Shifting left in tendering: Avoiding last-minute bid stress with Tania Field
Building a smoother bid process rarely comes down to working harder at the end. It comes down to moving the work earlier, while you still have time to think, make decisions properly and bring the team with you.
Shifting left is the simplest way I know to describe a better bid rhythm. Instead of letting everything pile up at the tail end, you deliberately pull the work forward. Not all of it and not perfectly, but enough that the last stretch stops being a scramble and starts being a controlled finish. It’s a mindset shift as much as it is a planning tool, because it asks you to stop treating the end of the bid like the place where decisions get made.
Why The End Of The Bid Gets So Ugly
Most bid teams don’t plan to be chaotic. They just fall into habits that create chaos. The early weeks feel roomy, so the work that feels annoying or fiddly gets parked for later. Then it arrives, and suddenly you’re trying to finalise forms, mandatory criteria, CVs, org charts, legal positions, commercial inputs, and approvals while you’re also trying to write, review, and polish the actual submission.
The result is predictable. Stress spikes. Quality drops. People get short with each other. The bid manager becomes a traffic controller. Everyone is busy, but not everyone is moving in the same direction.
Shifting left is a way to stop that pattern before it starts.
What Shifting Left Actually Means
This is not about being early for the sake of it. It’s about being deliberate about what can be moved forward, because some parts of a bid do not need to live in the final week.
Mandatory criteria, standard forms, insurances, declarations, baseline compliance checks, early drafts of CVs, org charts and the pieces that do not change much from bid to bid are often the easiest wins. If you can get those done earlier, you remove friction later. You also create space for the work that does need late attention, like client nuance, solution shaping and the final narrative.
In a chat with Tania Field, Principal Tender Specialist here at Tender Plus, she said shifting left isn't a single moment at the start. It’s continuous. Every time you make a decision early, you remove a future roadblock. Every time you delay a decision, you create a future bottleneck.
Decisions Are The Real Deadline
Most teams think the deadline is submission. The real deadline is decision-making.
If the bid team is still debating key positions late, everything downstream suffers. Writing stalls. Reviews become circular. Approvals get rushed. People start changing things because they are nervous, not because the change improves the bid.
Shifting left is about pulling decision points forward. It’s about asking earlier: what do we need to lock in now so the rest of the team can move with confidence? That might be commercial assumptions, legal positions, partner inputs, resourcing, or the story you are going to tell. The earlier those are clear, the smoother the production becomes.
The Human Part Matters More Than The Gantt Chart
You can have a beautiful plan and still have a messy bid if the team is not aligned.
Shifting left works best when the team is involved early, not just informed. People need context, not just tasks. They need to know what good looks like, what the expectations are and what happens if something slips. When you bring people into the decision-making early, you create a duty of care. People feel accountable because they were part of the process.
It also changes the emotional tone of the bid. Instead of everyone bracing for the final sprint, the team starts to feel like the work is under control. That is when you get better collaboration, better judgement and better writing.
The Usual Pain Points Are Predictable
Every bid has its own quirks, but the pain points are often the same.
Commercial and legal input tends to arrive late, especially if it is treated as a final check rather than an active part of shaping the bid. CVs and org charts get tweaked at the last minute because someone senior suddenly wants a different name in a box. Small changes ripple. One CV change can trigger a cascade of updates across schedules, capability statements, and role descriptions.
Shifting left does not eliminate those issues, but it reduces the damage. If you have early versions in place, you are adjusting, not inventing. If you have early agreement on governance steps, you are progressing.
Governance Works Better When It Is Planned Early
Approvals are not an admin detail. They are a milestone, and they can derail a bid if they are left too late.
Shifting left means aligning governance earlier in the timeline. Knowing who needs to sign what, when they are available, what information they need to feel comfortable and how long it realistically takes. It also means being honest about your organisation's internal rhythm. If your leadership team only meets on certain days, or if approvals require a sequence, you plan around that rather than hoping it will work out.
When governance is planned properly, the bid stops being a last minute negotiation with your own business.
The real benefit of shifting left is not just less stress. It is better work.
When the pressure is spread out, the team has room to think. Reviews become useful instead of reactive. People can focus on quality rather than survival. The final week becomes a controlled finish, not a rescue mission.
Shifting left is not a magic trick. It is a discipline. But if you want bids to feel more sustainable, and you want your team to do their best work without burning out, it is one of the most practical changes you can make.
