Before addressing what the title suggests, I wish all dear readers and users of the Steem blockchain a very fruitful and most importantly a fun, entertaining as well as happy 2020.

I realise my best wishes for 2020 comes in quite late being almost at the end of 2020 :) That said, no official rules are available till what time one can make these new year wishes. Some say, up and including the date of year the three kings got this life changing message from space, the January 6th. Owwww, in case you think I'm rambling; I refer you to the title of this article. In case you still think I'm rambling: You may read below :)

Since a few weeks I'm working with a team to design a solution, price it up and get it described in text; All based on a Request for Proposal submitted by one of the key players in my little country in the Netherlands. Being someone who works in pre-sales - labeled something like Solution Consultant / Solution Architect / Cloud Architect - it is my job to handle such cases and I should be able to handle this without too much pressure building up in my grey cell mass. However, last weeks pressure is build up left and right, working on this bid every single day, including X-Mas and New Year days. I need a Shrink!

Throughout my professional career, I have been involved in a gazillion of these type of bids, mostly being the lead pre-sales guy and mostly in small teams where I was able to control everything, while everybody knew they would always need to get my approval when deciding something, whether it is about technicals, services, governance and so on. However, since a year or two, I'm working with a new company in which I didn't receive the status of lead consultant / pre-sales while my part of the offering to any bid we create is by far the most important, complex and pricy element. I do like complexity, so therefore - fortunately - I'm only involved in highly complex bids. The complexity is further increased by the high value of the bids we create in which we need to be as creative as possible to make sure our offering is good enough whilst also the costs to the buyer is minimised. Still very standard mode of operation for me.

But by now I'm going Nuts! Soon I'll need a Shrink!

_{image: published on Pexels (source)}

Since a few bids or so ago, I forced myself into the deal team where all the decisions are made. That at least is something, I thought. But for some reason it is not working out too well.

But before you can understand what is making me Shrink material, is the way we handle bids in our company.

Firstly: We work with about 30 people on the bid of which about 15 are 100% allocated to the bid and forms the bid core team. Next to that we have a deal team where the decisions are made. Fortunately I have seats in all teams, as mentioned already. The issue though: Although we defined teams, no centralised alignment takes place and almost all team members are turning to me for their questions (and expect answers) while I'm still not the person that aligns with everybody in and outside the bid team, decisions with the bid team at large as well as the different sub-contractors. We have the lead architect doing these tasks, but he is dropping balls left and right. Yes, it is him who looks at me as his right hand, but still, his way of work is chaotic and he often forgets to include me where required to actually be able to function as his right hand. Added to that: With 30 people, we have 30 minds and 30 opinions. Fortunately most of those 30 minds don't think outside their own comfort zone and their own contributions, but that in itself is a problem as well since most of the grey areas are not shared with the larger bid team. Every single day I'm discovering new forgotten elements that needs to be addressed and am getting little support from the team to solve them.

_{image: published on Medium (source)}

Secondly: The solution we offer is a combination of services and solutions from different departments within my organisation extended with several 3rd party offeerings. This in itself is quite normal, but although we are a product company, we don't have anything aligned between the different products, departments and 3rd parties while management have no drive whatsoever to support closing the gaps between solution elements. The result: is we have to spend shitloads of time to get things done.

Thirdly: Our top management is risk averse and rather say: "No Bid" than "Let's take some Business Risks and get the Contract Awarded to Us".

Lastly: When I go for something, I want to make it happen with a solution that makes sense to the buyer, the prospect or customer. In my book, anything is possible. Problems and Challenges are there to be resolved. The prime issue: This can-do attitude clashes big time with management being risk averse, and most of my colleagues from the deal team not wanting to propose out-of-the-box thinking and associated (creative) ideas and solutions to management.

Shrink Me Up; Or?

While writing this article, it seems I'm emptying my cluttered grey mass, hence it just became clear to me what I shall do next, how I can prevent a trip to the Shrink. I simply need to step away from the wish wanting to create a winning bid, leave the responsibilities to those who are assigned (deal maker, lead architect), tell all those who ask questions to go to the deal maker, bid manager or lead architect. Whenever I feel something should be different in our offering, I'll shall drop a simple and single WhatsApp to the lead architect and leave it like that; I shall focus on my part of the solution only.

...But how difficult this is for me!!!

I put all my passion into my work, especially when I deal with bid sizes like this one (several 10s of millions of Euro's scope). I hate it when we spend a lot of time and come up with offerings that meet more the requirements of the supplier than the one who will pay for it. A recipes for failure, loosing the bid anyway!

Ok, maybe some other solution... When it all gets to much; Turn to writing some (un)interesting articles like this for others to read or delete :) Seems to calm my brains at least.

...Orrrrr?

Shall I continue to try and make the best offering as possible, to continue to try to convince all relevant people in the bid team as well as in various management layers with the possibility I still need to Shrink myself up?

Though decision... if it would be a decision to be made. Knowing myself, I will continue with the last solution. To protect myself, I then need to add the solution of emptying my brains through Steem based contributions, and maybe a long night of sleep after watching a very funny movie and listened to some very good music!

MUSIC
@rawselectmusic gave me a hell of a good inspiration... namely Floating Points recent album "Crush"... What a wonderful piece of work is that!!!!

MOVIE
In case you are interested in a good movie, maybe a bit arthousy, I can recommend: "The Brand New Testament" with its original title "Le Tout Nouveau Testament", a Belgium movie about God and his way of controlling what happens on our planet.

_{image: published on Hovens Collin (source)}

NJOY this SUNDAY still

_{qsounds music library with more than 300 entries | A...K | L...Z |}
^{steem blockchain curator for @illuminati-inc and @qsounds}