1.4 Developing an Outline As a proposal writer, you are often responsible for developing an outline either for specific proposal sections or the entire proposal. This outline is the basis for how you organize your proposal response. The outline establishes the table of contents, serves as a proposal management tool, and helps writers and other contributors see their task as it relates to the entire proposal. Developing a compliant outline is often difficult since many bid requests are confusing on the first reading. The difficulty increases with complex and poorly written bid requests, management pressures to start writing immediately, and individual temptation to just default to a prior proposal for your outline. Proposal writing is often a team effort with many contributors. Follow these six guidelines when creating your proposal or section outline: 1 Use a numbering system that aligns with the customer’s solicitation to make the proposal easy to score and evaluate. 2 Determine the heading, subheading, and structure for the outline. Use the topic or requirement headings to assign each requirement to an outline section; check for additional topics and requirements that may not be evident in the instructions. Make note of the bid section(s) in the outline to lead you or other writers or contributors to requirements. 5 Allocate page targets in the outline to help you or other contributors know how much space is available for each section. 6 Annotate the outline by adding any instructions or information (as needed) to guide you and others as you begin populating the outline with draft content. 3 4
Your proposal executive summary should be a concise summary of your solution and value proposition. It should be positioned at the beginning of the outline.
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