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[00:00:51] Deb: So you're back with me on Chasing the Win Tanya Field principal tender specialist here at Tender Plus. I know we're not alone in [00:01:00] experiencing the dynamic of tenders where it just feels like. Everything just pulls to the end. You come to the end of a bid period and it's just intense and there's too much to do and things are left to the last minute, and it's just a stressful, pressurised end of bid experience.
[00:01:25] And you've chatted to me over the years and, and written pieces on this concept of, of shifting left. So that's really what I wanted to explore with you today. What is that concept? How does it apply to a bidding context and, and what are the practical things we can do to shift the process left in order to even it out over time?
[00:01:50] How did this pop into your mind that this was what we needed to do, we needed to move in a left direction?
[00:01:56] Tania: Well, I guess probably firstly, a lot of my thought leadership [00:02:00] pieces or blogs come from the experiences of bid and probably the buildup of those experiences. And I think the biggest kind of central inspirational thought or statement that came from this is that someone said, you're a masochist.
[00:02:16] Um, you're, you're a bidder, therefore you're a masochist. And I sat there with it for a while and thought about it and I went, well, actually, I'm not a masochist by nature. I'm also not a hero in a bidding environment because a lot of people get celebrated for their ability to just go through like the, not the, the trauma sounds awful, but just like the intensity of a bid.
[00:02:40] And I thought a lot about that because that is not of my doing and it's not my intention to be in that space. Mm-hmm. But I will a hundred percent stay with you on the ride and I'll make sure you get to the end. Yeah. So how do we start to think about changing some of those behaviours and practises and, [00:03:00] and how do I use my position to advocate for a better outcome?
[00:03:03] So therefore, shift left was born from that. The essence of shifting left is very literal. It's moving things to the left. So if you think about a bid timeline, going from left to right, what can I bring forward and get done earlier? Or how can I think at every point on that timeline as to what I need to reprioritize or reposition?
[00:03:27] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:28] Tania: Um, in order to pivot and adapt.
[00:03:30] Deb: So it's not just shifting left to the beginning of the process, it's also along the process on a day to day or a week to week, what do I have to reprioritize? So it comes first,
[00:03:42] Tania: correct.
[00:03:43] Deb: Oh, I didn't realise the duality of that.
[00:03:45] Tania: Yeah. Well, I think fundamentally your job as a major submission manager or a leader at any point in time is always looking at how the team is taking.
[00:03:56] Care, having a duty of care for your team and the resources under your [00:04:00] control and how to help kind of lift them out of certain aspects or kind of bring the team and the scrum onto a particular duty, first and foremost, getting it done, creating a smoother path for the, for the rest of the bid.
[00:04:14] Deb: Yeah.
[00:04:14] Tania: And I don't think a lot of leaders always consider that we sort of set and forget.
[00:04:19] We walk away and, um, and we certainly don't resource for a bid where most of the work occurs in the last two weeks.
[00:04:28] Deb: Okay.
[00:04:28] Tania: So we have a static number of people the entire time, and therefore that assumes a, a cycle or a structure that is flat the whole time with an even amount of output and effort. But if we're starting to get real about this, we need to really think about, well, you know, if you were smart about it, you'd bring a whole heap of people in at the end to help with the heavy lifting.
[00:04:51] But that doesn't work in a bid.
[00:04:53] Deb: No.
[00:04:53] Tania: Because then you just brought heaps of people in that don't understand the subject matter.
[00:04:56] Deb: Yeah.
[00:04:56] Tania: And that completely aren't aligned to the strategy and you don't have time to [00:05:00] upskill them.
[00:05:00] Deb: Yeah.
[00:05:00] Tania: So the concept of ship shiflet and I, I need to sort of qualify this. I'm not Robinson Cruso on that particular term.
[00:05:09] It has been used in probably
[00:05:12] Deb: tech industry. It
[00:05:14] Tania: absolutely, it's like a, it's a, I think like an agile process or something. Yeah. So, but it, it's out there
[00:05:20] Deb: and it applies nicely in the bid context.
[00:05:22] Tania: It it does. Um, but also probably other organisations have used it prior to me. Yeah. I just needed to try to start to, I guess, conceptualise it and think in theory in practise, how does it work?
[00:05:33] How can you apply it?
[00:05:34] Deb: So let's explore that.
[00:05:35] Tania: Yeah.
[00:05:35] Deb: In practise, how does it work and how can we apply it?
