Page 313 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

304 Notes and Citations

discusses these two different kinds of documents and gives you some pointers on
writing reports.
2. From here on, I will use small caps to designate generic structure slots. That is, I’ll refer
to the methods slot either by calling it that or by writing it in small caps: methods.
I’ll refer to the methods section either by calling it that or by writing “Methods.”

Chapter 3

1. As indicated on the Logics Worksheet, Implementation Projects do not have an
overriding question.
2. I recognize that in many of your past projects, you have used more than one, two,
or three objectives. Logically, however, as we have seen in Chapter 2, you can have
at most three objectives. If you have more than one objective for each desired result,
the other so-called objectives are likely deliverables or benefits. If you receive an RFP
that specifies a whole host of objectives, you might very well use all those objectives in
the final draft of your proposal. However, to make certain that you provide a logical
foundation for your proposal and project, as well as a sound methodology, be certain
that, in your thinking and in your prior drafts, you use the process described in this
book.
3. You might be interested in reading “Deliverables and Benefits” at http://web
.me.com/rfreed/Writing_Winning_Business_Proposals/Home.html.

Chapter 5
1. I should have written the word objective(s), since depending on whether your project
takes me one step along the continuum or more than one step, your project will
achieve one objective or more than one. But I’m getting tired of writing the word that
way, and you’re probably getting tired of reading it. So from here on, I’ll occasionally
use the plural objectives even when I might also be referring to the singular. What this
loses in precision it gains in lack of distraction.
2. The Pyramid Principle is a system for logical thinking and writing developed by
Barbara Minto when she was at McKinsey. Minto’s methods have been taught
to major consulting firms and other businesses around the world. For a fuller
explanation of pyramid logic, see Barbara Minto, The Minto Pyramid Principle:
Logic in Writing, Thinking, and Problem Solving, Minto International (1996). Minto
is primarily a logician, believing that logic alone is sufficient for persuading readers.
As demonstrated throughout the psychologics part of this book, you need to be more
like a rhetorician, for whom logic is, of course, necessary but certainly not sufficient.
Logic and rhetoric as well as grammar were “the three ancient arts of discourse,” the