The go/no-go call happens under time pressure and incomplete information, which is exactly the condition that produces bad decisions. You do not know the final scope, the exact owner credit, or whether the GC can actually pay. You know enough to decide — if you screen in the right order. This checklist is that order: five gates that most disqualifying issues fall under, each with the one question that should settle it, and the pass frame for when the right answer is no.
The five gates
Ordered so the cheapest disqualifier runs first. Do not price a job that fails gate two.
Gate 1 — Can we staff it?
The single question: do we have the crew (and the right trade mix) available for this schedule?
- Is the bid date inside a period your top crews are already committed?
- Does the job need a specialty trade mix you don't carry in-house?
- Can we back it with the right equipment, or only a substitution that breaks the schedule?
If you can't staff it honestly, it doesn't matter what the job pays. Walking away at gate one costs you an afternoon, not a month.
Gate 2 — Can we get paid?
The single question: is this owner/GC one we've been paid by, or one we can verify?
- Do we have a payment track record with the GC or owner?
- What does the contract say about retainage, pay applications, and when we get the first draw?
- Is this a bonded public job where we can check the surety, or a private owner whose credit we can't clear?
A job that fails this gate is a job you lose twice: once on bid day, once on a non-payment. Nothing below this line should override it.
Gate 3 — Do we understand the risk?
The single question: are the site, scope, and schedule risks we can price, not surprises?
- What does the geotech actually say about the ground we'd be installing in, and how old are the borings?
- Are there scope gaps between drawings, specs, and the RFP we haven't resolved?
- Can we price the schedule (production rate, mobilization, lead-time) or is it owner-imposed with no float?
Risk you can see and price is a cost line. Risk you can't see is how you win a job and bleed out on it.
Gate 4 — Do we win at a price we'd sign?
The single question: is there a number between "we win" and "we'd sign it"?
- Is the project type and size a fit for our capacity and our rate position?
- Are the competitors we'd likely face the ones we can be sharper than?
- Does the upside of the win justify the downside of the risk we carry?
If the only way to win is a price you wouldn't stand behind, it's a no — regardless of how good the job looks.
Gate 5 — Does it fit our strategy?
The single question: is this the job we want next?
- Does it build a referenceable project or a relationship we want?
- Does it push us into a trade mix we can't sustain, or grow us where we're already strong?
- Is the margin profile worth the cash and the calendar we'd commit?
The Canadian Construction Association's go/no-go guidance is explicit that many of these answers come from a formal RFI or a simple phone call to the GC — you do not need to price everything to know whether a job fits.[1] The Construction Management Association of America frames the same discipline around capacity, capital, risk, and return: can you staff it, can you fund it through a setback, are there owners or site factors that break the deal, and does the upside justify the downside.[2] That structure is exactly what this checklist operationalizes, in the order that costs you the least.
The pass frame — this list is a feature
A healthy go/no-go process produces no-go answers on purpose. Every bid you decline early is capacity you've freed for the bids you should win. The tool that surfaces a WEAK fit, a risk you'd rather not carry, or an owner you can't get paid by is not failing you — it's telling you the honest answer faster. The same structure that flags a "go" also flags a "no," and both are worth having.
What this looks like as a scored screen
A structured screen does not replace your judgment; it makes it faster to apply. The output of a bid-intelligence pass on a set is a bid-fit score (STRONG / MODERATE / WEAK) plus risk flags and auto-RFIs, all cited to source, so you can run these five gates against the actual set instead of against memory.
Here's that screen on a sample project — the Phoenix Convention Center Foundation Retrofit in our sample library (illustrative, not a real customer):
| Gate question | What shows up in the screen | Go / No-Go lean |
|---------------|------------------------------|-----------------|
| Can we staff it? | Interior, 14 ft headroom; only low-headroom restricted-access rigs fit; production drops to ~6 piles/shift; 2-crew parallel needed | GO — fits specialty, but plan crews now |
| Can we get paid? | Public owner; GC/owner credit not in the flags | GO — with normal checks |
| Do we understand the risk? | Borings dated 2019 with structural revisions since; casing lead-time 4-6 wks vs 90-day window; utilities not located under slab | GO — but RFIs, order casing at NTP |
| Can we win at a price we'd sign? | Bid-fit STRONG; estimate $1.42–1.58M; drivers are rig mob, casing material, parallel crews, third-party testing | GO — priceable, within the pass band |
| Does it fit our strategy? | Seismic retrofit work aligns with reference standards we already work from | GO — referenceable |
The two flags that would otherwise stall this bid — empty "length below cut-off" cells in the pile table and a conflict between assumed and existing subsurface condition — surface as exactly the RFIs you'd send before bid day.[3] That is the go/no-go screen working: it doesn't tell you to bid; it gets you to the honest answer faster, with the source at hand.
The checklist you can run today
1. Staff it — crew + trade mix + equipment for this schedule.
2. Get paid — owner/GC track record, retainage, first draw.
3. Understand the risk — geotech currency, scope gaps, schedule priceability.
4. Win at a price you'd sign — fit, competition, upside-vs-downside.
5. Fit your strategy — reference value, sustainable growth, margin.
Run them in that order. The first two cost you an afternoon. The last three cost you the reading time to answer honestly. And if a set is too big to read and screen all five in the time you have, that's the moment to book a demo and watch a structured, cited pass happen on a real bid package.
Sources
[1] CCA — "Bid Go or No Go" bulletin (cca-acc.com). Treating the decision as a disciplined, revisitable review; many answers come from a formal RFI or a phone call.
[2] CMAA — "Navigating Construction Risks With the Go-No-Go Process." Four gates: capacity, capital, risk, return.
[3] Phoenix Convention Center sample — BidCertain sample library (illustrative).