Having expressed the features, pros and cons of working on the project design with a participatory methodology, it is time now to look at the delegate approach which may characterise project managers’ working style.
Quite often this is the way consultants work when supporting companies in drafting the project proposal for submission. Or this is the way project managers, in an organisation, like to develop the idea which is a priority of their business of belonging since they have all the knowledge and information on what is needed. In this approach, both the organisation that will present the bid and the selected partners, who will represent the project consortium, are delegating to the project manager all the tasks and responsibilities in drafting the application form.
After having collected all the content elements a delegated project manager is in charge of drafting the concept note, finding the partners, collecting their documents and information, writing the proposal with its activities outline, structure the budget and the timeline. All, or almost of it, is done by one person who might be eventually supported by secretarial help.
What are the benefits of this working methodology? As mentioned, if one organisation feels to be fully in charge and competent over a project idea, it will refer to the project manager who will translate all what is provided in a successful application form. This helps if and when the shared idea has been worked out through time and has been supported by the research of data and the analysis of existing matters. The work is mainly, if not exclusively, concentrated on one person who has the conceptual and procedural control over all the project design phases. No time is needed for exchange, negotiation, and discussion with partners, no efforts have to be made for the harmonisation of different parts written by several hands. The proposal indeed will be using the same language, will be coherent and consequential in its activities, since only one expert person has put his/her hands on the application form. Overall, this might require less time consumption on behalf of the professional PM, better control over the detail aspects of the bid to be submitted. These significant aspects might be added to the fact that some project managers have a lesser ability to properly act in a participatory way, might not like the collaborative approach for several professionals and, we like to stress, personal reason.
Playing the devil’s advocate, we must also admit that the “proxy” methodology might run the risk of making mistakes (more eyes on the application form might detect incoherencies and errors), of forgetting the wholistic view over the addressed topic, of engaging partners in the preparatory phase of a proposal which, in general, is a wise propaedeutic move for a successful implementation of the financed project. In other words, if selected partners have just to send the PIF of their organisations so to take part in a project proposal this impoverishes the consortium’s commitment and its intellectual engagement.
Once more, there is no golden rule which can be applied, but only the assessment of all elements which play a role in project design along with the characteristics of the project manager. A wise and thoughtful appraisal of different factors will help you to consider if the proxy is the most effective way to design your bid. At the end of the day what you are looking for is that your project, no matter how constructed, will be approved.