Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme, Sixth Edition

Writing an Effective Project Proposal

The deliverable from all the planning activities in the JPPS is the project proposal. It is the document you will forward to the senior management team for approval to do the project. In most cases, this will be the same team that approved the project for planning based on the POS. The project proposal states the complete business case for the project. This includes the expected business value, as well as cost and time estimates. In addition to this information, the proposal details what is to be done, who is going to do it, when it is going to be done, and how it is going to be done. It is the road map for the project.

Expect feedback and several revisions before approval is granted. It is not the purpose of this section to spell out in detail what a project proposal should look like. The organization will have a prescribed format to follow. This section merely outlines the contents you will be expected to submit.

Contents of the Project Proposal

Each organization will have a prescribed format for its project proposal, but most proposals have sections similar to the ones listed in the sections that follow. The project proposal is a restatement of all the planning work that has been done so far.

Executive Summary

This section may not exceed one page and in most cases should be about a half page. Think of the two-minute elevator speech (if ...