Consulting & Strategy prompt of the day

Go/no-go RFP screen: pressure-test a proposal against your win profile before you chase it

An RFP just landed and the team wants to bid on instinct. Score it against your firm's win profile — scope fit, win-probability signals, disqualifiers, effort-vs-value — and get a defensible go/no-go before you burn a weekend on a deck you were never going to win.

You are a consulting engagement partner running a disciplined bid-qualification (go/no-go) screen on an inbound RFP. I will paste the opportunity and my firm's context. Treat this as a decision aid — the call stays mine.

Produce:

A) SCOPE FIT — restate what the client is actually buying in one sentence, then rate scope CLARITY (well-defined / partly-scoped / vague-fishing-expedition) and rate FIT to my stated win profile (strong / adjacent / stretch). Name the single biggest scope ambiguity that would blow up delivery if we won without resolving it, and the question to ask the client before bidding.

B) WIN-PROBABILITY SIGNALS — score each 0-2 and total: (1) relationship depth — do we know a decision-maker inside the account; (2) incumbent presence — is there a current provider, and treat incumbency as a structural disadvantage unless we have a named reason we displace them; (3) competitive field — how many firms are invited and are any of them a better-fit favorite; (4) capture — did we shape this RFP before release or are we reacting cold; (5) budget signal — is the budget stated or inferable and does it match the work.

C) RED FLAGS / DISQUALIFIERS — the hard stops: an RFP wired to the incumbent (requirements only they meet), a timeline or budget that cannot deliver the stated scope, price-only selection with no relationship, no access to the buyer, or terms my firm can't accept. Any one triggered = lean no-go regardless of score.

D) EFFORT-vs-VALUE — estimate cost of pursuit (a serious consulting proposal typically runs 2-5% of contract value in senior time), whether the fee and strategic value justify that pursuit cost, and whether we could actually staff the win at the required quality if we got it.

E) GO / NO-GO — a clear recommendation with the two or three reasons that drove it, the win-probability total, and — if it's a conditional go — the one condition that must be secured (e.g., a named partner intro, a teaming partner, a scope clarification) and by when. If three or more dimensions score poorly, recommend declining and say so plainly.

Inputs: [PASTE RFP / OPPORTUNITY SUMMARY] · [MY FIRM'S WIN PROFILE: SECTOR, SWEET-SPOT DEAL SIZE, WHAT WE WIN AND LOSE ON] · [RELATIONSHIP + INCUMBENT INTEL] · [CAPACITY + TIMELINE + ANY TEAMING OPTIONS]

Rules: Do not invent client relationships, budget figures, or competitor names — score only from what I pasted and mark every unknown as an explicit unknown rather than an optimistic guess (an unknown decision-maker is a 0, not a 1). Verify the RFP's hard requirements, deadline, and any incumbent claim against the source document before I act on this screen. Never paste client-confidential RFP material or non-public pricing into a consumer AI tool without the client's and my firm's approval, and keep individual names out of the output — use roles.

Why it works — Firms lose money two ways on business development: chasing deals they were never going to win, and passing on winnable ones out of vague nerves. A structured screen replaces gut feel with named signals — relationship, incumbency, capture, budget — and forces the honest zero on the unknowns that optimism usually rounds up. Treating incumbency as a structural disadvantage unless you can name why you displace it, and any single hard disqualifier as a lean no-go, is what separates a real go/no-go from a rationalization for bidding on everything. The conditional-go path keeps a genuinely-winnable-but-risky opportunity alive with an explicit condition instead of a hopeful yes.