[00:05:38] Tania: Yeah. So if we are trying to flatten the curve, it's about how do you make good use of your resources the whole way through. Therefore, if you're looking at it from a writing perspective, what returnable schedules can you get done and dusted pretty early on?
[00:05:53] And by that, I'd say think about mandatory criteria. That's pretty straightforward. Forms. Yeah. [00:06:00] Forms that, that sort of stuff that doesn't change too much from bid to bid.
[00:06:03] Deb: Yep.
[00:06:03] Tania: There's a, a slight tension there. 'cause sometimes that usually involves a commercial person, a commercial and legal person by nature is always just gonna say, you're
[00:06:11] Deb: always the one leaving
[00:06:13] Tania: it to the end of the bid.
[00:06:14] Go away. I'm busy. Yeah. I'll talk to you in, you know, 10 weeks time.
[00:06:18] Deb: Yeah. I'll talk to you the night before the bid stew. Thanks very much.
[00:06:22] Tania: A hundred percent. And I think we need to start to have those conversations where those people need to right at the
[00:06:27] Deb: beginning,
[00:06:27] Tania: need to play ball with us and, and come at the front.
[00:06:30] Deb: Yep.
[00:06:31] Tania: So there are aspects of the commercial legal stuff you don't know till the end. I'm not talking but about
[00:06:35] Deb: that. But there's lots, you know, at the beginning,
[00:06:36] Tania: a hundred percent. Yeah. So I'm gonna challenge that kind of brick, brick wall answer you often get.
[00:06:42] Deb: Yeah.
[00:06:42] Tania: So from a writing perspective, it's that stuff.
[00:06:44] Um. I'll give you another example. It's CVS and org charts. Mm-hmm. There's always a desire to drag that one out for the longest time, but in reality, that takes a lot of time to produce and produce well.
[00:06:57] Deb: Yep.
[00:06:57] Tania: It's often an afterthought, the cvs. [00:07:00] So I, I would challenge people to start to make earlier decisions about teams, but
[00:07:04] Deb: it's going to help them in so many other ways as well.
[00:07:07] You bring the organisational chart, actual finalisation and decision making left. Yeah. Earlier in the process. Then that informs your commercials, that informs your workforce planning, that informs your actual approach In methodology. It informs so much, and yet I agree with you, it is either not started early enough or the final decisions on it aren't made until three days before the bid.
[00:07:34] And then, and then you're just in a race to catch up.
[00:07:37] Tania: You are.
[00:07:37] Deb: And then when you have made those decisions on org chart, that's fine. A few people here and there might change, but at least if we've got 80% of people identified, the ones you know aren't gonna change and you work on them early, it gets that noise out of the way
[00:07:53] Tania: it does.
[00:07:53] Deb: Yeah.
[00:07:54] Tania: And I completely concur a thing. I often say to my team, I'm okay to wear the sort of 15 to [00:08:00] 20% of changes.
[00:08:01] Deb: Yep.
[00:08:01] Tania: So if that means we're riding five cvs, five get chucked out, and we're riding five new ones,
[00:08:07] Deb: fine.
[00:08:07] Tania: I'd much prefer that than doing the whole 30 cvs in one go. Yeah. So I've at least got 25 nailed.
[00:08:16] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:16] Tania: Reasonably well, and I did it early, and that's because I relentlessly chased us getting those decisions done. So
[00:08:23] Deb: part of that is because, and we're just going to, you know, violently agree with each other throughout our conversation, but part of that is also because people don't appreciate how much time and stakeholder management actually has to go into talking to each and every one of those people.
[00:08:38] Tania: Absolutely.
[00:08:39] Deb: Um, you have to actually position them to understand why their CV is being put forward. Some people aren't yet with your organisation and you need to, um, deal with the confidentiality of that process. Some people have a CV that reads, like they wrote it on the back of a napkin and you need to build it out because you can't fit much on the back of a napkin.
[00:08:59] And [00:09:00] we need detail. So they're time consuming. Yes. They're becoming more and more automated, but still everything has to be contextualised and humans need to be engaged with. And they've got day jobs.
[00:09:13] Tania: Yeah.
[00:09:13] Deb: And we need to bring them into the fold.
[00:09:15] Tania: Exactly. And even if, I guess you're alluding to, I guess if AI is assisting more with cvs
[00:09:21] Deb: Yeah.
[00:09:22] Tania: You've still got new people coming into the mix. You might be on a consortia JV bid and you can't use one system, you can't use system parties can't use. That's
[00:09:29] Deb: exactly right.
