October 2015, Getting Lean with Your Go/No

Getting Lean with Your Go/No-Go Decisions
Business Development Best Practice Series
For those in the manufacturing world, Lean Principles
have been commonly practiced for decades. Recently,
Lean has also become popular in the construction
industry. One key tool of Lean, the Plan, Do, Check, Act
Cycle, which originated in the 1930’s, can be
used as a great foundation for a strong
Go/No-Go decision making process.
Published October 2015
based selection process, you must also consider your
ability to differentiate from the competition and provide
more value to the customer.
DO – The process then moves to the DO
stage, where the Go/No-Go decision
for the pursuit is reached based on
honestly answering the questions
posed during the PLAN stage. It is
imperative that good records are
kept, not only of the final decisions,
but of how the process worked.
PLAN – The first step is to develop
a process for bid pursuit and
Go/No-Go decision making that
fits your company’s overall
strategy. The process should
not
be
too
cumbersome,
balancing simplicity with the
sufficient rigor needed to properly
identify the correct pursuits which fit the financial and
strategic goals of the organization. A best practice is to
have as many of the key decision makers as possible
involved in the planning process, so that a decision in the
next phase can be reached efficiently.
There are two overarching questions to ask the team when
considering a pursuit:
1. Does this project fit our overall corporate strategy?
2. If so, can we win?
When answering, “Does this project fit our strategy?,”
consider how well the scope of work fits your core
competencies. Remember to consider your company’s
“A” clients, those that you have a great past relationship
with, and/or potential new clients that have been identified
as being a good fit. Possibly, expanding geography or
broadening your scope of work makes sense for the “A”
clients if pursuing a customer focus strategy.
When answering, “Can we win?,” some important external
factors to consider are the expectations of the client as well
as potential competitors’ past experiences and similar work
scopes. Internally, it’s beneficial to look at your resources:
financial, human, and equipment, available for deployment
at the projected start date of the project. For a qualification
CHECK – Once the project is awarded
and results are identified, three key metrics
should be evaluated during a group debrief activity:
1. What were the results?
2. Was the decision made in the DO stage the correct one?
3. How did the process work? What could be changed?
ACT – Utilizing the data obtained from the CHECK stage,
alter the process for the next bid (if necessary) and begin
the process all over again. It may not be worthwhile to
make changes after a single bid, but if a pattern develops,
it may be time to rethink the process.
Key Takeaways:
• Follow company strategy in Go/No-Go decisions (plan)
• Do keep good records of the process
• Debrief to check your results and processes
• Act to adjust the process, if needed
About the Author:
Katie Spear, CPSM
Marketing Director, i+iconUSA
Infrastructure & Industrial Constructors USA
Katie has over 25 years of experience, including strategic
planning, bid proposals, and social media.
i+iconUSA is a family of heavy civil construction companies
which creates safe and innovative infrastructure solutions.
Interested in writing a future one-page article for the Business Development Best Practices Series and marketing yourself and your
company to thousands of readers? Contact Sarah Gallegos at gallegoss@agc.org.
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