By reading the request for proposals and talking with your point of contact, develop a list of your readers objectives and then merge it with yours to create one set of objectives for the project. Use their words as much as possible. These will be the goals that your project will be designed to achieve.
How are you going to achieve these objectives?
1. Identify and 2. map out a possible solution. You may do this with several solutions but begin with the most promising. Identify 2-5 main steps needed to make this solution work. Connect minor steps necessary to make the main steps a reality.
Limit your plan to 5 or fewer major steps, if you have more, consolidate or develop larger phases.
You should always have an outcomes assessment or evaluation phase. This should be your way of measuring whether the project was a success and is usually the last step in the plan.
3. Review your top rank and secondary objectives. Does your mapped solution meet those objectives? If not, look for another solution and begin again.
To organize the project plan section list the major steps in the order they will be followed. As you fill in the minor steps you should begin to see the outline of the project plan. Then set up a why table and answer why each step is necessary and why is it done in this way.
Deliverables are the tangible results of each major step and you should identify one for each.
Writing the project plan -
This should begin with an opening designed to set a framework for the information leading the readers from your description of the situation to your description of the plan. This section needs to be as optimistic as possible concentrating on the advantages and benefits of solving the problem a particular way.
- Transition signals your reader that you are starting your discussion of the plan.
- A statement of purpose of the section tells the reader that you will provide a detailed step by step plan.
- Statement of the Plan's Objectives lists the objectives that any successful plan would be able to meet.
- Naming of the overall solution in a sentence or phrase, identifies your overall strategy.
- Forecast of the Plan briefly lists the major steps.
The body of the project plan section describes the plan and tells the readers why the problem should be solved in this way. State the major action up front and support it with a discussion of the minor steps needed to achieve it. Flesh it out by answering the why questions that the readers will be asking at this point. End the discussion with your deliverable.
Closing the project plan section should not offer any new information but summarize the major points and stress the importance of the plan as well as summarize the deliverables. The closing puts an endpoint on the description of the plan and prepares the reader to make the transition to the qualifications section.
Develop a project plan time line. Give each major step a completion date. Begin by giving the project a completion date and work backwards.
Research Methodologies -
A methodology section in a research proposal describes how and why a subject will be studied in a particular way. It should tell the reader why your approach is the most appropriate. If you are using a methodology adapted from other studies, describe and cite it. When inventing a new methodology, justify your decision to blaze a new path.
