Whoa Nellie: rein in the scope before the bid side quests begin

You decide to bid.

Fine.

Except within days, what looked like a manageable tender has quietly become a month-long odyssey of rabbit holes, rework, and roundabout conversations that weren't on anyone's plan.

This is what happens when a firm commits to a bid without first committing to a strategy. And nowhere does it play out more expensively than in professional services panel tenders, where the scope of what you could bid for and what you should bid for are often worlds apart.

The 'bid for everything' trap

A government or corporate panel tender drops. It covers ten service categories. Your firm has a strong track record in three of them, passable credentials in two more, and negligible experience in the rest.

A partner says: "We should go for all of it."

And so the side quests begin.

Someone is dispatched to find examples for categories where the firm has barely any track record. Someone else hunts down CVs for people who've just resigned, or writes up experience that's being stretched well past the point of credibility.

Meanwhile, the categories where the firm genuinely shines aren't getting the attention they deserve, because everyone is busy plugging holes elsewhere.

This isn't a bid strategy. It's a scavenger hunt.

It happens in law firms bidding across every area of law in scope. It happens in accounting firms stretching to cover advisory categories their practice isn't really known for. It happens in consulting and engineering firms that see a large panel and want a seat at every table.

The details differ; the side quests look remarkably similar.

"Write it all up and we'll see how it looks"

This instruction deserves its own paragraph, because it's responsible for a remarkable amount of wasted effort in bid teams everywhere.

'Write it all up' feels decisive. It feels like momentum. A call has been made.

What it actually does is outsource the hard thinking (what do we actually want to win, and why?) to the document itself.

The problem is that a bid written without clear strategic intent rarely reveals anything useful when you finally 'see how it looks.' What you tend to see is a lot of words that don't hang together, because there was no thread to hang them on in the first place. Good bid writing follows strategy. It doesn't create it.

Scope discipline is a competitive advantage

Reining in the scope of a bid isn't defeatist. It's often the smartest thing you can do.

A focused bid that makes a compelling case for the two or three categories where your firm is genuinely well-placed will almost always outperform a sprawling submission that tries to paper over thin experience with volume.

Evaluators see through it. And even when they don't, winning work you're not equipped to deliver creates a different set of problems.

Before a single word gets written, the bid team should have clear answers to a few basic questions:

Which categories are we genuinely competitive in? Not 'we've done something adjacent once,' or ‘Jo has a bit of early career experience in X’ but substantively competitive, with relevant track record, appropriate capacity, and a pricing model that works.

What's the cost of chasing everything? If marginal categories consume time and energy that should go to your strongest ones, you're trading your best shot at a win for your worst.

What does the client actually want?

If the tender signals a preference for depth and specialisation, a broad-brush bid may count against you before evaluation even begins.

Most sophisticated consumers of professional services recognise they won’t get an ‘all-in-one’ from one firm.

Would you take your Merc to the panel beater who ‘specialises’ in ‘ALL MAKES & ALL MODELS’ or the Mercedes specialist?

Who's going to do the work? Bidding for volume you can't resource isn't a BD strategy; it's a capacity constraint problem in waiting.

When someone insists on bidding anyway

Sigh.

Sometimes the decision to bid broadly has already been made and isn't up for debate. A partner wants it. A client has asked. There are politics or optics involved.

If you're in that position, the best you can do is be transparent about the tradeoffs. Document the go/no-bid reasoning.

Get alignment on which categories are prioritised and which are essentially 'best endeavours’ treatment.

Build a timetable that reflects reality, not optimism.

And make sure whoever is asking for everything understands what that request actually costs in time, effort, and opportunity cost from other work. Not mention the impact on bid team morale.

Scope creep before the bid starts is avoidable.

A clear upfront strategy, even a simple one, is what stops a manageable tender from becoming a month of side quests, wild goose chases, and work that never needed doing.

So, before the tender gallops away with your team's time: hold your horses, agree on your scope, and bid where you can actually win.

Happy bidding!