Useful Tools

If you are struggling to make a decision regarding how to respond to an application for funding or request to tender, this group of diagnostic tools may just help you make that decision, as well as proving a justification when explaining your decision to your board! This particular session contains a range of diagnostic tools to help you to decide whether to Bid or No Bid!

At the End of this Course You Will be Able to:

3.1 Use a range of tools and matrices to quantify bidding decisions
The ‘Bid No Bid’ Toolbox may help in decision making. However, some of this you would do intuitively but here is a collection of the formal tools!
There are some diagnostic tools to help with bid and tender writing. Do we bid or do we not? Is the bid or tender suitable for my organisation? Tools such as a Decision Matrix Analysis, RAID Analysis and Proposal Evaluation Matrix may help to make a decision on whether to proceed and how.  Furthermore tools such as Gantt Charts and Critical Path Analysis helps to envisage and plan a project and the flow of activity.

source: pixabay.com

3.2 Make decisions about whether to proceed with a bid or tender
The Decision Matrix Analysis encourages review of available tools and resources,  available expertise before deciding whether to bid or tender and crucially, whether  the cost is worth the potential fee or funding. RAID Analysis helps the identification of risks, assumptions made, issues and dependencies and there is the key question  –  does this bid or tender meet the aims and objectives of my organisation? Does this bid or tender contribute to the progress of my organisation?

20 minutes

This lesson will take you approximately 20 minutes to work through, that is, if you just follow the explanations.

70 minutes

With additional reading this lesson should take you in total about 70 minutes to complete.

4 hours

With additional reading and a review of the academic articles, journal articles or advanced concepts should take you closer to 4 hours to complete.

Useful Tools

Often we make an intuitive decision to submit a bid, however sometimes you need to justify the decision to colleagues or to your board of directors. The following tools will help you make the decision whether to bid or not. It can provide you with the reasons why or why not! Do you ‘go for it’ or ‘leave well alone’. You decide……. And these tools will or may help you!

Perhaps the simplest tool of all is the Bid/ No Bid Matrix which looks at project attractiveness versus capability (staff and equipment resources needed to succeed) – it is for you to decide what ‘attractiveness’ is in this case!

The Proposal Evaluation Matrix simply considers chance of winning versus attractiveness or meeting agreed objectives. Put simply, if a project is not attractive to you, you do not have the capability or capacity to carry it out, your chance of winning are low and it does not meet your objectives –  why would you? Well, you wouldn’t!!!

matrix, network, data exchange
source: pixabay.com

'Bid No Bid' Toolbox

The ‘Bid No Bid’ Toolbox includes a range of different analytical tools, some of the analysis described you would do intuitively but here are the formal tools! They could be useful if you are asked to explain your decision-making process. The tools include the following:

  1. Bid No Bid Assessment – do we bid?
  2. Decision Matrix Analysis –  do we bid?
  3. SIS Matrix – strategic importance of supply
  4. RAID Analysis –  Roll out Plan
  5. Proposal Evaluation Matrix –  is it worth doing?
  6. Gantt Chart –  timeline
  7. Critical Path Analysis –  sequencing
further material

The following video gives you an overview on the topics covered in this lesson.