Why You Lost the Bid – The Value of Premortems

You’ve just lost the bid. The debrief is vague, the team’s deflated and you’re not entirely sure where it went wrong.

Now imagine doing that exercise before you even started writing. Welcome to the premortem – the strategic, slightly grim practice of assuming failure in your bid submission in order to prevent it.

What is a premortem?

A premortem is a structured session that you undertake before you start work on a new bid. You start from the assumption that your upcoming bid has catastrophically failed and work backwards to identify all the reasons why.

Unlike a post-mortem (which usually comes too late to be useful, except for future bids), a premortem lets you surface risks, blind spots and assumptions before they torpedo your submission.

It’s a strategic, risk assessment technique developed by psychologist Gary Klein (Fellow of the American Psychological Society). It was originally designed to combat ‘overconfidence bias’ (the tendency to be more confident in your answers than you should be) and the ‘planning fallacy’ (the tendency to underestimate the time and resources needed to deliver the bid).

Whilst discussing potential failure can be seen as negative, the value lies in carrying it out in advance. It’s safe because no one has done anything wrong at this stage, so it’s done in an environment free from blame. And it challenges confirmation biases and groupthink early in the process.

What can premortems unearth?

Premortems help you spot risks, but they offer much more:

1. Competitive intelligence

You can identify not just why you lost, but why your competitors won. Premortems are a great way to think like your competitors to anticipate their likely advantages and use these to proactively ghost them in your strategy. Smart teams use premortems as a form of internal Black Hat.

2. Culture checks

A good premortem uncovers team dynamics, hidden silos and operational friction. If contributors are afraid to raise concerns in the session, take note – you need to understand and remedy why.

3. The illusion of incumbency

Incumbents are especially prone to optimism bias. Premortems challenge the dangerous assumption that “we’ve got this”. They can highlight areas where your competition may be hungrier, leaner, or simply better positioned to win.

How to run a proposal premortem

Here’s a lightweight structure you can use that works whether your team is meeting in person or if you’re running it online:

Step 1: Prep

If you’re running an online session, create a collaboration board in Miro or Microsoft Whiteboards as examples.

If you’re going to run an in-person meeting, then whiteboards, post-it notes and sticky labels will be useful in addition to the online board.

You could also use the ‘Mentimeter’ app, as it’s a great way to collect and collate input quickly and allows everyone present to have a voice.

Step 2: Get the right people in the room

Writers, capture leads, SMEs, pricing, commercial and legal teams, i.e. anyone who will be involved in the bid.

Step 3: Set the scene

Say this: “It’s Day 0. We’ve just been told we lost. Spectacularly. Why?”

Ask everyone to write down 3-5 reasons independently. For the in-person meeting, get them to write each one on a separate Post-it note.

Step 4: Share the reasons for failure

Ask team members to share their reasons. Go around the room, with each member sharing one reason at a time, starting with junior team members. This way, everyone gets a chance to speak.

Treat it like a brainstorm where no reason is to be dismissed. Encourage open discussion and debate among the team members to further analyse and understand the potential reasons for failure.

Step 5: Share and sort the causes of failure

Cluster them into themes, e.g. misaligned win themes, unclear value proposition, uncompetitive pricing, SME dropped out, insufficient writer experience, compliance error, rushed red review, etc.

Step 6: Prioritise by impact and likelihood of happening

Carry out a risk analysis, identifying which ones are most likely to occur and which would be most damaging if they did.

Step 7: Turn risks into action

Assign owners and build preventative actions into the proposal plan. Review your resource plan, adjust the win themes, delivery strategy and even your writing schedule and team accordingly.

Common pitfalls – How to avoid them

• Leaving it too late in the process:
  This isn’t a kick-off or lessons-learned session. Do it before the tender is issued to avoid being distracted by the clock ticking and while there is time to action your findings.
  
• Participants are too top-heavy:
  Don’t just invite senior staff. Real insight often comes from those closest to delivery.
  
• There’s no follow-through:
  The power of a premortem is in what you do with what it unearths. If you aren’t going to take action on the output, then don’t do it.

Summary

Premortems don’t guarantee success. But they give you a fighting chance of avoiding failure, which happens when teams assume, overpromise, or rush.

They offer a rare moment of honesty before the pressure hits.
So next time you gear up for a must-win bid, pause to ask: “If we lose this… what will have gone wrong?”

Then make sure it doesn’t…

Other articles you may like

Why Bid Teams Fail – and How to Prevent Proposal Chaos
Why Bid Team Training is Essential
The Secret Weapon that could Triple your Win Rate

Article published: February 2026

Back to Articles Page