Submit a proposal

A proposal is how an idea enters the governance pipeline. You describe the initiative, its cost, and its justification; reviewers then decide at each gate whether it deserves to become a project. Any member can submit one.

Create the proposal

1. On the Governance page, select New Proposal. If your organization routes project creation through governance, selecting New Project on the Projects page opens the same proposal form, see Classify strategic vs operational work.

2. Give it a Title (required) and a description of the initiative.

3. Fill in the decision-making fields: Business Justification, the estimated budget with its currency, the estimated duration in weeks, the Department, expected benefits, a risk level, and a priority. Your organization controls which of these fields appear and which are required, so your form may differ.

4. Pick a Sponsor. The sponsor must be a member of your organization and will receive notifications as the proposal moves through the pipeline.

5. Save. The proposal starts in Draft, where you can keep editing it.

Submit it for review

When the proposal is ready, open it and select Submit for Review. It moves to Submitted, where a reviewer picks it up and starts the first gate. From that point the stages and gates described in Understand the proposal pipeline take over.

Tip

A draft proposal also gets its own small workspace, a Proposal Documents library and a stakeholder register table, so you can attach supporting material before reviewers ever see it. If the proposal is later approved, everything in that workspace moves to the new project automatically.

What you see, and what reviewers see

On the Governance page, members without governance review rights see only the proposals they submitted. Reviewers (Portfolio Manager and above by default) see the entire pipeline. Your proposals are always visible to you at every stage, including after rejection or approval.

Staying informed

You are notified whenever someone else acts on your proposal: when it is moved into review, put on hold, rejected, or when a gate decision is recorded. If the proposal is approved and a project is created from it, the notification includes the new project. Your sponsor receives the same updates.

FAQs

Can I edit a proposal after submitting it? Drafts are freely editable. Once a review starts, editing is locked so reviewers score a stable document. If reviewers need changes, they can record a “more info” decision and the conversation continues on the proposal.

Do I need a sponsor? That depends on your organization’s form settings; some require one, some leave it optional. A named sponsor strengthens the proposal at the first gate, where executive backing is one of the default scoring criteria.

Who reviews my proposal? Either the designated reviewer panel for each gate, or anyone with governance review rights if no panel is configured. See Set up gate reviewers for proposals.