Anything That Is General Is Not Helpful

Sitting on the M/W/F morning proposal management call, with 30 or so participants, there was a comment made by one of the prime contractor proposal manager...

Anything that is general is not that useful

This triggered several thoughts:

1. When there is a generalized suggestion regarding project management with no actionable outcome - it's just that a generalized suggestion.
2. When there is a generalized suggestion to replace one process with another - it's just that a generalized suggestion.

The business of writing proposals - especially for US Defense Department customers starts with a structured method.

1. Each statement must have an unassailable beneficial outcome to the buyer
2. Each description of an activity should provide:

● Statement of the action
● Outcome from that action
● Benefit from the outcome of the action

If the conversations around project management, agile development, and many of the other topic of PM were to follow this paradigm, we'd get a lot more actionable information coming our way.