[00:09:30] Tania: And the criteria will be written differently every single time. That's it. So you're still reframing the, the context of it.
[00:09:36] Deb: Yep.
[00:09:37] Tania: Aligning it back to the strategy.
[00:09:39] Deb: Yep.
[00:09:39] Tania: Probably you've got a mugshot for a photo of, of someone which is highly undesirable
[00:09:44] Deb: because, you know, selfies at the pub really don't good on those cv.
[00:09:49] Tania: That's unfortunate. Yeah. And then you're trying your very best to elevate
[00:09:52] Deb: and you're giving the graphic designer conniptions because Exactly.
[00:09:55] Yeah. The passport shot doesn't cut it either.
[00:09:58] Tania: Absolutely. [00:10:00] But
[00:10:00] Deb: yeah. Um, and, and joke jokes aside, those decisions on people made early actually allow more room for change.
[00:10:10] Tania: I agree. And I think the key, um, guts to this is if you sit on the fence, you'll get splinters. Yep. So get off the fence, make a decision and accept that there's a, a variance of around 10 to 15% in any of your decisions.
[00:10:26] Deb: Yep.
[00:10:26] Tania: I get that. That is, to do
[00:10:27] Deb: something
[00:10:27] Tania: has a greater enormity in terms of price. Yeah. That's, that's a harder discussion.
[00:10:32] Deb: Yep.
[00:10:32] Tania: But in anything you've done, you need to move forward effectively. Yep. And that's to unlock. 50 other processes that are running in parallel. So,
[00:10:43] Deb: so decision making is part of that shifting left process as well.
[00:10:47] So what else, what else
[00:10:48] Tania: in terms of if you're planning the bid, it's really having that tender, um, programme or timeline down pat. Um, it's roles and responsibilities, getting all of that stuff [00:11:00] done really early on. Um,
[00:11:01] Deb: so just let me stop you there. Roles and responsibilities getting done. What about getting people to agree to them and being accountable for them?
[00:11:10] When does that happen? Should that happen actually before the bid even comes out? Like, are we shifting left even prior to the documents here?
[00:11:17] Tania: Wonderful. If that, I mean, utopia. I think so. I think probably on a, a single bidder, a single organisation bid much easier. Yes. Consortia bid, probably not,
[00:11:29] Deb: not as easy.
[00:11:30] Tania: Exactly. Unless you're moving from an EEO I into an RFT phase. So you've already know that
[00:11:35] Deb: form.
[00:11:35] Tania: Yeah. That's probably Then it's irrelevant because you're formed. Yeah. But then it's what is the change in that dynamic, the newer people that need to get added into it?
[00:11:43] Deb: I have worked with organisations, I know you have two where they actually have done six months of, at least six months of pre-planning.
[00:11:51] So if you were to inject this concept of shifting the bid left in there, agreeing roles and responsibilities, getting your scope really clear [00:12:00] at that point in time with that 10 to 15% variance, starting to agree who the core people are that are going to be seen on the bid, put into the bid. Mm-hmm. Um, even starting to agree on, on imagery, on brand, on some of the content you're going to bring to the team.
[00:12:20] Mm-hmm. I mean the more we can shift left into that period of time, the better.
[00:12:23] Tania: Yeah. You and I have both seen the outcome of that.
[00:12:28] Deb: Well,
[00:12:28] Tania: particular example,
[00:12:30] Deb: 200% increase in footprint on service delivery. That's what it leads to.
[00:12:35] Tania: I mean that does,
[00:12:36] Deb: success
[00:12:36] Tania: is utopia of an organisation. Yeah. That has the foresight and also investment recognising investment opportunity in planning a bid 12 months in advance of it coming out.
[00:12:50] It's unreal.
[00:12:51] Deb: Yeah.
[00:12:51] Tania: But yeah. But I, I guess I concur with what you're saying. As much as you can shift left outside of that, I guess, uh, release e [00:13:00] eeo I tender release to the actual lodgement.
[00:13:02] Deb: Yeah,
[00:13:03] Tania: absolutely. How do we soften that? I guess that cliff or that kind of hill that you're climbing at the end Yeah.
[00:13:11] To, to kind of just make it a bit more even keel. Because I guess from my perspective, I'm also thinking about it as the sustainability of the profession and people sticking around.
[00:13:21] Deb: Yeah.
