Transitioning from bid to project

On the 5th of October Thales Basingstoke welcomed a fully-booked audience the event "Transitioning from Bids to Projects". 

The transition phase is of critical importance but often overlooked. Paul Hutchings, bid director of Project MARSHALL made the case for improving this phase of the project lifecycle experience and examples on late-stage contract negotiations, the key people that should be present in the bid and project team and managing the customer expectations. 
 

Alex King-Karvell explained his reasons for organising the event with the APM because: “transformational leadership is a subject we can all be excited about, Paul is both an industry-recognised expert and a powerful speaker therefore the event was a natural progression to raise engagement and expertise in the subject”. 
 

The event was attended by representatives from several industries, but predominately technology based companies. As the event unfolded, it was clear from the audience that many of them recognised the common experiences Paul spoke about. The event finished with a substantial question and answer session with plenty of discussion and input from members with sales, marketing and project management roles. There was widespread agreement with Paul's conclusion that many costly problems in projects originate from under-funded bids and several APM members were forth coming with examples!

The event was well received on the night and 94.8% of the post event feedback was rated 'good' or 'excellent'. Given the clear demand for such events we hope to build upon this and engage in similar areas of interest to build the network and shared competence in bid and project management.