Pursuing the Right Projects for Your Firm and Your Team
Not every opportunity is worth chasing. This topic teaches how to evaluate fit, risk, and capacity so teams pursue work that strengthens performance instead of draining it.
Pursuing the Right Projects for Your Firm and Your Team focuses on building discipline into how opportunities are selected before momentum takes over. It helps teams move beyond reactive pursuit behavior by introducing structured qualification, clear go/no-go decisions, and honest conversations about delivery capacity, risk, and opportunity cost. Rather than measuring success by how many pursuits are chased, this topic emphasizes win quality, portfolio health, and team sustainability. The goal is fewer regret pursuits, fewer difficult wins, and more work that aligns with strategy, strengths, and long-term growth.
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my library units
If you'd like to contribute new units to the library, go to your dashboard under the "contribute to the library" tab. Complete the form for your unit, which could be an article, video, interview, prompt set, template or exercise. Choose up to two topics for each unit. Your contributions will show here under "my library units".
my group's library units
If you'd like to see your group contributing units to the library, encourage them to explore Twennie's topics and find ones they feel confident talking about. They can share within your group only, your organization only, or with the whole Twennie community.
my organization's library units
Organizations with a culture of learning are stronger and more successful. If you'd like to see your organization contributing units to the library, start by contributing yourself. Write articles and record videos on topics that interest you. If you have templates and exercises that have been useful to you in the past, share those, too. Your organization will follow your lead.
Twennie's library units
ARTICLE: When to Say No to a Project
AUTHOR
Twennie Founders
This article explores the critical skill of saying “no” to consulting projects—a challenge many firms face as they mature. While instinct and experience often guide senior leaders, newer consultants benefit from a more structured approach. The article presents a four-part evaluation framework: two “go” considerations (risk assessment and client quality) and two “get” considerations (internal capacity and probability of winning).
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VIDEO: Why Forms and Scoring in Go/No Go Decisions Sometimes Fail
AUTHOR
Twennie Founders
Forms can fail especially in a go/no go decision because they become one more administrative step, another thing to do at a juncture when you’re stretched for time, and you will notice that they rarely surface insights that matter. That’s because they take you out of the instinctive centers of the brain and into the process centers. Process is important, but at this moment in a pursuit, not as important as good instincts. This video describes an alternative to forms and scoring.
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VIDEO: Choosing What to Pursue: The Real Go / No-Go Decision
AUTHOR
Twennie Founders
Go/no-go decisions are not administrative steps; they are strategic acts of leadership. What a firm chooses to pursue—and decline—shapes its backlog, margins, culture, and long-term direction. Effective decisions go beyond scoring forms to honestly assess strategic alignment, client relationships, competitive positioning, delivery fit, financial health, and risk. Every pursuit consumes finite resources, and pursuing misaligned work erodes trust and judgment across teams.
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EXERCISE: Go No Go Spheres
AUTHOR
Twennie Founders
Many consultants try to bring discipline to business development with forms, in this case, Go/No Go checklists and scoring systems for quantifying go and get factors like the ones you read about in the article, When to Say No to a Project. Here’s the reality: most get abandoned. They’re filled out once or twice, then quietly ignored and forgotten. This exercise provides an alternative. It guides a discussion during which the team develops hypothetical go and realistic get scenarios that establish stronger go/no go instincts.
