qualifying-opportunities

Qualifying Opportunities

Run a disciplined bid/no-bid gate review on a US Federal opportunity and produce a defensible recommendation. The expensive mistake in federal BD is not losing a bid — it is spending bid-and-proposal money on bids that were never winnable. This skill exists to make that decision deliberately, on evidence, against a consistent standard.

When to use this skill

Use this skill when a user needs to decide whether to pursue or bid a federal opportunity, at any gate:

• A new lead or sources-sought notice has appeared and the question is whether to invest capture resources.
• A draft RFP or RFP has released and the question is whether to bid.
• An opportunity already in the pipeline is reaching a gate review.

Do not use this skill to build the win plan — that is planning-capture and developing-win-strategy. This skill decides whether there should be a win plan at all. If the decision is already made and the user wants positioning work, route to those skills instead.

Inputs

Preferred upstream artifacts (from the pursuit workspace, if present):

• 03-competitive-assessment.md: sharpens the competitive-position scoring.
• 04-price-to-win.md: sharpens the financial and competitiveness scoring.

Without them, the skill still runs: it scores competitive position from what the user knows and records the lower confidence. A bid/no-bid decision is often made before deep competitive and price analysis exists; that is expected.

Read ../../shared/glossary.md, ../../shared/proposal-lifecycle.md, and ../../shared/pursuit-workspace.md if you have not already this session.

Intake

Before scoring anything, establish the facts. Ask the user these questions as a numbered list. Skip any already answered by a solicitation document or an existing 00-opportunity-profile.md in the workspace. Do not guess answers — unknown is a valid and important answer that lowers confidence and often the score.

1. The opportunity. What is it — agency/office, scope of work, contract type, estimated value, period of performance, set-aside status, and solicitation/notice number? Is there a document (RFI, sources-sought, draft RFP, RFP) available to read?
2. The gate. Which decision is this — an early pursuit decision (invest capture resources?) or a bid decision/bid validation (commit to proposing?)? How long until the proposal would be due?
3. Customer relationship. What is the prior relationship with this customer and office? Has the team shaped this requirement, engaged the customer, or responded to an RFI/draft RFP? Is there an incumbent, and is it the user's organization?
4. Capability and past performance. Can the organization actually perform this work? Is there recent, relevant, similarly sized past performance? Are required clearances, certifications, facility approvals, or NAICS size standards met?
5. Competition and price. Who is likely to bid, and what is the realistic read on competitiveness? Is funding confirmed? Is there a known or estimated budget?
6. Strategic fit and constraints. Does this fit the organization's strategy and growth direction? Are there blockers — OCI, a teaming dependency, a missing vehicle, capacity limits, or unacceptable contract terms?