Module 1 · Week 3 — Forecasting the Opportunity

The problem

A guess and a forecast look identical on the screen

Open Vantagepoint and look at two opportunities. Each shows an estimated net revenue and a win probability. From the outside, they're the same kind of data. But one was built from the scope and an honest read of the odds — and the other was a number someone felt good about on a Friday.

The firm can't tell which is which. It rolls both into the same weighted backlog and makes the same kind of staffing and hiring decisions on each. That's the danger: a sloppy estimate doesn't announce itself. It just quietly distorts every decision downstream — until the work doesn't arrive, or arrives priced too low to deliver.

Discipline is the only thing that separates a forecast from a guess. The screen can't tell them apart — but the firm lives with the difference.

Last week's Go/No-Go decided a pursuit was worth the bet. This week we sharpen the three numbers that bet depends on: revenue, effort, and win probability — and the discipline of entering them so the firm can trust them.

What you'll be able to do

1Forecast an opportunity's net service revenue from the scope, not from a wish — keeping pass-through costs out.
2Estimate the effort a pursuit and a project will take, in hours by phase and role.
3Calibrate an honest win probability anchored to evidence, not optimism.
4Enter the opportunity in Vantagepoint cleanly — and recognize the behaviors that protect or poison the forecast.

Forecast revenue

Estimate the net, from the scope

The revenue you log should be net service revenue — the money we'd earn with our own labor. Strip out the pass-throughs first: subconsultant fees and reimbursables like travel and permits flow through us but aren't ours to keep or to measure against. Logging a gross number inflates the backlog with dollars we never touch.

There are two honest ways to reach the number, and the discipline is to check one against the other:

Top-down

Start from the likely total fee for work like this — comparable past projects, the client's budget signals, the RFP's stated range — then subtract pass-throughs to land on net.

Bottom-up

Build it from the scope: the phases and tasks, the hours each will take, at the rates those people bill. Sum the labor; that's net service revenue from the ground up.

When the two agree, you have a defensible number. When they don't, you've found the assumption worth questioning — usually a scope you've under- or over-read. That tension is the point.

Forecast effort

Effort is the cost side of the same coin

Revenue is what the work is worth. Effort is what it will take to earn it. You can't trust one without the other.

Estimate the project's effort in hours by phase and by role — who does what, and how long. This is the same bottom-up build that produced the revenue number, read as a cost. Two things make effort estimates go wrong, and both are predictable: we forget the unglamorous phases (coordination, QA, revisions), and we imagine the senior staff will do less than they actually will.

There's a second effort number that's easy to ignore: the cost of pursuing. In 2024 the average technical lead spent about 35 hours on a single proposal. That's real, billable time spent to chase the work — it belongs in your thinking about whether and how hard to pursue.

Estimate every phase, by role. The hours we forget — QA, coordination, revisions — are exactly the ones that turn a profitable project into a thin one.

Calibrate the odds

An honest win probability, anchored to evidence

Win probability is the number people most want to round up — because hope is free and a high number feels like commitment. But the firm multiplies your percentage straight into the backlog. A win probability is a forecast, not a pep talk.

Anchor it to evidence, not enthusiasm. Four things actually move the odds, and the Go/No-Go already asked about each:

1Relationship. Do we have a real, current relationship with this client — or a logo we once worked for?
2Position. Did we hear about this before the solicitation, help shape the RFP, or hold the incumbency?
3Competition. Do we know who we're up against — and can we genuinely distinguish ourselves?
4Capture. Is there a capture plan we've actually executed, or are we starting cold at the RFP?

A useful gut check: would you bet your own money at those odds? If a 70% feels like a number you'd hedge, it isn't a 70%. Calibrate down until the percentage is one you'd defend out loud — because next week, you will.

Build the forecast

Estimate revenue and effort, then calibrate a win probability against the four evidence factors — in the interactive Pursuit Toolkit.

Open the Pursuit Toolkit

Log it clean

The forecast only counts once it's in Vantagepoint

A great estimate in your head helps no one. The firm forecasts on what's logged — so entering the opportunity cleanly, and keeping it current, is part of the discipline, not paperwork after it.

Two behaviors decide whether your data strengthens the forecast or quietly corrupts it:

Protects the forecast

Net revenue from the scope · a win probability you'd bet on · updating the record when reality changes · logging the No-Gos too, so we learn what we walk away from.

Poisons the forecast

Gross revenue logged as net · win probabilities rounded up to look committed · stale records left at "70%" long after the odds moved · opportunities never entered at all.

None of these is dramatic. That's why they're dangerous. Each small inflation looks harmless on one record — but summed across hundreds of pursuits, they're the difference between a backlog the firm can stake its staffing on and one that lies to it.

Carry into next week

Three habits to take with you

ANet, from the scope. Strip the pass-throughs; build revenue from the work, and check top-down against bottom-up.
BCount every hour. Estimate effort by phase and role — including the phases you'd rather forget, and the cost of the pursuit itself.
CBet your own money. Set a win probability you'd defend out loud, anchored to relationship, position, competition, and capture.

Challenge question

“Pick a recent pursuit. If you had to bet your own money at the win probability you logged — would you? If not, what was the honest number?”

Next week we put all of Module 1 together in a live session: taking a raw lead through to a logged, trustworthy opportunity — and running the pre-proposal move that turns a price conversation into a value one.