Your bid/no-bid process is designed to stop you wasting time on opportunities that you are unlikely to win or will not benefit from winning. Make sure it is serving this purpose by continually reviewing your decisions against outcomes.
Promptly record and disseminate your gate decisions. To support subsequent analysis of gate decisions and foster familiarity, develop a standard decision record for your organization. Include these key elements:
- Date
- Participants
- Decisions
- Recommendations
- Commitments
- Approved process deviations and extraordinary exceptions
- Lessons learned
Tailor the record or entry to the complexity of the opportunity. A separate record for each decision gate is appropriate for complex opportunities or business development protocols. Simpler situations can be handled with a single form covering all gates.
Have leadership approve the decision record or entry. Good practice generally vests decision authority in a single individual, not a committee.
Add the decision gate record to your database. Note the decision and date on the capture plan title page.
Continue this practice to collect and record lessons learned after each phase of the capture process.
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