Writing a proposal for Web Project

If you are working as Project Manager or Consultant or Senior Experienced Developer, It is quite common that you will be asked to write a proposal for new project. It is always challenging to bring a proposal to develop a new project for a client‘s Web Site. When competing for web design and development or marketing contracts, a professionally presented development proposal most often decides whether you lose or win the business. In the past, I have written many proposals that were reviewed and approved by the client. We also delivered the product on the basis of Proposal Approved successfully. I just wanted to share my proposal writing experience with you by writing this post. When putting together a basic web site proposal, you should include the following elements:

Executive Summary:
Describe the Business Problem statement and Vision/Scope statement here.
This element can have sub elements as follows:

• Objective:
  Describe Business Problem statement and Project. Vision/Scope statement.

• Timeframes & Price
  Describe the tentative start and end date of the project. Also, a list out the factors on which schedule
  and cost of the project will depends. For example, if team does not get feedback or approval from client within specific time,
  schedule and cost of the project may be affected.
  Also, describe why do you think your project team will be execute this project and deliver it on schedule and within budget successfully.
  Write some positive points of the company over its competitors.

Company Profile:
Describe company background or company history, business qualifications, technical skills, past achievements and contact details.

Scope of the Project:

The business you are submitting the proposal for, your understanding of their products and services, the target market, the goals of the web site and a rough outline of how you will achieve them.

This should also includes requirements which are excluded from the project and assumptions for the project.

Proposed Solution:

A description of style of site you are proposing. Elements from the client’s current branding you will utilize or new elements you will develop.

• Special Considerations:

such as globalization, security, performance or other issues pertaining to the business, site or target market that will need to be addressed.

Current Architecture:
A details description of the architecture of the current system and its shortcoming.

Proposed Architecture:

A details description of the architecture that will be used for the project. Also, describe how it will solve current business problem. It should be explained clearly with the help of Flow Chart or Visio Diagrams.

• Web site flow chart:

A diagram showing the different pages of the site and navigational structure.

• Flowchart Description:

A detailed description of each web page, how it fits in with the overall web site theme and the project element it addresses.

Proposed technology:

A details description of the technologies that will be used for the project like .Net framework, Web Services etc.
Also, Describe how the proposed technology will be most suitable for the project.

Development Timeline:

This should be a description of each stage of the web projects’ development, the estimated completion date of deliverables/milestones and notes regarding client consultation and supply of information/feedback from the client. Point should be clear made that schedule and cost of the project will be affected if there would be change in the requirements or delay in feedback or approval from Client side.

• Delivery Schedule

This should show the delivery date and mode of the delivery for all the deliverables/milestones for the project.

• Gantt Chart

The Gantt Chart for the project is shown below:
This should show the Gantt chart prepared for the project.

Project Management:

• Project Management

This should be summary of project management activities that will performed by
Project team. Project Key members like Business Deliver Owner and Project manager will be appointed. Project team will develop the project. It should be mentioned here that once proposal is approved then team can process with detail design of the project.
Also, it should indicate that client should give feedback/approve on time, failing to do so may delay the schedule and cost of the project.

• Project Plan Management

Here you can give details of the Project Management tools will be used for Project Management like MS Project, MS Excel, Project Monitoring System etc.
PMS provides the following features:

Project Management tool if available should provide :

• Project Setup

• Capturing Actual Effort

• Bug Tracking

• Quality Data Analysis

• Project Metrics Reports

• Employee Training Plans

• Weekly Status Report

Describe how Weekly Status report will be prepared and sent to the client..

• Monthly Project Status Review

This should explain how Monthly Project Status Review will help to monitor the progress of the project. It should also explain how the strategic issues like customer satisfaction, staff training, change control, risk management and deviations from company procedures will be reviewed.

• Project Quality Management

This gives detail description of Quality Processes and control to be followed in all phases of the project.

• Quality Objective

The detail description of Quality object explained here. like

• Deliver a product that meets and exceeds expectations.

• No schedule slippage.

• No P0 bugs are found during the Acceptance testing phase

• Formal technical review

Describe the details description of technical reviews plan for the project, like Code Review, checking for adherence to standards and naming convention.

• Software Testing

Describe the detail description of Software Unit Testing planning and Test Cases creation.

• Standards

Explain the standards and processes teal will follow throughout the life cycle of the project.

• Enforcement of Standard

Explain how team will follow standards in the Project Life Cycle.

• Bug Classification

Explain how bug will be classified for the project like P0 for Critical, P1 for Non Critical etc.

• Project Communication Management

Here you can give detail description of the communication that will be used for interacting with the client for his feedback and approval.

• Email

Here can you write details like email will be primary mode of communication and will be used for sending project documents to clients for his approval.

• Telephonic Conference

Here you can explain how telecon will be used to keep the project on track and in good health.

