Team Writing Long-Form
Proposals
Terry A. Ring
Chemical Engineering
University of Utah
The Long-Form Proposal-1
• Technical Proposal Guidelines
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• 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (OR ABSTRACT)
• Provide a brief summary (l page or less) that gives an overview of the proposed
work.
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• 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS
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• 3 TECHNICAL BACKGROUND
• 3.1 Identification of the Problem
• Give background that identifies the problem and provides motivation for why such
an undertaking would be important or beneficial.
The Long-Form Proposal-2
• 3.2 Justification for Proposed Work
• Provide technical justification for the proposed work, and include any data obtained by
yourselves (or others if cited appropriately) that would support the feasibility of your
idea.
• This section is often the largest and can contain many subsections such as the following
(shown as examples only, the format of this section should be considered flexible):
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3.2.1 Theory
3.2.2 Previous Experimental Results
3.2.3 Theoretical Modeling of Experimental Results
3.2.4 Implications of Work Completed to Date
3.2.5 Identification of Critical Needs
Planning your experimental program
• Two types of experiments are useful in providing technical
justification for the proposed work.
• Experiments that prove the proposed work is justified
• Do some experiments that suggest that your proposed work will work
correctly. This is harder as the equipment is not set up to do this without
modification.
• Models or simulations that prove the proposed work is justified
and/or will work.
The Long-Form Proposal-3
• 4 TECHNICAL APPROACH
• 4.1 Objectives
• Identify the specific things you plan to accomplish with this project.
• 4.2 Statement of Work (also called Work Plan)
• 4.2.1 Project Tasks
• List the specific tasks that need to be performed in order to meet the
objectives listed above.
• They should be numbered Task 1, Task 2, etc., with sub-tasks (if any) numbered Task 1.1,
• Task 1.2, etc. Provide a brief description of each task and/or subtask.
The Long-Form Proposal-4
• 4.2.2 Project Schedule
• List schedule for completion of each task and overall project completion. A
chart may be used in this section to illustrate the schedule if desired.
• 4.2.3 Estimated Costs
• Determine costs associated with each task and for overall project completion.
Include estimates for all labor involved (including benefits - assume 33%), and
also any equipment or supply costs. An overall overhead charge (assume
49.5%) will be included on all labor and supply costs, as well as equipment
under $5000.
The Long-Form Proposal-5
• 5 CAPABILITIES
• 5.1 Project Team and Key Personnel
• Identify team management structure and list qualifications and relevant experience of key
team members.
• 5.2 Equipment and Facilities
• Identify suitability of the equipment to be used and/or purchased in carrying out this project.
Clearly indicate what equipment is an existing capability, and what needs to be constructed or
purchased to complete the project.
• 6 ANTICIPATED BENEFITS OF PROPOSED WORK
• Clearly identify in this section the anticipated benefits of undertaking the proposed
work.
• These can include economic, environmental, societal or any other benefits that could
have impact at any level (individual up through global impact) that would help justify
the time and expense of carrying out this project.
The Long-Form Proposal-6
• 7 ANTICIPATED ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF PROPOSED WORK
• Identify any potential adverse environmental impacts arising from the
completion of this work. Common items might be use of hazardous chemicals
that require subsequent disposal, or emissions of toxic substa nces due to the
operation of a process. If there are no adverse impacts, then a simple
statement of that fact will be sufficient for this section.
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• 8 NOMENCLATURE
• 9 REFERENCES
• 10 APPENDICES
Team Writing
• Organization
• Who is responsible for what.
• Each experimental section has a technical leader that is responsible for
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Experimental (and calibration) quality
Analysis of results
Write-up of results
• Each Proposal Section has a primary author
• Each Proposal Section has an editor (different from the author)
• Make sure that there is more than one person proofreading the entirety of the document.
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There will be style differences between authors that need to be smoothed out.
“Too many cooks spoil the stew”
Someone needs to be responsible for the quality of the overall product.
• Where is the Document to be placed for Editing so that all can get at it?
• Google Drive, Google Groups, Google Docs
• Version control
• Corrections, Who is the final editor?
• Team work
• Team Contracts
• TeamViewer.com, GoToMeeting.com, Instant Messaging
Examples of Proposals
• Long-Form sample_proposal.pdf
• Long-Form Example proposal.pdf
• With comments galore
Team Work
• How to make it work well for you.
• Break the work down evenly
• Use skills that your team members have to an advantage
• No one should be overloaded compared to the others in the team
• Golden Rule
• Do unto other as you want done unto you.
• Be Responsible
• Do what you said you would do – ON TIME!
• Or clearly communicate why it is not done and when it will be done so others can plan
appropriately.
• In some cases this may take some reorganization of the workloads of others.
• Teams need to be flexible!
Self Directed Teamwork
• Everyone shares leadership
• Everyone has a To Do list to work through
• Members set success guidelines
• Members own meetings & team processes
• Who is the scribe for each meeting.
• The scribe creates the master TO DO LIST
• Members are accountable to each other
• Give constructive feedback
• The importance of rewards, and recognition
Research study
• Study of administrators, engineers and scientists at
Goddard Space Flight Center
• Those who had more stake in decision making about
assigned tasks
• Experienced less: time, situational, encounter, and
anticipatory stress
• Others had higher stress
French & Caplan (1972) Organizational Stress and individual Strain.