latest additions to the Twennie library

Your first 90 days are a window to decode how work happens. Many hires stumble not on skill, but on misreading culture. Scan five dimensions: relationships (how trust and influence form), communication (formal vs. ad hoc), decision-making (where choices truly occur), individual vs. group orientation, and change readiness. Observe interactions, ask insiders, and find influencers.

This Twennie story demonstrates program management in action—how a team leveraged early lead generation, cross-selling, strategic account planning, and proposal excellence to elevate their profile within Manitoba First Nations communities. Through disciplined pursuit, cultural respect, creative proposals, and cross-unit collaboration, they secured milestone wins including healthcare, water, and environmental projects. By coordinating across architecture, water, environmental, and marketing groups, they transformed a modest foothold into a thriving program of work.

This video shows technical consulting teams how to build an early-stage market research engine focused on the next five to ten years. Use RSS feeds plus AI to collect, filter out procurement notices, and extract key facts (owner, budget, phase, location, timing). Add media, agency portals, trade publications, and tools like Google Alerts or Meltwater. Automate with no-code pipelines that publish concise signals to dashboards. Convert every signal into action through Twennie prompt sets. Anyone—junior engineers, proposal coordinators, or dedicated researchers—can run it.

This series explores cross-selling in multi-disciplinary firms, where opportunities often go unrealized because teams stay siloed. Effective cross-selling isn’t about being pushy with clients—it’s about creating regular, proactive conversations between colleagues. Twennie’s prompt set introduces five small but powerful activities—knowledge swaps, coffee talks, project sheet exchanges, problem-solving sessions, and friendly competitions—that make cross-disciplinary collaboration routine rather than rare.

Running full-effort proposals means conducting disciplined Color Team Reviews: Blue for win strategy, Pink for storyboards, Gold for risk and pricing, and Red for the final draft. Each review uses impartial reviewers to simulate a client’s perspective, providing critical feedback at the right stage. Success depends on preparation—reviewer packages, clear instructions, structured facilitation, and respect for participants’ time. Reviews should be concise, professional, and improvement-focused.

This second orientation dives into how you create real impact in proposals and business development. You’ll learn why proposals are sales documents (not technical reports) and how to coach contributors to write accordingly. We’ll show you how to run efficient strategy sessions (10 Steps to a Win Theme, Rapid Fire Methodology Storyboarding) that cut total writing time, and why the most powerful BD your firm does is the work it delivers—plus how to turn projects into relationship-building engines.

This template pack standardizes how you hire and manage proposal/marketing talent across three levels (Junior, Intermediate, Senior). Each description defines purpose, reporting lines, core responsibilities, qualifications, and decision rights, plus machine-readable KPI tables (category, metric, target, frequency, data source) mapped to five pillars: client relationships, personnel, financials, quality, and schedule.

“Extracting Little Successes from Big Failures” guides teams to learn without blame and create immediate wins. Start with an event snapshot and a fact-only timeline, then use the “Advantageous Failure” lens to surface new knowledge, specify ≤2-step process tweaks, and queue relationship repairs. Convert insights into concrete “little successes” (templates, faster steps, clearer comms, risk tripwires, mini-experiments, client closure), each with a clear outcome, owner, and due date.

Cross-selling is often talked about but rarely practiced well in multi-disciplinary firms. This prompt set provides 20 concrete activities your teams can try right away—short, time-boxed experiments like joint coffee chats, exchanging project sheets, shadowing client calls, or creating “combo case” slides. Each exercise encourages collaboration, sparks curiosity about other disciplines, and surfaces hidden opportunities to expand work with existing clients.

Cross-selling is the practice of introducing complementary services to existing clients, a strategy especially powerful for multi-disciplinary firms. Rather than chasing new business, professionals deepen relationships by solving more of a client’s challenges through integrated offerings. This approach lowers acquisition costs, increases win rates, and cements firms as trusted advisors. With examples from engineering, architecture, and environmental consulting, cross-selling demonstrates how one service engagement can open doors to broader collaborations.

The 30-Day Systems Approach Diagnostic Template (Excel Version) is a leadership tool designed for technical services business units. Over 30 days, leaders and their teams investigate performance issues by answering daily diagnostic questions, benchmarking results, and categorizing metrics into red, yellow, and green. Leaders then prioritize “easy-to-fix” items to create quick wins and establish a culture of improvement.

The 30-Day Systems Approach Diagnostic Exercise is a leadership tool designed for technical services business units. Over 30 days, leaders and their teams investigate performance issues by answering daily diagnostic questions, bench-marking results, and categorizing metrics into red, yellow, and green. Leaders then prioritize “easy-to-fix” items to create quick wins and establish a culture of improvement.

The Twennie Work Orders document equips proposal and marketing professionals in technical environments with practical tools to manage responsibilities clearly and proactively. It introduces structured work orders—paralleling proposals—to establish scope, schedules, and deliverables, reducing confusion and ensuring accountability. The guide includes sample email templates, detailed service categories, and appendices outlining KPIs, duties, and boundaries.

Twennie introduces 15 universal types of play, each with roots in childhood, applications in adulthood, and survival value in human history. From role play, storytelling, and nurturing to puzzles, risk-taking, and creating games, these preferences influence careers, community roles, and personal fulfillment. This template supports the video and exercise for this topic, and helps viewers rediscover their preferred play types, understand their value in teams, and design work environments that integrate play.

