturity, and readiness
Rigor: Company’s often recruit for a project manager without realizing that this involves a robust methodology
Recruitment: Company’s often need an administrator or coordinator and not a project manager, without the tools and rigor of a PMBOK methodoloy
Resources:
Qualifications: Project managers are at risk of being hired but finding themselves completely overqualified, at no fault of their own. This can upset homeostatic cultural mechanisms in the new environment
Alignment: Companies without complex projects but low organizational maturity can experience misalignment being readiness, the role they recruited, and tools/data available
Evaluation: Companies with low organizational maturity can often struggle with building the governance and quality management systems needed to manage variable project performance
RFP’s: Company request for proposals can often include rating matrix’s that exclude qualified candidates and resources. The hire can be a poor culture fit, or the company may decline to hire the highest scoring candidate(s) and repost several times again
Certifications: RFP’s will often weight certifications heavily despite company culture, project governance, and internal resources/ supports being key drivers of performance
Performance: All RFP’s and job descriptions emphasize relationships and project performance. It is worth noting that many portfolio environments will change priorities and resource allocations that directly impact performance metrics
Length: Timeline can be overtly ambitious or not mentioned at all. Hours may also be quite restrictive/ limited despite a longer timeline
Tools:
Project bids need to take into consideration the political and cultural context. Not all projects are worth bidding on. Public sector contracts are less likely to take into consideration private sector, and vice versa. Similarly, project manager roles are often defined differently depending on the industry. Company maturity and experience with a formal project management methodology impacts team performance. It can also limit team, tool, data, and process alignment during the delivery of the project.
The hiring or RFP selection committee may be overwhelmed. The company may lack the resources and tools needed to quickly onboard a new project management resource. At Innovate Vancouver we often evaluate projects against the following criterion when deciding to support a project bid:
EVALUATING the RFP and SCOPE of WORK before BIDDING
Maturity: Ability to evaluate, delivery, and sustain project best practices
Bid Matrix: Alignment with project, environment, and user requirements
Project Stage: Alignment with RFP Scope, Approach, Resources, and Role requirements
Project Length: Supports ongoing momentum, leverages existing resources, and incrementally owns knowledge acquired throughout the project lifecycle
Governance: Roles assigned to the governance committee own decisions and can influence adoption-delivery of the project’s products and services
Experience: Ability to implement PMBOK best practices (portfolio, program, project) and approaches (waterfall, agile, scrum) based on project type
Tools: Availability of appropriate tooling and dashboards that are fit for purpose
Resources: Roles, resources, and knowledge necessary to own and drive the project internally
Project Scope: Accounts for company maturity, readiness, existing resources, enterprise architecture, and change requirements
PREPARING & PRESENTING PROJECT BIDS – INPUTS
Complex and low ranking maturity company cultures can still represent a significant opportunity to deliver transformative and innovative projects. Scope and approach for a project is evaluated based on the above criterion. RFP and project bids presentations can adopt an assessment approach. This approach promotes best practices. It also supports appreciative inquiry into what the company is ready and capable of supporting. The following list includes just a few suggested assessments:
Maturity Assessment: Evaluate the company’s portfolio, program, and project maturity. Incorporate strategies to strengthen these competencies during the project
Innovation Stack Assessment: Evaluate the company’s infrastructure, enterprise architecture, culture, people, and training against the future state vision of the project products & services identified within scope
Situational Leadership Assessment: Evaluate the people, training, and governance structure for the necessarily knowledge and competencies for managing the project and deliverables during the project and after delivery
Transformation Readiness Assessment: In addition to the other three assessments mentioned in this section, evaluate the company’s capacity and support for transformative changes across the enterprise
