What is a go/no-go decision in government contracting?

A go/no-go decision is a formal internal review where you score an opportunity against predefined criteria — eligibility, past performance match, competitive position, and pricing — before committing resources to write a proposal. Contractors who skip this step waste proposal budget on unwinnable bids.

What sections of an RFP matter most?

Section C (Statement of Work), Section L (Instructions to Offerors), and Section M (Evaluation Criteria) are the three critical sections. Section C defines what you must deliver, Section L tells you how to respond, and Section M reveals how the award decision will be made and with what weighting.

How do you find out who the incumbent contractor is?

Search USASpending.gov for past awards under the same contract number or agency and program office. FPDS-NG (the Federal Procurement Data System) also shows contract history. For state and local bids, check the agency's vendor award notices or FOIA the prior contract if needed.

How to Audit and Review an RFP Before You Bid

Most small businesses lose bids before they write a single word — because they didn't audit the RFP first. A structured review tells you whether an opportunity is worth pursuing, where you'll win on evaluation, and what it will cost to get there. Here's the six-step framework.

Run the compliance and eligibility gate first

Before spending a minute on this bid, verify you're eligible: your primary NAICS code matches the solicitation, the set-aside aligns with your certifications, and you're registered in the required portal. A solicitation that looks perfect can be a no-go if you don't meet a mandatory minimum buried in Section K or a subfactor in Section L. Kill ineligible bids in the first five minutes, not after 40 hours of writing.

Map every requirement in Section C

Section C is the Statement of Work (or Statement of Objectives or Statement of Requirements). Read it with a highlighter and list every deliverable, milestone, technical standard, and reporting obligation. Your compliance matrix will be built from this list — if you miss something here, you'll miss it in your proposal. Requirement gaps are the most common reason technically qualified contractors get scored non-compliant.

Decode the evaluation criteria in Section M

Section M tells you exactly how the award decision will be made. Identify each evaluation factor, its subfactors, and their relative weight or order of importance. A typical federal RFP might weight technical approach at 40%, past performance at 30%, and price at 30%. If you're weak on a heavily-weighted factor, that's your go/no-go signal — not a reason to hope the evaluators won't notice.

Assess the incumbent and competition

If there's a current contractor, find their past award data on USASpending.gov. How long have they held the contract? What did they charge? Where have they drawn complaints in past performance reviews? An incumbent's strengths become your areas to differentiate; their weak spots become your win themes. If you can't clearly articulate why you win against the incumbent, you're not ready to bid.

Stress-test your price-to-win

Estimate the independent government cost estimate (IGCE) range from past awards, GSA price lists, or market surveys. Then build your cost model from the ground up and see where you land. If your cost structure puts you 20% above the likely range on a low-price-technically-acceptable award, walk away before you spend 200 hours writing a losing bid. On best-value awards, know exactly which technical differentiators justify a price premium.

Call the go/no-go before you write a word

Set a score threshold before you start: a bid that hits fewer than four of the five gates above doesn't get a proposal. Write down the decision and who made it. The most expensive thing you can do is let a marginal bid survive on optimism. Sunk-cost bias keeps losing proposals alive long after the team knew the win probability was under 20%. A clean no-go frees your team to win the next bid.

Mistakes that waste proposal budget

Bidding without reading Section L — the instructions to offerors — and missing a required attachment, format, or page limit.
Ignoring Section H and Section I, where the real compliance clauses (FAR, DFARS, socioeconomic requirements) live.
Treating evaluation criteria as equal when the RFP weights them — a 40-point technical factor is not the same as a 10-point price factor.
Skipping the amendment log and missing Q&A addenda that changed a key requirement after the original posting.
Starting to write before calling a go/no-go — sunk-cost bias keeps losing bids alive long after the team knew it was over.

Score every bid before you commit

BidCommand scores each opportunity against your company profile — NAICS match, set-aside fit, past performance relevance — so the go/no-go decision is data-driven, not gut feel. Pull the RFP, run the checklist, and know your win probability before you open a blank document.

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