How Can It Cost That Much? A Three-Year Study of Proposal Production Costs    

New business proposals to the U.S. Department of Defense vary so much in their production requirements that it has never been easy to estimate the cost to prepare them. Worse, new proposal managers lack the experience to anticipate the work required to prepare a winning proposal. In many companies, marketing and technical communication organizations find it exceptionally difficult to estimate and acquire the realistic budgets needed to win. For the past three years, we have closely examined significant proposal efforts and discovered the six pillars of our department's proposal preparation costs. We have also derived a formula that characterizes proposal preparation costs in our environment. Our Cost Projection Factor estimate can be calculated in a minute and has demonstrated accuracy within 5 percent. Our purpose in preparing this article is not to reveal our proprietary proposal costs, but to demonstrate that a quick, accurate cost model can be developed for proposal publishing.

Wiese, William C. and C. Mal Bowden. Technical Communication Online (1997). Resources>Grants>Proposals

Power Storyboarding (Winning Proposals Can Cost Less)  

Cooperative writing is a complex human dynamic process that must be well managed before it produces good proposal documents. Power storyboarding can help. It forces the proposal manager to take ownership and manage the writing process, gives writers the full context of their assignments before they write, preempts inconsistencies, and forces consensus. By preventing up to two weeks of non-productive effort, power storyboarding lets your team focus on real issues that can lead to winning proposals.

Wiese, William C. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Grants>Proposals