Posted by Jon on 23 January, 2009 under APMP & accreditation | 
My recent ponderings about the APMP Foundation Level qualification also made me wonder about the folks who get the highest marks in the exams at the end of our courses – not, of course, that we can ever share anything other than a simple “pass” or “fail” with candidates (a source of some frustration, to us as much as to many of you).
I guess the profile of the perfect participant would encompass some non-proposal attributes (inherent intellect, short-term memory, academic ability, exam technique, skill at revision) as well as your proposal experience – where a track record of managing proposal teams (rather than writing them all yourself!) within a more formal, defined process on which you’ve been trained in the past will certainly help. And fluent English is a big advantage.
That’s not to say that if all of these don’t ring true for you, you won’t pass; the overwhelming majority of those who come through the doors into our classes do. You just won’t be one of those folks who accumulate enough marks in the first two columns on the exam sheet (comprising 50 questions) to have reached the pass mark of 42 before we even score your final column of answers!
Posted by Jon on 16 December, 2008 under APMP & accreditation |
Thanks to a couple of readers for their emails in response to my previous post. Both discussed the challenges that may prevent some of those who’ve passed the APMP Foundation Level exam from moving on to the next level, Practitioner.John Chennells works in Logica’s UK Proposal Centre. He attended a Practitioner workshop we ran at the recent UKAPMP annual conference, and wrote:
With impeccable timing, your latest posting appeared the other day just as I was completing the first draft of my Practitioner level submission. Everything you said about it in the workshop at Stansted is true – it has taken an incredibly long time to complete.
It’s particularly difficult to make sure you cover all the mandatory points, and make anything more than unsubstantiated statements, in just a couple of hundred words. And at times the answers required do seem to get very repetitive – I found I kept harking back to the same half-dozen examples. I suspect the rate of uptake would be rather greater if there were (say) twenty questions, but you could write perhaps 400 words on each. The answers might be a bit more interesting for the reader then, too.
Meanwhile, Sally Buttery (UK Bid Team Manager for Siemens Enterprise Communications) questions the ease of securing organisations’ sponsorship for Practitioner level. She recently passed Foundation Level on one of our courses, but:
Although I could find the time to progress to the next level(s) within APMP, I could not realistically justify the expenditure financially. In recessionary times, training is often the first to fall foul of ‘cost cutting’ and I could not envisage how a practitioner’s or professional accreditation from APMP could aid the company (my employer).
The dilemma APMP faces is that the foundation level is straightforward and achievable by most and many companies are willing to make this investment. However, many employers do want to spend more for the [Practitioner] accreditation which (is seen) to primarily benefit the individual’s objectives, and therefore, RoI is not evident.
That’s an interesting perspective. I’d think that Practitioner should actually be easier to justify internally. After all, Foundation Level tests one’s understanding of best practice, whereas Practitioner tests its application. I see Practitioner as a development process, whereby candidates assess which areas of best practice they currently apply, then fill in the gaps as they work on live deals, then sit the exam. So, done right, there should be a direct Return on Investment for their organisation.
There are some interesting lessons in all of this for APMP, I think. I’ll feed the comments into the Accreditation Steering Group next time it meets.
Posted by Jon on 10 December, 2008 under APMP & accreditation, Musings |
It struck me recently that I must have helped a rather large number of people pass their APMP Foundation Level exam since we were endorsed as an APMP Approved Training Organisation a couple of years ago. There are well over a hundred of you out there who’ve passed having attended one of my sessions, which is well over 10% of the total to have attained the qualification.
Now, we’ve never really seen the APMP accreditation scheme as a money-making operation; BJ and I participate in it because we’re passionate about its importance to the profession. If one calculated our investment in accreditation, and weighed that against our continuing efforts to offer training in this area as cost-effectively as possible, the balance sheet would horrify our bank managers. Indeed, we’ve even donated the proceeds of events in the past to the Association’s coffers; I’m willing to be corrected, but I think we were the first to do so.
But we love meeting the range of people who come into our classes – from different industry sectors, from organisations of wildly differing sizes, from clients old and new. And it occurs to me to wonder how these folks fare after the course. I’d welcome any comments on the following, either here or by email:
1. Has Foundation Level proved useful? Has it helped you learn new tricks, provided you with an injection of confidence, made you more credible with your colleagues, helped you gain a pay rise, strengthened your c.v., been useful in gaining a new job?
