Proposal Development Meeting

Discuss proposals

The main work in the proposal development meeting is to plan out what needs to be done to prepare the proposals for vetting. You’ll have to decide which proposals to discuss; the strengths, opportunities for improvements and questions for each proposal; and next steps for writing and research.

Set the agenda for discussion

As a group, review the proposals and decide which ones are most in need of further development. Write down each proposal you plan to discuss and in what order.

To decide which proposals to discuss, you should look for two key indicators: disagreement and uncertainty. These are signs that the group would benefit from discussing the proposal:

• disagreement - look for projects that have a wide range of ratings. For example: “You rated this project a 2, but I thought it was an 5! Let’s discuss this one.”

• uncertainty - identify any projects where group members were not confident in their ratings (unsure how to rate the project). For example: “I found it really hard to give a single rating for this proposal. Let’s try to discuss it.”

Identify Strengths, Improvements and Questions

For each proposal to discuss, try to understand the underlying reasons for any disagreement or uncertainty. Do this by writing down:

• Strengths: what are the strengths of this proposal, as it stands? For example:

  • We have good evidence that this solution will be effective.

  • The proposal is a very manageable size.

• Opportunities for Improvement: how might we improve the projects? For example…

  • We need to add some evidence that proposal will be effective.

  • We need the proposal to be smaller and more feasible to complete.

  • We need to add a solution that is more equitable, because we value equity.

  • We need to add information about what kind of projects and policy solutions the partners would want to implement.

• Open Questions: what additional information do we need to evaluate and improve the projects? For example...

  • When and how has the city made impact on this issue in the past?

  • What are general ways that city can solve this problem?

Take notes to keep track of the strengths, improvements & questions.

Add Development Tasks

Create concrete tasks for addressing the Improvements and Questions you just identified. Write your tasks down in your meeting notes or task manager and make sure each task has an owner and a due date.

Make sure to write specific tasks that could be completed in 30-60 min. If you have a task that’s bigger, try to break it down into smaller tasks. For example, rather than “find all the ways government can create affordable housing ”, you might want to create 3 separate tasks that each say “find 1 way that government can create affordable housing”.

It can be helpful to label your tasks as either Improvements or Questions. This helps your group to visualize the balance of work you’re completing. Ideally, you have a balance of Researching and Improvement so that every week we learn something and incorporate that learning in our proposals