proposal-writing

name	proposal-writing
description	Use this skill whenever the user asks to write, draft, review, or generate any part of a consulting proposal, Expression of Interest, bid document, or tender response. Routes to the correct sub-skill based on the required section or document type.

Proposal Writing - Parent Skill

Acknowledgement: Shared by Peter Bamuhigire, techguypeter.com, [phone].

This parent skill covers the full range of consulting proposal documents. All active proposal skills live under the repository skills/ directory. Paths below are repository-root-relative so agents and project documentation refer to the same layout.

Use When

• Use this skill when the user needs to draft, review, or assemble any consulting proposal, bid, or Expression of Interest.
• Load it when you need routing guidance to the correct numbered section skill or supporting skill.

Do Not Use When

• The task is only about blog writing or skill maintenance.
• The work is unrelated to proposals, tenders, or bid responses.

Required Inputs

• The ToR, RFP, advert, or proposal brief.
• The proposer identity and any known procurement or sector context.
• Any mandatory templates, deadlines, or submission constraints.

Workflow

1. Identify the requested document or proposal section.
2. Load skills/profiles/SKILL.md before drafting proposal text so voice and identity are consistent.
3. Load the relevant numbered section skill, then add procurement, sector, and supporting domain skills only where they materially improve the output.
4. Load skills/website-design-proposal-strategy/SKILL.md whenever the proposal includes website design, redesign, SEO, web content, ecommerce, portal, landing page, web frontend, hosting, maintenance, or website costing.
5. Load premium, discovery, service-design, storytelling, support, and pricing skills where the buyer context, value defence, implementation credibility, or post-launch operation requires them.
6. Load skills/premium-commercial-writing/SKILL.md when the proposal, cover letter, executive summary, case study, business document, or public-facing content needs premium commercial polish, evaluator-friendly structure, stronger proof, or search-aware writing.
7. Load skills/critical-analysis-business-logic/SKILL.md before drafting high-stakes, methodology, work plan, financial, transformation, or final-review content.
8. Draft the requested content and keep proposal-wide themes, evidence, terminology, methodology, work plan, and pricing aligned.
9. Verify compliance, logic, feasibility, section order, and separation between technical and financial content before finalizing.

Quality Standards

• Treat each SKILL.md as the portable unit and load it from the skills/ folder.
• Maintain British English, East African professional tone, and proposer-specific voice.
• Keep the proposal client-specific, evaluator-aware, and measurable where evidence exists.

Anti-Patterns

• Do not draft proposal text before selecting the proposer profile.
• Do not generate a full proposal from memory without reading the relevant section skill.
• Do not merge technical and financial content when the procurement process separates them.

Outputs

• The requested proposal section, routing decision, or proposal component.

Core Routing References

• skills/profiles/SKILL.md for proposer selection.
• skills/sectors/SKILL.md for procurement and sector routing.
• skills/references/ for persuasion, delivery, and proposal patterns.

Sub-Skills - Proposal Sections

#	Task	Sub-Skill to Read
01	Cover letter	skills/01-cover-letter/SKILL.md
02	Executive summary	skills/02-executive-summary/SKILL.md
03	Understanding of the assignment	skills/03-understanding-of-assignment/SKILL.md
04	Firm or consultant profile	skills/04-firm-profile/SKILL.md
05	Relevant experience and past projects	skills/05-relevant-experience/SKILL.md
06	Approach and methodology	skills/06-methodology/SKILL.md
07	Team composition and CVs	skills/07-team-composition/SKILL.md
08	Work plan and timeline	skills/08-work-plan/SKILL.md
09	Expression of Interest	skills/09-expression-of-interest/SKILL.md
10	Financial proposal	skills/10-financial-proposal/SKILL.md

Supporting Skills - Cross-Cutting Knowledge

Read the relevant supporting skill when the proposal requires that domain. Each can also generate a standalone section if the ToR explicitly requires it.

