Foundation Level – the folks who sail through - The Proposal Guys Jon and BJ's proposal blog

Foundation Level – the folks who sail through

1/23/2009

Posted by Jon
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!

2 Comments

Ceri

3/26/2016 02:41:44 am

As a relative newbie to the bid world I was very keen to do my Foundation Level and progress my career. I am from the section of the bid world that have not worked in a bid team and a formal defined process (!!!) was but a dream. I was definitely in the writing it all yourself category.

I have to admit that I found it rather daunting at first (especially when I received the Shipley Proposal Guide) I was suddenly plunged into a world of terms and processes I had never heard of. (What is it with all those coloured hats???)
This lack of familiarity did not make me give up. (I’m a Bid Writer, aren’t we all a bit nuts when faced by a mammoth task???)

I asked around on the UKAPMP forum and was advised to do the day course and then sit my exam. For anyone considering doing your Foundation Level, this is the route I would recommend with all my heart.

I took this course before the UK Conference last year and not only passed but I was told that I had managed to get one of the highest marks. (and yes it would be really nice to know what that score was)

So the morale of the tale is……..newbies can do it too. All you have to do is prepare, listen and organise. In reflection I don’t think I was at any disadvantage. Some of those that attended the course with me and had a track record of managing a bid team had difficulties. They were constantly at odds with the way they had ‘always done it’ and the way the Shipley guide recommended. Whilst this led to great debate, I believe it hampered them when the exam came round.

Sometimes a fresh view and no preconceptions is exactly what is needed to get on (or pass the exam in this case)

Jon

3/26/2016 02:41:59 am

Good to hear from you, Ceri, and a really interesting comment. Thanks. A rather topical reply here – I’m writing this keeping half an eye on a great group I’ve been working with today, who are sitting next door doing their Foundation exam as I write!

I agree that the Proposal Guide is daunting. To make it easier, advice I offer to candidates reading it before our courses includes:

- Almost all of the exam questions that require you to look at the Proposal Guide are based on the opening section of a chapter – that is, the opening sentence (in bold) that defines a topic, and the yellow table a couple of inches below with a numbered list of key points. We suggest you focus on these areas when revising!

- Although the exam can pick almost any topic, our recommended “top ten” to focus on would be capture planning, kick-off meetings, theme statements, storyboarding, executive summaries, graphics, resumés, reviews, lessons learnt, and the BD-CMM.

That said, I strongly believe that the Guide should be replaced by a free-to-download, vendor-independent Foundation Level Study Guide, freely available from the APMP website, and I am pushing hard for this as a member of the Accreditation Steering Group.

I could be a little concerned about candidates being given hints that they’d got high marks – although congratulations on doing well! The APMP rules are absolutely clear that people can only be told whether they passed or not. I’d love to be able to share more details, congratulating those who do especially well – and providing advice on areas in which candidates might need to study more, based on questions they got wrong. So it’s a bit frustrating – when we are so careful to honour the due process – to hear of others failing to do so.

Your comment about passing the course as a relative newbie via a one-day course is also very pertinent. I fail to understand how some ATOs justify running two-day events for Foundation Level training (at least, for those for whom English is their native language). There’s no excuse whatsoever for taking people out of the office for more than a day to prepare for and sit this exam – or running unnecessarily long courses at more than double the cost of a well-run one-day event.

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BJ Lownie and Jon Williams are the co-founders of Strategic Proposals.

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