Page 38 - Writing Winning Business Proposals

Aligning the Baseline Logic 29

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FIGURE 3.2 T h e o v erri d ing question, engagement o b jec tiv e , an d d esir e d r esu l t c ontain t h e
FIGURE 3.2 The overriding question, engagement objective, and desired result contain the
same content, diff erently phrased.
same content, diff erently phrased.
I can’t tell you how important it is to get the overriding question right. Several years
ago, I was playing the role of coach for a team of consultants submitting a proposal to
my organization. Before we identified the single overriding question, we listed 24 pos-
sible versions, given that I, my colleagues, and the consulting team all had different
agendas and conceptions of the overriding problem. Figure 3.3 should give you a good
idea of what might happen if the overriding question is wrong. If it is, then the objective
will be wrong. If the objective isn’t correct, as we’ll see in Chapter 5, the methodology
will be wrong. See if you can answer correctly the question in Figure 3.3.

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