Hiring proposal and marketing professionals is often harder than recruiting technical staff. This series walks leaders through the entire process: defining duties, deciding autonomy, setting career paths, and managing workload expectations. It highlights challenges such as unclear authority, repetitive work, and isolation, and offers solutions like work orders, hybrid roles, and ongoing engagement opportunities. By respecting career goals and adapting roles to individuals, firms can better integrate non-technical staff, reduce strain on project managers, and strengthen business development.

The Subtle Art of the Terrible Client Meeting reframes client interactions as opportunities rather than sales pitches. Through a staged sequence of “worst possible” meetings, apologies, and question-driven conversations, teams practice handling failure, rebuilding rapport, and uncovering client needs. Participants learn that even the most awkward moments can be reset, that questions create stronger connections than pitches, and that success means aligning services with problems—not selling.

The Subtle Art of the Terrible Client Meeting re-frames client interactions as opportunities rather than sales pitches. Through a staged sequence of “worst possible” meetings, apologies, and question-driven conversations, teams practice handling failure, rebuilding rapport, and uncovering client needs. Participants learn that even the most awkward moments can be reset, that questions create stronger connections than pitches, and that success means aligning services with problems—not selling.

Play is not the enemy of productivity—it’s the fuel for it. In this video, you’ll learn ten actionable ways to reintegrate play into work, from giving permission and designing micro-vacations to reframing language around contribution, culture, and hiring. You’ll see why retiring “work-life balance,” creating playful rituals, and fostering authentic human connection lead to stronger performance and loyalty.

Proposals often suffer from long sentences, vague headings, passive voice, and misplaced tasks in the wrong sections. This video introduces a three-step process: consider the client’s perspective, identify what convinces them, and make it obvious. You’ll learn how to spot common writing issues, shift “project understanding” away from work plans, and collaborate with colleagues constructively—even if you don’t control their draft.

In technical services, “program management” and “portfolio management” often get blurred, but they serve distinct purposes. Program management ensures that related projects—like hospital expansions or flood resilience works—are sequenced and coordinated to deliver combined benefits. Portfolio management, by contrast, looks across all initiatives, weighing risk, capacity, and alignment with strategic goals to decide where to invest. Understanding the distinction helps civil engineers, architects, and project managers speak their clients’ language, and manage resources wisely.

Discover 15 types of play and how each sparks focus, reduces stress, fuels creativity, strengthens collaboration, and improves quality. For every type you’ll see a quick example, a two-minute micro-break, and a low-friction way to involve colleagues. Whether leading teams or working solo, this guide helps you choose the right kind of play for the moment. Start small, measure impact, and watch momentum build.

This first orientation video prepares new proposal and marketing professionals for a demanding role in technical organizations. It highlights industry realities, the value of proposals, and the importance of building internal credibility. Experienced professionals emphasize one best practice above all: consistently using work orders. Work orders clarify scope, prevent miscommunication, manage workload, and showcase contributions, much like proposals do for external clients. They protect against unrealistic expectations, establish professional boundaries, and provide a valuable record.

The Pink Team reviews your storyboards. Impartial reviewers who were not in the room during the storyboard exercise assess whether the outline of your proposal—your section plans, headlines, and flow—tells a compelling story. You may have only storyboarded your work plan, but a Pink Team review is still useful. In this case you might consider having highly experienced project managers on the Pink Team. That way you get a sense of the strength of a work plan from their perspective.

Blue Team reviewers look at your positioning, differentiators, and client focus. Are you showing how you meet the client’s real needs better than competitors? A Blue Team review should be the first one you add if you are going to use reviews at all. It gives you a clear picture of whether your strategy will stand up under scrutiny. If you want to practice conducting Blue Team reviews, a prompt set in the color reviews topic allows you to do just that.

Blue Team reviewers look at your positioning, differentiators, and client focus. Are you showing how you meet the client’s real needs better than competitors? A Blue Team review should be the first one you add if you are going to use reviews at all. It gives you a clear picture of whether your strategy will stand up under scrutiny. If you want to practice conducting blue team reviews, a prompt set in the color reviews topic allows you to do just that.

The Gold Team is different from other reviews in that it is not about editing the proposal content; it is about executive sign-off on risk, liability, and commercial exposure. Members should include only people with authority: an executive sponsor, a finance lead, legal counsel if needed, and someone capable of reviewing risk and compliance.

The Gold Team is different from other reviews in that it is not about editing the proposal content. It is about executive sign-off on risk, liability, and commercial exposure. Members should include only people with authority: an executive sponsor, a finance lead, legal counsel if needed, and someone capable of reviewing risk and compliance.

The Twennie Proposal Process Exercise Template is a practical companion to the “Designing a Proposal Process” video. It provides a step-by-step framework for building a consistent proposal process through six stages: exposing the team to best practices, choosing a medium, populating process lines, assigning responsibilities, and drawing the process. The template organizes tasks into three effort streams—minimal, usual, and full—each with distinct activities like go/no-go reviews, win strategy sessions, storyboarding, and color reviews.

This Twennie hub video explores how to design a structured, repeatable proposal process that reduces stress, saves time, and increases win rates. It emphasizes assigning clear roles, creating three effort levels (minimal, usual, full), and using go/no-go reviews to set direction. You’ll learn to schedule realistic deadlines, run kick-off meetings, and develop win strategies, including Twennie’s Rapid Fire Methodology storyboarding exercise.