2. Not that high a proportion of those passing Foundation worldwide have yet moved on to reach Practitioner level. What inhibits them? Is it time, cost, fear of failure, the breadth of the syllabus, lack of the necessary three years’ experience?
Posted by Jon on 28 November, 2008 under APMP & accreditation |
Tan Parmar of design agency Redwood was another of the presenters at last month’s UKAPMP conference. I enjoyed his comments on designing magazine covers: the parallels to proposals are evident. “Covers are really important,” Tan explained. “A good cover should encapsulate the mood and tone of the magazine.”
His design checklist for a good magazine cover? Simplicity, clean typography, and visual impact. Not many of the proposal covers I see – often cluttered and uninspiring – would pass the test.
Tan also outlined one of the benefits of good design: “when you’re skimming through the magazine, you can access information really, really quickly.” Again, that’s so similar to our world, where evaluators need to be able to navigate our documents quickly and easily, whilst absorbing our key messages.
Posted by Jon on 24 November, 2008 under APMP & accreditation, Purchasing insights |
The recent UKAPMP conference was a triumph for the organisers: an excellent programme, extremely well-attended, in a high-quality venue. (My congratulations to Richard Jenkins, Frances Campbell and the rest of the organising team, as well as to Pat Thomas as UKAPMP CEO for overseeing the chapter’s success).
I particularly enjoyed the presentation by Jack Paine, Director of Procurement at the Department for Transport. He emphasised that whilst his team has an obligation to seek the most advantageous economic solution, “that does not mean that the cheapest price wins”.
He went on to explain that:
“We start with deliverability, then we look at price… It is no good me buying something on behalf of the taxpayer that is not fit for purpose.”
Great ammunition, this, for those working with sales colleagues who dismiss the importance of strategy and value, in favour of “it’s all about price.”
I also loved Jack’s anecdote of the worse line he’s seen opening an Executive Summary:
“Inn every aspect of our business, we seek ultimate quality.”
Yes. “Inn”.
Posted by Jon on 2 June, 2008 under APMP & accreditation, Word play & writing |
Wow – we had a wonderful response at last week’s APMP Conference to our Proposal Cartoon Caption contest. Nearly 200 entries came in, offering their captions to the following:
BJ and I battled valiantly to align our senses of humour and agree a shortlist of ten – here goes, in no particular order:
1. “How did we win that? We no-bid it!” – Romie Shield, OSIsoft
2. “The dog just ate our proposal!” – Ruth Turman, Blue Cross Blue Shield of SC
3. “So, who knows Urdu?” – Pat Thomas, Logica
4. “New hairdresser in town?” – Chris Rademeyer, Deloitte
5. “It was ‘Eastern’ time” – Diane Keane, L-3 Communications
6. “I stapled my hands together” – Tony Milani, Experian
7. “Oh no… they gave us an extension” – Paul Fleischman, Sybase
8. “The UPS proposal was shipped FedEx” – Esteban, Motorola
9. “Terrible news… we won!” – Ron Nagel
10. “There’s been a small change…” – Pamela Goodman, Ropes & Gray LLP
We’d love your comments as to which you think was the best, so that we can choose an overall winner.
(Huge thanks to our good friend Mike Parkinson of the 24 Hour Company, author of the wonderful book Billion Dollar Graphics, for drawing the cartoon for us!)
Posted by Jon on 10 December, 2007 under APMP & accreditation, Purchasing insights |
A few weeks ago, UKAPMP hosted a fascinating evening at which members had the chance to quiz two (very brave!) procurement experts.
On the team was our good friend Martin Webb, one of the leading lights of the purchasing profession in the UK. A couple of his comments particularly caught my attention.
First, Martin offered his definition of the role of the proposal as being:
“making it easier for the customer to make a ‘yes’ decision.”
Quizzed by the audience on management summaries, Martin confirmed the view that they ’set the tone’ for the evaluators reading the document:
“There’s a good chance that you’ll be facing a fundamentally lazy organisation. You need to lead them through to the things that differentiate you, and the management summary is a great way to do this.”
I always enjoy watching the faces of sales and proposal people when they hear procurement folks discussing their trade. Similarly, buyers find it quite eye-opening to listen to folks from a bid environment. So, when did you last have an open talk to someone from the opposite side of the negotiating table – away from a particular live deal, but to share your respective experiences and insights?