Supporting Skill	When to Read
skills/project-management/SKILL.md	PM frameworks, governance, reporting, steering committees
skills/change-management/SKILL.md	OCM frameworks, adoption strategies, resistance management
skills/monitoring-and-evaluation/SKILL.md	Log frames, results frameworks, KPIs, theory of change
skills/stakeholder-engagement/SKILL.md	Stakeholder mapping, consultation approaches, communication plans
skills/capacity-building/SKILL.md	Training models, ToT, knowledge transfer, skills sustainability
skills/gender-and-social-inclusion/SKILL.md	GESI frameworks, gender mainstreaming, disability and youth inclusion
skills/environmental-and-social-safeguards/SKILL.md	ESIA, environmental management plans, World Bank ESF, AfDB ISS
skills/data-management/SKILL.md	Data collection, MIS design, data governance, data protection law
skills/website-design-proposal-strategy/SKILL.md	Website philosophy, UX/content/SEO methodology, stack explanation, costing, QA, launch, handover, and support
skills/ai-transformation-proposal/SKILL.md	AI applications, automation, agents, analytics, governance, evaluation, operations, and maintenance proposals
skills/premium-client-proposal-strategy/SKILL.md	Executive, enterprise, affluent, high-ticket, premium, and strategic transformation proposal positioning
skills/premium-pricing-and-value-defense/SKILL.md	Premium fee justification, value stack, commercial options, and price defence
skills/premium-commercial-writing/SKILL.md	Premium commercial writing quality for proposals, cover letters, executive summaries, case studies, business documents, and public content
skills/sales-discovery-and-objection-handling/SKILL.md	Discovery questions, qualification, buyer concerns, objection handling, and follow-up logic
skills/service-design-proposal-strategy/SKILL.md	Journey mapping, service blueprints, co-creation, service implementation, and experience redesign
skills/proposal-storytelling-and-evaluator-journey/SKILL.md	Narrative spine, evaluator journey, case stories, design rationale, and presentation logic
skills/customer-service-and-maintenance-proposals/SKILL.md	Support, maintenance, SLAs, escalation, incident response, customer success, and post-launch optimisation
skills/sustainability-planning/SKILL.md	Exit strategies, institutional embedding, ownership transfer
skills/risk-management/SKILL.md	Risk registers, mitigation frameworks, escalation triggers
skills/business-analysis-tools/SKILL.md	SWOT, PESTLE, gap analysis, benchmarking, cost-benefit analysis, maturity models, prioritisation matrices
skills/consulting-frameworks/SKILL.md	Problem structuring, financial analysis, strategy frameworks, operations frameworks, communication structures
skills/critical-analysis-business-logic/SKILL.md	Cross-cutting serious analysis, evaluator logic, business sense, feasibility, and achievability gate

Reference - Proposal Strategy and Persuasion

Read skills/references/proposal-strategy-and-persuasion.md before writing any proposal. Apply its S1-S2-B baseline logic, P-I-P phase structure, buyer psychology, theme architecture, hypothesis-driven methodology, Pyramid of Ideas, SCQA narrative spine, objection handling, Cialdini principles, and Red Team review process.

Reference - World-Class Proposal Patterns

Read skills/references/world-class-proposal-patterns.md before writing any proposal. Apply its guidance on quantified evidence, named frameworks, client-first problem framing, scannability, programme-level thinking, storyboarding, ghost packs, the elevator test, and prewiring.

Reference - Critical Analysis and Business Logic

Read skills/critical-analysis-business-logic/SKILL.md before writing methodology, work plan, financial proposal, risk, M&E, sustainability, transformation, or final review content. Apply its claim-evidence-warrant discipline, essential questions, business-sense checks, mental-model pass, and achievability gate so the proposal is persuasive because it is logical and deliverable.

Reference - Premium, Discovery, and Service Credibility

Use the shared references in skills/references/ when a proposal needs deeper buyer insight, ethical persuasion, premium value defence, service design, support language, narrative structure, or technical strategy:

• ethical-persuasion-and-evaluator-psychology-gate.md
• premium-rate-justification-framework.md
• discovery-question-bank-for-proposals.md
• proposal-objection-handling.md
• service-design-methodology-module.md
• website-software-maintenance-support-language.md
• proposal-narrative-patterns-and-case-story-spine.md
• technical-strategy-credibility-checklist.md
• customer-service-and-escalation-commitments.md

Use skills/premium-commercial-writing/SKILL.md as the cross-cutting writing layer when those strategy references must become sharper client-facing prose, case studies, executive summaries, public documents, or thought leadership.

Reference - Consulting Delivery Excellence

Read skills/references/consulting-delivery-excellence.md when writing methodology, quality assurance, or implementation sections. Use it to describe credible delivery methods such as McKinsey-style problem solving, consulting workflow, Done-Done quality, Value Realisation Method, Drucker's Five Questions, Design Thinking, SCAMPER, SOSTAC, SECI, and frontloaded work planning.

Proposer Profiles - Who Is Proposing?

Before writing any proposal, load the correct proposer profile from skills/profiles/SKILL.md. The profile determines the voice, credentials, experience, and branding used throughout the document.

Profile	When to Use
skills/profiles/peter-bamuhigire.md	Proposing as Peter Bamuhigire as an individual consultant
skills/profiles/chwezi-core-systems.md	Proposing as Chwezi Core Systems
skills/profiles/client-template.md	Writing on behalf of a client; copy, customise, and save

If no proposer is specified, ask before proceeding. The profile affects every section: voice, signatory, experience, team, and references.

Proposal Workspace

All proposals are developed in the local proposals/ directory, which is gitignored. See CLAUDE.md for the full initialization workflow, directory structure, and INDEX.md format. Every proposal lives in its own subdirectory with section markdown files plus terms/, sheets/, team/, research/, and output/ folders.

Standards That Apply to All Sub-Skills

• Follow skills/east-african-english/SKILL.md for tone, spelling, and courteous phrasing throughout.
• Use British English spelling: organisation, programme, centre, colour.
• Let the loaded proposer profile determine voice: first-person singular for individual consultants and first-person plural for companies.
• Never use exaggerated marketing language. Confident, measured, professional writing is preferred.

Typical Proposal Section Order

1. Cover Letter
2. Technical Proposal Submission Sheet
3. Executive Summary
4. Understanding of the Assignment
5. Firm Profile
6. Relevant Experience
7. Approach and Methodology
8. Team Composition
9. Work Plan and Timeline
10. References

Financial Proposal is always a separate sealed document when the procurement process requires separation.