The path which leads to the submission of a project proposal is quite complex, made of several tasks all of which require care, attention, nevertheless quality. An experienced project manager might be able to take over all the requirements to reach a successful submission, however, it is not a matter to show yourself how capable you are in doing everything on your own. Usually, project proposals can be created in synergy with other project managers or absorbing, in a one-man show, all the duties as well as the responsibilities.
Let us focus on the participatory approach which implies the involvement of other professionals, in most of the cases project managers of partner organisations with whom we are presenting the bid. In selecting this methodology there are, as in all matters in life, pros, and cons.
The positive aspects are that several brains and expertise can address the project’s needs and therefore the solutions with an interdisciplinary vision, with a multidimensional professional team, with a view covering a wide range of issues and elements. Working with a larger team is stimulating, brings added value, nevertheless if the team is a transcultural aggregation of specialists. Having more than one project manager working on the proposal facilitates the sharing of tasks: a researcher can work on the rational of the project, the administrative personnel collects documents and information, area experts can write specific parts of the proposal, language passionate can refine the written form and make it agreeable to demanding evaluators. Not only the depth of the project contents but also the care for the details will be enhanced. Not only the burden of a complex procedure will be relieved, but also the complementarity of skills is given value. This just to mention the most valuable dimension of the synergic effort; we could also quote the possibility of work turnover, the absence/illness of one member is not going to disrupt the project submission, mistakes can be easily detected if more eyes look at text and coherence of the timeline, etc.
However, the participatory project design methodology comes also with some strings attached. The multifaced and diverse involvement of many professionals needs to be governed and coordinated respecting expertise but also addressing personalities and cultural differences. The wise project manager faces the hard task to valorise diversities but making sure that, at the end of the day (usually the deadline) everyone has delivered what was required. This is not enough. From experience we can say that having several hands writing the bid needs, after the finalisation of the first drafts, a knowledgeable hand that makes the text languages coherent and uniform, doublechecks financial numbers with activities to be implemented, as well as harmonises the entire document making it coherent and logic in its extension. Too many people can not work on this, only very few if not one. And if we had the impression that the collaboration of several experts could save us time, thus starting the project design much closer to the deadline than expected, we will realise that this collaborative method of writing a proposal needs much more time, since it requires meetings among co-workers, exchanges, and discussions, reflection, and revisions, often time consuming.
How do we know if this is the right and most successful approach? There are no golden rules, but facts related to the ability of the project manager to coordinate the process, the time available, the complexity of the project idea, the capacity of co-partners to collaborate in a working team. These might be some of the criteria to select the participatory working approach in submitting a concept note; are you one who likes to work this way, or do you prefer the blank proxy approach?