Module 1 · Project Pursuit · Week 2 · Live Virtual

The Go/No-Go Decision

Choosing which bets to place — before we spend an hour we can't get back.

45-minute facilitated session · one shared room, no breakouts · pre-work required

Developed by AEC LEAD LLC, Produced by Zweig Group

The One Idea

Every pursuit is a bet on a forecast

The Go/No-Go is where we decide which bets to place and how to price them — protecting the hours we'd spend, the trust the firm places in its own backlog, and the margin the price should carry.

Disciplined pursuit

Trustworthy data

Sound decisions

A healthy, employee-owned firm

The Go/No-Go is the gate where that discipline either enters the system — or doesn't.

Weston & Sampson · Module 1, Week 2

Cold Open

Pursuit is never free

Every proposal we write spends our people's billable time — a withdrawal from the same account that pays our salaries and our ownership.

Chase the wrong work and we don't just lose. We've spent senior engineering time on a future that was never going to arrive.

35

hours

avg. technical-lead time per proposal in 2024 — before marketing and reviewers

"How many hours did we spend last year on proposals we didn't win?"

Weston & Sampson · Module 1, Week 2

Calibrate · 6 Min

Same lead, same worksheet — why did our reads diverge?

A

Qualification Minimums

Licensed? Criteria met?

B

Strategic Fit & Positioning

Relationship · capture · initiative fit

C

Profitability & Resources

Does the fee let us run it profitably?

D

Operational Readiness

Regional experience · local staff

No total score — a structured read. Most of the divergence lives in Section B and in the win probability — that gap is the lesson.

Weston & Sampson · Module 1, Week 2

Reconcile Win Probability · Whole Room · 7 Min

Hope inflates. Evidence anchors.

HOPE SOUNDS LIKE

"We're great at this kind of work."

"It feels like a 50/50."

"We really need the backlog."

EVIDENCE SOUNDS LIKE

"We have an active relationship and capture plan."

"We helped shape the RFP / we're the incumbent."

"We know exactly who we're up against."

Whole-room task: type your number into chat/poll now — no discussion yet. Then reconcile live to ONE win probability and one piece of evidence behind it.

Weston & Sampson · Module 1, Week 2

Price The Value · 5 Min

One read protects the hours. The other protects the price.

VALUE READ · THREE DIMENSIONS

Uniqueness of fit — one of a few, or one of many?

Client experience — do we know them well enough to make it easy and memorable?

Business return — do we understand what drives value for them?

PURSUIT TYPE · WHERE PRICE GETS DECIDED

Qualifications-based — win first, negotiate price after.

RFP (scope & fee) — win and price in one move.

Direct hire / appeal — define the need before you price.

Whole room: type your value read (high/medium/low) and the pursuit type into chat now. We'll call on a few contrasting answers, then say where the price actually gets decided.

Weston & Sampson · Module 1, Week 2

The Override That Beats Any Read

Two hard gates — a 'No' is an automatic No-Go

01

We meet all the minimum and comparative evaluation criteria.

02

We can commit the time and attention to be responsive on schedule — no vacations or conferences.

A pursuit can look strong everywhere else and still be a No-Go. If we're not eligible, or we can't do the proposal justice, nothing else outweighs it. Log the reason and stop.

Weston & Sampson · Module 1, Week 2

Skill Practice · Fishbowl · 8 Min

Saying 'No-Go' to work we want

Scenario: a tempting opportunity that fails a hard gate. Two volunteers deliver the No-Go to an eager principal, live, in front of the group.

01

Name the gate

State the specific gate that failed — factually, no apology.

02

Name the cost

Say what a 'Go' would actually cost in senior hours and forecast trust.

03

Offer the alternative

Point to a better-fit pursuit those hours could win instead.

Everyone else drafts their own opening line in chat first. Debrief the language that landed as one group; run a second pair if time allows.

Weston & Sampson · Module 1, Week 2

Defend A Number · 5 Min

Estimated revenue × honest win % = the backlog

Est. net revenue

what we think it's worth

×

Win probability

honest, evidence-based

=

Weighted revenue

what the firm plans on

Inflate the win probability and you swell the backlog with revenue that isn't coming — the firm staffs up for a future that doesn't arrive.

Weston & Sampson · Module 1, Week 2

Recap · 2 Min

Say it back — that's how we know it landed

Every pursuit is a bet on a forecast.

The Go/No-Go decides which bets we place and how we price them — protecting the hours we'd spend, the trust the firm places in its own backlog, and the margin the price should carry.

Ask the room: restate that in your own words — out loud. If you can't say it back yet, that's the tell, not a failure.

Quick fist-to-five: how confident are you running this on a real lead tomorrow?

Weston & Sampson · Module 1, Week 2

The Process · Say It Straight · 5 Min

This runs the same way on every lead

01

Every lead gets the worksheet — Sections A–D, before any Go decision. No exceptions for a lead that "obviously" looks good.

02

The two hard gates are checked first. A failed gate is an automatic No-Go — full stop, not one factor among several.

03

Opportunity read and value read stay two separate decisions. Never merge them into a single number or a single gut call.

04

The pursuit type is named before the fee is set — qualifications-based, RFP, or direct appeal changes where the price gets decided.

This is the process, not a suggestion. It runs the same way on every lead, regardless of how the room feels about it.

Weston & Sampson · Module 1, Week 2

Close & Bridge

The honest call protects the firm

A disciplined Go/No-Go is the firm's first line of defense for both its hours and its forecast.

CHALLENGE QUESTION

When the honest read says No-Go but we want the work anyway — what is the honest cost of saying Go, and who pays it?

Next — Week 3 (self-paced): sharpening the two numbers the Go/No-Go demanded — forecasting revenue & effort, and calibrating an honest win probability.

Project Management · Module 1, Week 2

Developed by AEC LEAD LLC, Produced by Zweig Group