What a gate is — and what it is not
A gate is not a meeting. It is a recorded decision that authorises movement from one stage of the pursuit to the next, supported by defined evidence, taken by an accountable authority and ending in a clear disposition: go, conditional go, defer or stop. Conditions attached to a "conditional go" stay open as controls until they are closed or explicitly accepted.
Without that discipline, gates become status updates, and the real decisions happen in corridors.
A gate model that covers the whole journey
Governance usually focuses on the bid/no-bid decision and stops there. The costly failures happen later, so the gates should run from the first lead to the first change request after contract:
- Lead readiness — is there enough information and strategic relevance to invest in qualification?
- Pursuit qualification — should we pursue, based on a qualification scorecard, risk scan, feasibility and capacity?
- Pursuit mobilisation — is the bid team named, planned and resourced?
- Solution baseline — is the solution complete, feasible, costable and differentiating, with assumptions and risks recorded?
- Commitment readiness — is the proposal authorised for external commitment, with compliance matrix, price model and approvals?
- Contract readiness — can we sign the negotiated obligation, including deviations, supplier terms and liability?
- Delivery acceptance — has delivery accepted the signed baseline and its obligations?
- Change authorisation — should a post-contract change be implemented, or treated as a new opportunity?
Proportional, not bureaucratic
Not every opportunity deserves eight formal reviews. Classify pursuits by value, risk and novelty, and scale the evidence and the approving authority accordingly. A small renewal might combine gates and use a lightweight checklist; a large, novel, multi-supplier deal gets the full treatment. Proportionality is what makes teams accept governance rather than work around it.
Make responsibilities explicit
A standard RACI often blurs the roles that matter most in presales: who verifies the solution and who signs off the commercial position. Extending the model to show verification and sign-off separately makes it clear who checked the work and who is accountable for committing the organisation to it.
The handover gate matters most
The single most valuable gate is often the one most teams skip: delivery formally accepting the signed baseline. A short, structured handover — contract, final proposal, obligations, assumptions, risks and client commitments — and an explicit acceptance by the delivery owner prevent the most common source of margin erosion: discovering after mobilisation what the bid team promised.
Measuring whether it works
Track a few measures: win rate by pursuit class, margin at handover versus margin at month six, the number of conditions open at signature, and change requests caused by presales assumptions. Review them on a regular management cadence and adjust the gates, not just the people.