Go/No-Go (bid decision)
A go/no-go is the structured decision of whether to pursue an opportunity, made against explicit criteria — fit, win probability, resources, margin, strategic value — before response work begins. Disciplined no-gos are the cheapest win-rate improvement available.
Every response consumes scarce capacity, so pursuing weak-fit opportunities taxes the strong ones twice: direct effort plus degraded quality everywhere else. A functioning gate scores fit against explicit questions — do we meet the mandatories, do we know this buyer, is there a wired incumbent, can we staff it, does the margin clear our floor — and produces a defensible decision plus, on 'go,' the beginnings of strategy. The common failure modes are ceremonial gates (every opportunity passes) and single-point gates (no re-check when amendments change the picture). Teams that measure win rate by decision quality invariably find their no-gos were underpriced.
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