Busy Is Not Agile
A misconception in this market is that a large pipeline is often viewed as a healthy one. In reality, it is the composition of that pipeline and its downstream impact on resource availability that determines whether a pipeline is healthy. In the pursuit of achieving an arbitrary dollar amount, adherence to strategy can routinely be lost. This is often a trailing indicator that appears later in underwhelming evaluation results, or in wins that provide little long term enterprise value and may actively work against it. The hidden cost of chasing a number is the strain it places on two of the most essential and limited assets within a company. Time and resources.
The ability to effectively triage a constant volume of task orders is a necessary condition for effective Task Order Management. This is the first and most important step in the process and the first test of a company’s commitment to task order culture. If the organization does not prioritize agility and adaptability, you will often find the engine overloaded long before highly valuable task orders are released. A team that is always busy may look productive on the surface, but they are struggling to prioritize competing demands.
Beyond that first step lies another truth. A full pipeline does not just consume BD resources and time, it consumes the availability of every other team that supports revenue generation. This is often overlooked. The availability of these resources is rarely protected and in a large pipeline their time is consumed by the downstream effects of filling the pipeline. Operations, Proposal, Capture, and other supporting teams all absorb the demands created by the commitments made within the pipeline.
Task orders move fast, and when all required resources are fully engaged, even if the BD team has time, the organization has failed to properly prepare for the unknown. In this situation there can be false comfort in saying everyone is busy. While factual, it is also an active pressure preventing the organization from maturing and fully leveraging its task order positions. This too is why so many companies lack curiosity or enthusiasm about their Multiple Award Schedules. It becomes easier to ignore the problem than change the organization to consistently respond.
Resource management is an undervalued part of running an effective pipeline. Filling a pipeline with unqualified opportunities that consume team resources creates an untenable environment. This is the hidden opportunity cost of unqualified opportunities consuming attention and reducing agility. Resource management supports team morale, pipeline health, and acts as the foundational element necessary for contractors to prioritize the rapid alignment of teams to task orders.
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