One of the most interesting productivity assertions in the psychology of project work is that “TEAMS THINK!” 

Quite apart from the individual thinking and individual intelligences of members of a team is the reality that among the members, as the work progresses, there forms a “mind,” a shared thinking reality that is “more than” and “better than” the work of any one individual team member.

This powerful idea of (1) the power of shared knowledge joins with two other fundamental forces or engines to propel the minds forward to vital and incisive innovative and creative TEAM THINKING in proposal writing – (2) front-end loading and (3) rapid prototyping.

(And remember, the key input tool to accelerate these forces among team members is continual voice-based data entry of accurate, current, and complete shared thinking to a common database to create virtuous cycles of double loop feedback.

First, take advantage of the power of team thinking – Sharing and collaborating enables shared cognition and shared mental models to develop quickly among proposal team members for faster, more intense, and more productive thinking than any one person could achieve by him/herself..  With an open system where everyone speaks his/her mind with highly divergent thinking, the team need not worry about what Janus calls “GroupThink” and its constant threat of too rapid a shift to convergent thinking and the shutting off of innovating and creative thinking.  Group Think is “…‘a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment’ that results from in-group pressures.  Essentially, people within a group become so consumed with the group, maintaining group cohesiveness, and doing what is important for the group that they themselves lose their ability to think independently and make good, sound judgments.” 

“We have forgotten that when we bring ourselves together around a common purpose, ‘connected to one another, to a leader, and to an idea’, as Seth Godin puts it in Tribes, we each become capable of accomplishing more than no one can alone.  That’s not just because we have an infrastructure of support, but because every tribe creates lifeline relationships…. Such awareness comes from the mutual feedback we give each other – a process that forms the bedrock of lifeline relationships” (Ferrazi).

Because teams are “capable of accomplishing more than no one can alone,” joining in and willingly collaborating through each person speaking his or her mind openly is a crucial first force for good team thinking.

Second, jump on the power of front-end loading – The most enriching and fruitful moment in a project is at the absolute beginning, as early as possible in project time, when the team bursts or surges intellectual energy and thinking into the project.  Starting sooner, starting with utmost thinking power has an influence on thinking that is very noticeable and productive.

“This pattern of mounting energy and propulsion is what is often neglected in efforts to teach for higher-order thinking; such neglect fails to prepare thinkers to develop cognitive momentum….” (Lipman-Blumen, J and HJ Leavitt, Hot Groups, 1991, 68).

“…mounting energy and propulsion,” “develop[ing] cognitive momentum,” mean that loading intellectual energy at the very beginning opens a richly enabling space for powerful team thinking and starts “virtuous cycles” of ideas and feedback.

Third, and very important, take advantage of the power of rapid prototyping:  At the beginning of the proposal, direct or focus that surge of thinking to an object, a concrete embodiment of the final product.  As quickly as possible, to build a 1:1 rapid prototype of exactly what the end product might look like, what the specifications demand.  Prototypes are simple, risk free, full of errors, but highly revealing.

“Fail often to succeed sooner.  Early failures are not only desirable but also needed to eliminate unfavorable options quickly and build on the learning they generate.  The faster the experimentation-failure cycle, the more feedback can be gathered and incorporated into new rounds of testing” Thomke, Experimentation, 23, 230). (Thomke, Experimentation).

“The prototype is a compelling mechanism to aid convergence because it is a preliminary vision off an innovation embodied in some shape or form that can be shared.  It can be handled, viewed, experienced, or discussed…. Prototypes are invaluable communication tools because they provide a focus for discussion among people with different perspectives… to aid convergence.  Such prototyping activities provide so much information to the group that members can converge rapidly on the ultimate design” (Leonard, Swapp, 1999, When Sparks Fly, 96, 111-114, 117).

As a TEAM, look down to and create at the beginning a rapid prototype of the final proposal with all requirements met – as a thinking exercise with a concrete thinking tool.  Use it as your “story board” or “project kick off exercise” for the proposal.

And if we ignore these powerful drivers?  Sadly, the typical back-end, crisis [see Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis] procedures when a team comes together to write a proposal delays action with a whole bunch of administrative stuff, fiddling around with storyboards or 99-step processes, holding meetings to discuss things, or, as is more often the case, just drifting along for a while, with everybody doing their technical work, letting time pass, procrastinating, and then, finally, when the time has run out and the crisis is upon the team, the thinking is vulnerable to all of the worst biases (Kahneman) and grasp, for instance, at the things most available (“availability bias”) whatever is most familiar (“familiarity bias”), whatever was used last time, (“historical bias”), or what the dominant ego in the room has already decided (“power/ego bias”).

All of this is avoided, using a voice-based data entry system and with strong team thinking, the surging of intellectual energy or front-loading at the beginning, and the immediate intellectual power that comes from rapid prototyping.