While a great idea is a good start for a proposal, the project will go nowhere without a detailed plan to illustrate how the project will proceed.  When you ask yourself “HOW”, you need to describe step by step how you will achieve the objectives of your project; those specific aims that you developed when you asked yourself “WHAT” you were proposing.

Some proposals refer to this content as a “work plan”, “task plan”, or a “plan of action”.  The goal of creating your plan is to show that you understand what work needs to be done, in what order, to achieve your objectives.  A good way to organize this section is to create a set of hierarchical tasks:

Task 1

Task 2

            Task 2.1

            Task 2.2

            Task 2.3

This outline format allows you to convey the order of operations for your project and the inter-relation of the tasks within the project.  Each task and subtask can be assigned a start and completion date, and this information can be used to create a Gantt-style chart to show your project progression graphically.

Miss our previous newsletters?  Here are the past articles from this series on the questions of proposal development.

Planning Your Proposal

"WHAT" are You Proposing?

“WHY” are You Proposing This?