The Tale of the Overbooked Proposal Manager
- Admin
- Sep 11
- 5 min read
Three bids. One manager. Zero hours of sleep. A true story of caffeine, chaos, and a plan that almost didn’t exist.
Monday, 6:32 a.m.
Alex was already at her desk, still wearing last night’s hoodie and reheating yesterday’s coffee.
Her cat, Espresso, sat on the keyboard—again—while Outlook notifications pinged like microwave popcorn.
She had a bad feeling about this week.
Three RFPs. All due within five days. One federal. One SLED. One commercial. Each with its own quirks, scope changes, and wildly optimistic promises from Sam.
But she could handle it. Right?
After all, she was Alex — proposal whisperer, calendar color-coder, deadline ninja. This wasn’t her first triple-bid week.
Still… her eye twitched when she opened her calendar and saw what she’d done.
Color Review – StormCloud: Tuesday, 2:00 p.m. Color Review – Evergreen: Tuesday, 2:00 p.m.
She blinked. Refreshed. Swore.
“Crap. I double-booked myself,” she muttered, staring at her screens like they’d personally betrayed her.
And then Espresso hit the backspace key and deleted the StormCloud task list.
Monday, 9:00 a.m. – The “Quick Sync”
The team dropped into the weekly sync call one by one.
Jordan’s camera came on sideways. Priya was already sipping Red Bull. Taylor had changed her
Teams name to “🚨Proposal Warrior Princess🚨” again.
Alex: “Okay, team. We’ve got three live bids — Evergreen, StormCloud, and Quasar. Let’s align tasks and review schedules.”
Jordan: “Wait, we’re working on Quasar too now?”
Sam (off-screen): “Yeah, yeah. Just landed it. Should be low-effort lift.”
Alex glared at the chat. “Low effort” was Sam-speak for “high drama.” He said it about every opportunity, usually right before disappearing to “talk to the client.”
Priya: “Quasar’s SOW is a mess. The requirements contradict themselves.”
Maya (joining late): “Please tell me nothing changed with pricing.”
Taylor: “🚨🚨NEW TEAMS CHANNEL CREATED: #QuasarMission🚨🚨”
Alex's neck tensed.
Tuesday, 1:53 p.m.
Two calendar invites.
Two Teams rooms open.
Two sets of reviewers waiting.
One very panicked proposal manager.
Alex was toggling between windows like a DJ with a broken crossfader. In Room A, Chris was already asking about “synergy” and referencing 1998. In Room B, Priya was mid-rant about acronyms and character limits.
Chris: “Where’s the executive summary? This sounds like a pamphlet.”
Priya: “They reduced the page count again. I’m cutting paragraphs like it’s surgery.”
Jordan: “I thought this was the Evergreen call???”
It wasn’t.
It was storming, but not on Quasar.
Alex muted both Teams rooms. Her hands hovered over the keyboard.
“I can’t do this,” she said out loud. Not dramatically — just honestly. “Not like this.”
Tuesday, 2:27 p.m. – The Breakdown (and Breakthrough)
She left both meetings. Turned her camera off. Closed her eyes.
And then she opened her trusty Proposal Management Plan Word doc. One labeled:
Proposal Management Plan – Emergency Edition.docx
Because the truth was, she hadn’t made one. Not this time. Not with three bids stacking up. She’d told herself she didn’t have time for a management plan.
Now? She didn’t have time not to.
Tuesday, 3:12 p.m. – Alex Builds the Plan
She pulled up her PMP template — the big one she usually reserved for federal bids — and started hacking it down into a mini version for each active proposal.
One for Evergreen. One for StormCloud. One for Quasar.
And suddenly, it all clicked into place.
Part 1: Snapshot of Each Opportunity
Deadlines. Submission formats. Page limits. Evaluators. Got it. All in one place. “How did I not do this last week?” she muttered.
Part 5: Team Responsibilities
No more vague ownership. She assigned names to every section, every review. Jordan wasn’t writing “the draft.” He was writing Section B.1 – 800 words. Due Thursday. Taylor would own all submission packaging. No more “Where’s the checklist?”
Part 8: Win Themes
Sam had dropped strategy bullets into chat three days ago. Alex built them into win themes herself. She wrote: “Our approach reduces risk by 40% while improving deployment speed — without added cost.” Not bad. Sam could slap his name on it later.
Part 10: Outline & Assignments
She mapped the entire outline to the RFP requirements. Page-by-page. And added compliance flags: Y, N, or “P” for Partial. Riley would love that.
Part 11: Final Steps Checklist
Formatting reviews Final edits Acronym pass Page breaks Signature blocks
Taylor would turn this into a color-coded nightmare in Teams — and that was okay. At least they'd have it.
By 6:22 p.m., Alex was back in control.
Three mini plans. Three SharePoint folders renamed (with dates and version numbers). Review invites staggered.
And the best part? Jordan’s draft was actually in the correct folder this time.
Wednesday Morning – A New Vibe
Jordan: “Hey, I saw the PMP. Super helpful.”
Priya: “Thanks for mapping the tech section to the evaluation criteria. Saved me a headache.”
Taylor: “🚨NEW STATUS BOARD IS LIVE AND COLOR-CODED🚨”
Chris: “This is looking tight. Back in ’98, we had to do this in Excel. You kids are lucky.”
Alex smiled. Almost. Then muted herself to yawn.
They weren’t done yet — but this time, they were ready.
The Moral of the Tale
Alex didn’t burn out. The team didn’t break down. And all three proposals? Submitted on time. Compliant. Actually pretty good.
All because Alex hit pause and did the thing we all skip when we’re slammed:
She built a Proposal Management Plan.
What’s a Proposal Management Plan, Anyway?
For the uninitiated, it’s not just a form. It’s the playbook for surviving proposal madness.
It covers:
Solicitation details and key dates
Win themes linked to evaluation criteria
Section breakdowns, assignments, and deadlines
Submission requirements
Final review checklists
Who owns what, so no one’s guessing
And yes — it can (and should) be adapted for small bids, not just federal monsters.
Alex used a stripped-down version of her company’s template — the same one we’re now giving away.
Want to Grab Alex’s Actual Plan?
You can. For free.
Download the 2025 Proposal Management Plan Template. It’s the exact framework that saved Alex’s week — and it’ll save yours too.
Next Week: The Mystery of the Disappearing SME
Sam swears his favorite SME is “locked in.” But by mid-draft, the SME has vanished like your formatting during a SharePoint sync. Can Priya and Jordan write their way out of a technical black hole?
Stay tuned for ghosting, jargon battles, and a whole lot of Red Bull.
Final Word
Some people say proposal work is just about documents.
Those people have never watched a deadline collapse under its own weight because no one knew who was writing Section L.
Alex learned the hard way: plans prevent panic. And now, so will you.
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