What is a bid/no-bid decision?
A structured judgment, made before proposal work starts and revisited as facts change, about whether pursuing a specific opportunity is worth the cost. The output is a decision and a number: your estimated probability of winning, which the rest of the pipeline can be weighted by.
Why the decision needs a scorecard
Left to instinct, a small firm bids everything that looks like its work and wins a few percent. The proposals that lose still cost the same nights and weekends. A scorecard does two things instinct cannot: it forces the questions you would rather skip (do we know the customer, who is the incumbent), and it produces a record, so after ten decisions you can see which questions predicted the wins.
The ten questions
Score each from 0 to 3. Three means strong, zero means absent. Total 30.
- Customer relationship. Have we talked to the program office or contracting officer about this requirement before the solicitation posted? (3: yes, recently. 0: never.)
- Requirement fit. Does the statement of work describe what we do every day, in the NAICS code we are small under?
- Incumbent position. Is there an incumbent, and are they vulnerable (recompete with changed scope, performance problems, outgrown size standard)? A strong, happy incumbent scores 0.
- Past performance. Do we have three relevant references, with contract numbers, that a reviewer would accept as the same size and scope?
- Set-aside and eligibility. Is the work set aside for a category we hold, and do we meet every eligibility line in the solicitation?
- Price to win. Do we know the historical award value and can we deliver at a price that wins without losing money? (USAspending shows prior obligations.)
- Capacity. Can we staff it on day one with named people, not resumes we hope to hire?
- Teaming. If we need a partner, is the partner committed in writing, or still a conversation?
- Proposal effort. Can we produce a compliant response in the time given with the people we have, including a color review?
- Strategic value. Does winning open a customer, a vehicle or a past-performance gap we need, beyond this one award?
The rule
Under 15: no bid, and say so the same day. Fifteen to 21: bid only if the two lowest-scoring questions can be raised before the proposal deadline, with a named action for each. Twenty-two and above: bid, and assign the capture lead. Write the score and the date on the opportunity record every time; the discipline is the record, not the arithmetic.
When to run it
- First look, when the opportunity enters the pipeline from a forecast, an expiring contract or a sources sought notice. Most no-bids should happen here, when the cost of the decision is ten minutes.
- Sources sought response. Answering a sources sought is cheap and worth doing even at a middling score, because it shapes the set-aside decision. Score it separately from the bid.
- Solicitation release. Re-score with the real evaluation criteria in hand. Section M often changes the answer to questions 4 and 6.
- Draft review. If the pink team reads a proposal that is not competitive, stopping is still cheaper than finishing.
Turning the score into pWin
A simple conversion works for a small pipeline: divide the score by 30 and cap it at 70 percent, since even a perfect card cannot see the other bidders. Weight each opportunity's value by that number and the pipeline report stops flattering you. Track actual outcomes against the estimate, and after a year adjust the questions that never predicted anything.
The no-bid email
Saying no quickly is a business development act. Tell the contracting officer, in three sentences, that you reviewed the requirement, will not be proposing this time, and would welcome the next one in your area. It keeps you on the list, and it is more than most bidders do.
What is a good bid/no-bid ratio?
For a small contractor with no capture team, bidding roughly one in four of the opportunities that reach the first look, and winning one in three of those, is a healthy pattern. Bidding everything and winning one in twenty is the expensive one.
How is pWin different from a bid/no-bid score?
The score is your assessment of fit and position. pWin is that assessment expressed as a probability, used to weight the value of an opportunity in the pipeline. The scorecard produces both.
Should we ever bid a low-scoring opportunity?
Occasionally, for a strategic reason you can name: a customer you must enter, a past-performance gap only this award fills. Write the reason down, and count the outcome against it later.
Score opportunities before the RFP, not after
FedFinder's fit score, the Closer's cited answers and the Recompete Calendar give you questions 1 through 6 for every opportunity in your codes, with the incumbent and the prior award value already on the card.
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