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Give them a choice

6/27/2013

3 Comments

 
Posted by BJ
As is so often the case, a recent Dilbert comic (June 19, 2013), presents a situation in which many proposal support folks find themselves.

In the first panel of the strip our good buddy and ambassador for common sense explains to his boss, “You’ve given me so many projects that I have two ways to fail.”

In the second panel he further explains, “I can either miss all of my deadlines or I can reduce the quality of my work to rubbish.” He then asks, quite logically in my opinion, “Which do you prefer.”

His boss, as ever completely oblivious to what has been said, replies, “The class I took in non-listening is really paying off.” He then hands Dilbert another assignment with a casual, “I need this by Tuesday.”
​No doubt many of our readers will relate to this situation. It is a situation Jon and I often encounter when we conduct assessments for clients. We very often find situations where there are too many opportunities being pursued (usually due to poor qualification) and/or insufficient staff (due to poor or no capacity planning having been done) to produce quality proposals.

A key learning to this strip is that Dilbert, rather than saying something along the lines of “I can’t or won’t do this”, gives his manager a choice. In this case it’s a choice between two bad options but it is still a choice and it is put back on the manager.

​We suggest to our client that they to give their management a choice: That choice being between consistent high-quality and unlimited output. We then provide support to help our clients define demand and capacity and to develop associated appropriate staffing.
3 Comments
Ruth Turman
3/25/2016 03:03:45 pm

I SWEAR Scott Adams (not to mention The Proposal Guys) has been a co-worker of mine for years. I’m literally living through a prime example of this right this very minute. In our case the response has been to throw more resources at the “problems” and to put those resources all in the same room together for a two weeks.

Donations of earplugs and aspirin would be greatly appreciated!

Reply
Pat
3/25/2016 03:03:55 pm

I remember being put into this kind of situation very early on in my career, unfortunately for my boss at the time he ended up wearing my cup of coffee…..I swear it was an accident

Reply
John E. Bredehoft
3/25/2016 03:04:07 pm

There is a third choice, of course. Since the “three-legged stool” illustration accounts for time, quality, and cost, the third choice of Dilbert’s boss would be to increase costs. Either he could hire a consultant to help the company get the job done – or, as Ruth Turman stated, grab other bodies from anywhere and throw them at the problem.

Knowing the Dilbert universe, Dilbert’s boss would probably choose the worst possible consultant – instead of “The Proposal Guys,” he’d probably hire “Guys Who Proposed on the Bachelor.” (As everyone knows, The Bachelor proposal win rate is EXTREMELY low.)

Or perhaps Dilbert’s boss would literally “throw bodies” at the problem – with a catapult.

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

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