• Project Risk Management

This will have detail description of Project Risk Identification, and assessment and their mitigation plan.

• Project Related Risk

This should explain risks associated with the project like increasing or changing requirement from users, delay in client ‘s feedback/approval.

• Project Life Cycle

This should give detail description of the project life cycle model that will be used for the project with diagram. eg. Waterfall, agile, spiral, incremental etc

• Project Organizational Roles and Responsibilities

This should explain the roles and responsibilities of project team of clients and your organization.

• Team Structure

This should show the team structure of the project team in hierarchical fashion and also shows it will interact with client ‘s project team. Also, it should depict who reports whom.

• Project Configuration Management

This should explain the scope of the configuration activities for the project. This should explain how controlled items will stored and versioned.

• Configuration Items

You can give the list of all the items which have been identified as configuration items for the project like Functional specification, Detail Design, Source Code etc.

• Change Control Procedure

This will explain how team will handle change request for the project.
Template is given in the appendix.

• Reporting Procedures

This will explain the reporting procedure for the project. Like who will report whom and how the matter to be escalated in case of some conflict and problem.

Documentation :
Here you can give a list of documents will be prepared and delivered to the client for the project. Like function specification, detail design, user manual etc.

Project Costing:

A descriptive breakdown of costing phase wise or deliverable wise and total of quote including an end date before the price will need to be re-calculated.
No clients prefer to pay for project in advance or in full. So, describe that how much payment will be due after each phase or deliverable.

Ensure you take into account business related items including travel time, electricity, telephone and consumables.

Bear in mind that things rarely go strictly to plan in web design and delays can be expected.
Also, cost of the project dependent upon the complexity of the task and the competency of the designer.
In your eagerness to gain the contract, you may lose money if you quote too close to the bone. Time is money.

Acceptance:
This should give detailed description of the Acceptance guidelines and rules for the project.

• Acceptance Criteria

Describe the Acceptance criteria for the product to be delivered.

• Performance Guarantee

This should explain how the project team ensure that product have no performance issue.
Also, it will handle post production product related performance related issues.

• Acceptance Performance

Describe who will develop Acceptance test plan, also describe that it would be client ‘s responsibility to acknowledge, review and approve the delivery as complete and acceptable within 2 weeks of final delivery being made.
If rejected, team will rework the software to requirement.

Warranty Support:

Describe how long team will support the product after final release. Usually it is 30 after acceptance or deemed acceptance of the product. General Terms and conditions:

• Expectations and commitments

It is not unusual for web projects to be delayed due to clients not supplying feedback or content necessary to complete sections. It is just as important to be clear in what you expect from your clients as well as explaining your commitment to them. Conflict resolution issues and feedback mechanisms should be described.

Your clients will need to know what will occur if they do not supply information when requested, or request changes mid-stream and the action that you will take if you are running behind in the project yourself. You need to be clear on payment details and consequences of failure to pay for the services that you provide.

• Mock-ups (samples).

Be careful not to give too much away, just enough to give the client a good idea of what the site will look like. Ensure copyright notices and intellectual property statements are in place.

• Ongoing web site maintenance.

Summarize an offer of ongoing site maintenance or the implications of the client deciding to update or maintain the site themselves after it has been established.

Proposal Validity:

This should explain until when this proposal will be valid.

Disclosure:
You should make it clear that entire project will be performed by your company, if external resource is expected to become part of the team then it may be necessary to revisit costing based on effort redistribution.

Above points are usually sufficient to put together a professional web design proposal for a small to medium web based project. It had worked for us for many projects.
Be prepared to give presentation on the proposal to the client. Most of the clients prefer to have presentation on the proposal to ensure that they are reading from the same page. Also, first you need to release draft version of Proposal document and send it to Sponsor/Stakeholder so that if they want any changes, you can easily negotiate with them before releasing final version of the proposal. You should also ensure that Proposal should address all the concerns/issues client had laid down.
Also, many client like to negotiate with cost and schedule, so be prepared to do some heavy revisions to satisfy your client and find the middle ground where all parties feel comfortable.
Some clients wants Proposal documentation in certain format, respect that as well.

Also remember that some companies will ask you for proposals purely to use as a comparison against another designer that they are interested in utilizing; so try and limit the amount of time you spend on the draft until the client gives indication of serious interest.

Appendix A : Change Request Form
Customer Name :
Contact Name :
Project Id :
Project Manager/Leader(offshore) :
Project Name :
TO BE FILLED IN BY CLIENT :
Priority :
(Urgent, High, Medium, Low)
Initiated By :
Change Required :
Reasons :
Effort and Impact :.
Affected Modules & Documents :
Costing :
Decision : Approved / Not Approved : By : Date :

TO BE FILLED IN BY OWNER:
Request No :
Date Received By Offshore :
Effort and Impact :
Affected Modules & Documents :
Costing :