Confidential interviews with the internal pursuit team, turned into go/no-go criteria, action plans and reports.
Each person saw part of the pursuit. Combined, their accounts become one plan with milestones, the actions that meet them, and a gate.
Your go/no-go score contains only what your team is willing to put on the record.
Scored by the pursuit lead who wanted the deal. Never updated after week 1.
A composite of pursuits described to us by sales and alliance leaders. Figures are illustrative.
Someone on the team knew each of these the week it happened. None of them changed the score, the plan, or the decision to keep going.
Most reps skip it, or pick the first reason in the dropdown. No field asks whether the pursuit should have started.
People are careful about what they put on the record. The language gets softened, sensitive topics get left out, and the lesson disappears with them.
Exit criteria are the conditions a pursuit must meet at each gate to continue.
A standard checklist, usually from Shipley or APMP practice. For example, 12 criteria each scored 1 to 10, and the firm bids if the total is 84 or more out of 120.
The same factors for every firm. The factors that matter most in your pursuits may not be on the list.
Score the last 24 months of pursuits with the checklist, then adjust the weight of each criterion until the totals line up with which pursuits were won and lost.
The scores being tuned were given by the team that wanted the deal, so the weights end up matching their optimism.
After each win or loss, check whether the score predicted the outcome and which criteria mattered.
Run internally, so it is skipped or sanitized. Very few firms use it to change how they pursue.
Methods as described in public guides from leading capture, RFP and go/no-go platforms and consulting firms, 2025 to 2026.
Buyer feedback, exit interviews and 360 reviews are run by third parties for this reason. Each person on a pursuit saw part of it, and in confidence their accounts add up to a picture no one in the room had.
The team, and the people who made the call
What's safe to say in front of them
A summary, or nothing
Usually nothing
One person, and an interviewer from outside the company
What they actually think, because nothing reaches leadership with a name on it
Findings backed by two or more people. Never quotes.
The conditions a pursuit must meet at each gate of your go/no-go
Confidentiality is the product. Each person's account is independent of the people who made the call, and that is how the factors missing from your template come out. Read the protocol as your team will see it.
Nothing is reported in the interviewee's own words.
A finding needs at least two people, a pattern across pursuits, or the contributor's approval.
Role attribution only when the contributor agrees.
Each person approves how their points are used before anything is shared.
Recordings and transcripts are transcribed and de-identified on a computer we control, never on a third-party AI service, and are deleted after a fixed period.
Your firm agrees not to request raw material or identify contributors. Exceptions for legal and safety issues are stated in advance.
In the same confidential interview, each person tells us what the team did, or could have done, to make the condition true. The people who saw a risk early usually also know what would have dealt with it, and that knowledge is not written down anywhere else.
Ask the client's COO, who has worked with the CIO, for a 20-minute introduction.
Ask the CIO a question after his talk at the regional health IT summit, then follow up by email.
Invite him to a dinner for three hospital CIOs on a problem he has written about.
Whether to continue.
Why the buyer chose.
What your team knew, and what to do about it this week.
A video call with your sponsor to pick one pursuit decided in the last 6 months.
Your sponsor invites each person, with the confidentiality protocol attached.
By voice interviewer when it suits them, or by a person for senior leaders.
We show you the delta from your current go/no-go criteria and its impact, and the actions your team named for each gap.
At least $500K in contract value or 100 hours of senior staff time, decided in the last 6 months.
3 to 6 people who worked on it.
Three illustrative examples of how our process can change the trajectory of your pursuits, and the impact it can have.
A list of what must be true at each gate for the pursuit to continue, with dates.
The one action that matters most this week, from the list your team built.
A confidential debrief within 10 days, won or lost.
The gate conditions revised with leadership, based on the quarter's debriefs.
When two quarterly reviews in a row add no new criteria, the cadence drops to a light quarterly check, or stops.
Calibration: 3 to 5 debriefs over 6 months, to find the patterns across them. Or the full program, with weekly checks on every live pursuit.
The same protocol run by the voice interviewer as a subscription, or a workshop to train your team.
Listed with how many interviews raised each one, and the pursuit's estimated cost.
In dollars. For example, $420K of senior capacity across three pursuits that you would have stopped at gate 2.
Both together, so the gain comes from winning more, not from bidding on less.
An onboarding call with your sponsor to pick one recent major pursuit.
30 to 45 minutes with each person who worked on it, in confidence.
The debrief: the delta from your current go/no-go criteria, which past pursuits you would have stopped under the new ones, the senior hours you would have saved, and the actions your team named for each condition.
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