When the time comes to assemble a project proposal for budget approval, you want to put together a case that's both realistic and will stand scrutiny — so the project gets approved, but also (and critically) so the project has the resources needed to be done well.
(The alternative, of course, is painful: a project that's approved without the resources it truly requires, and ends up running over budget, not meeting deadlines, not meeting objectives, or perhaps all of these.)
Here are five tips you can use to put a proposal together that gets a budget approved that covers the resources neeeded to get the job done, and done well.
A strong request for L&D funding begins with clarity about what the ask will accomplish. If the request begins with a vague condition ("our managers need stronger coaching skills"), it will probably lose in the budget contest when put up against another request that proves the math.
Which is exactly what you need to do. You may not have the numbers, but someone in your organization will, or will know how to help you get to them. Asking the questions is the first step:
How often? If you're addressing a gap or a shortcoming, how often does it occur? This could be the number of escalations, tickets for re-work, or even exit interviews that point to a similar issue.
How much? Each one of these carries a cost. They can be priced in hours, in customer credits issued, or in incremental costs, from increases in costs of goods sold to the cost of replacing staff.
What's the trend? Figure out which way the numbers are moving over time. How much is the number moving and how fast?
With these numbers, prepare a model that you think is accurate, and then take it back to the same colleagues who helped you with the source numbers, and ask them to correct it. This accomplishes two things: first, their corrections will be more accurate than your estimates, and secondly, by making corrections, they have investment in the figures (if they have a stake in creating the number, they're more likely to defend the number when you're not in the room).
When brought forward into a proposal (especially in your introduction or executive summary), it can sound like this: "We've identified an issue that's costing us $1.3 million a year. Our proposal can address about 60% of the gap. Here's the cost of that change."
An important note: you're both gathering facts and creating internal alliances, so you should be careful to be accurate and to attribute honestly. If you're identifying a performance gap, be clear about what portion you propose L&D will address, and call out other changes that would need to move in sync: incentives, structural changes, or any other systems which currently make the "wrong" behavior easier or desirable.
As a part of your analysis, it may be helpful to refresh your perspective on root cause analysis for learning initiatives, to further help you aim the solution you're proposing at the condition rather than the symptom.
Don't move too quickly into offering a headcount or a dollar amount. Learning and behavior change isn't linear, and your proposal will almost certainly have phases. Begin with telling the story: what happens at each phase of the project, why that's necessary, and how long each part will take. For example:
Once you've identified the staff you need to move the project forward, you can identify capacity in your own team and understand where your project may require external or extra support. In most cases, no single person or role is best suited across all of the phases and tasks (and attempts to make this work often end up with one or two phases covered well, but others less so).
By mapping the phases, naming the deliverables clearly, and calling out the L&D capability each one calls for, you create clarity and the ability to understand where you may have gaps. The resources and funding you're asking for can then match the detail of the project: you're covering five categories of capabilities over a 24-month project, but none of them for the entire term. You can then use contingent resourcing and strategies to pay for only the resources you need when they're needed, so your overall project moves forward efficiently and cost-effectively. This is the logic behind how our services are organized: staff augmentation for phases of work which have clear start and end dates, custom projects for phases of the build that are cleanly handed off for production, and flexible training delivery and facilitation support for the delivery waves, including the train-the-trainer needs.
This is how you assemble a project that uses the staff and expertise you have, and supports it with shorter-term external support, so you're paying only for what you need.
Once you've figured out how many permanent staff and how many contingent staff your project may need, you can build resourcing and cost scenarios and estimates. We built our L&D Talent Cost Comparison Tool for exactly this conversation: select a role, a length of time, a utilization rate, and rate/salary assumptions, and you can compare the fully loaded cost of a full-time hire against the cost of using a contingent/contract team member for the same work.
For example, here's how a senior instructional designer might model for an 18-month project:
Here's how to use the comparison tool well:
1. Substitute your own assumptions. Your talent partners and recruiters will know what a senior instructional designer will cost to fill, failed searches included. Your own company's numbers will be more compelling than the model's default values.
2. Pay particular attention to the utilization field. Demand will have peaks and valleys over time, even for tasks that are forecast to be sustained. This is especially true for tasks such as program delivery, where the entire year's efforts may be compressed into a five-month period. The contingent resource is paid for the months when the work is being performed, which can create a notable difference from a full-time resource.
3. Don't lead with the savings. While the notion of saving more than $44K over 18 months adds up to real money, don't invite the argument that you'd save more with fewer contingent staff. Instead, lead with and focus on capability and speed: the right skills, at the right phase, doing the work that's needed when it's needed, with less delay to begin. The lead point is getting the work done, the savings are support for a sound business case.
Recruiting for a full-time role often takes longer than a month, especially when you allow for approvals, posting, screening, interviews, offers, notice period, and onboarding; the delay between getting started and getting to work can be three to five months or longer. If you're four months delayed in getting started, you've already eaten into 22% of your indented 18-month timeline.
Flag this as a scheduling risk and put it on your timeline. Your stakeholders, and particularly your project sponsor, will likely already be focused on schedule risk, and by calling out the risk of a slow start, you can turn an abstract staffing preference into a date on the project plan. For some real-world perspectives on the timing considerations around contingent learning staff, the conversation in our podcast episode "The Hiring Manager's Perspective," may be particularly useful.
You know the question is coming: "can't AI just do most of this?" It may come from a stakeholder who's watched a tech vendor's demonstration or is simply assuming the answer based on generalized expectations.
This isn't the time to resist or to overcorrect: precision is key. You need to be the person who can explain exactly where AI provides advantage and leverage, and where it doesn't.
Here are some areas where AI is generating actual advantage:
But also be clear on where AI's value will run thin:
Changing behavior — the cornerstone of a successful learning initiative — relies heavily on the latter list. It's not that AI tools are deficient, but it will benefit you and the project to be candid and forthright about what they do well and what they don't. (We have a further discussion on this topic in a recent podcast episode.)
Almost certainly, some use of AI has already been taken into consideration, to remove some costs from your project build. Your proposal will be stronger when you state clearly where these savings are anticipated: this will help you build credibility when you state the areas where dreams of AI cost savings may be larger than reality.
To create your proposal document, consider these five sections, in this order:
The story you're telling will carry more weight in total than any single section. Your goal should be to create a document that proposes to address a business risk, at a cost you can defend, on a timeline you can achieve. This will land very differently than a training request, which (absent context) would be seen as an operational cost, which is easily cut.
If you would like to use our team as a thought partner in developing your proposal or request, we'd be glad to help — no obligation. Your success is our goal.
Training Delivery. Facilitators and trainers for in-person/ILT, vILT, T3 and blended programs.