[00:13:21] Tania: Because that sort of fatigue that you get from this type of lack of decision making, it wears people out and focus, um, on work when you have the most energy at the start of the bid.
[00:13:35] Deb: Mm.
[00:13:35] Tania: Saving it to the end when people have decision fatigue, probably care factor is less than when you started out. It's a no brainer from my perspective. And also I want people to stick around in the profession. Yeah. But, you know, I think that's a symptom of burnout. Yeah. This, this kind of lumpy big bid cycle.
[00:13:53] Deb: Yeah. So harness, harness that energy, that enthusiasm, that newness, that [00:14:00] excitement for the beginning of a bid to get, I was gonna say a rude word, to get stuff done.
[00:14:05] Tania: Yeah.
[00:14:06] Deb: As, as early as possible. So we, we talked content, some content we talked CVS and organisational decision making. You said the bid programme roles and responsibilities.
[00:14:17] What else fits in this shifting left of within the process?
[00:14:21] Tania: Well, I'm gonna say I think we talked about decision making and pivoting. That is the whole way through. Um,
[00:14:26] Deb: yeah. Describe that a little bit more for me.
[00:14:28] Tania: Well, for me, I would constantly use my bid team check-ins. Mm-hmm. Which is probably a minimum of two a week.
[00:14:38] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:38] Tania: Um, to, I guess, survey the team as to how they're tracking. It's about de-risking the process.
[00:14:44] Deb: Yep.
[00:14:45] Tania: Probably recognising that there is, let's say a particular returnable that is 50 pages long that we have no hope in hell of, of getting real, I guess, action on for until the end of the bid.
[00:14:58] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:58] Tania: So what am I gonna [00:15:00] reprioritize focus on?
[00:15:01] So if that person has that particular schedule, I'm gonna then move them onto something else where someone else is overloaded.
[00:15:07] Deb: Yep.
[00:15:08] Tania: So I'm constantly looking at my team and how they're, I guess, coping. In the dynamic
[00:15:15] Deb: Yeah.
[00:15:16] Tania: Of getting access to subject matter experts. Yeah. Of just life in general impacting them.
[00:15:21] Deb: Yeah.
[00:15:21] Tania: And how I can best support them through that experience.
[00:15:24] Deb: It's something you can bring to the leadership of the members of the bid too, though. I mean, you know, just moving away from the bid, the bid submission team, you know, there are people that focus on the wrong things right at the beginning of the bid.
[00:15:36] They're distracted by the bright shiny objects at the beginning of the bid. What would you want them to focus on first? What is it that, that you think they just forget about and leave to the end that would really help even out that peak towards the end if they were willing to actually take note of it earlier?
[00:15:55] Tania: Yeah. I don't think it's one single thing, Deb. I think we've done [00:16:00] a fair bit of work recently to really reposition how, um, and I mean everyone uses a different traffic light system or a set of gates during a bid.
[00:16:09] Deb: Mm.
[00:16:09] Tania: We of course use bronze, silver, and gold.
[00:16:11] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:11] Tania: And I think it's how you use a bronze effectively.
[00:16:15] And, and from that perspective, it's having everyone in the room together and on the same page as to their understanding of a question.
[00:16:22] Deb: Okay.
[00:16:23] Tania: And therefore they on,
[00:16:25] Deb: on what it means and how we're gonna answer
[00:16:27] Tania: it. Absolutely. Okay. Because that says to me, okay, alignment has been achieved. In one scenario. I had one, one person say to me, if only I'd known that that was actually going to be the outcome, I would've actually paid more attention earlier for me, we were jumping up and down on that very aspect, but the reality was is that
[00:16:46] Deb: they couldn't hear you,
[00:16:47] Tania: but they also at point, weren putting themselves in the position of the subject matter expert.
[00:16:51] They weren't. Right. Yeah. So it comes back to getting the right people around the table and probably having a very constructive discussion around the [00:17:00] question in itself. And recognising, you know, what do you have on paper already that you can actually achieve in that.
[00:17:08] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:08] Tania: And what requires more, um, kind of work Yeah.
[00:17:12] To get to the end.
[00:17:12] Deb: Yeah.
[00:17:13] Tania: So that for me is, but
[00:17:14] Deb: also agree, agreed. Definition
[00:17:16] Tania: a hundred percent
[00:17:17] Deb: on, on what each word actually means. A
[00:17:19] Tania: hundred
[00:17:19] Deb: percent. So that you never get to a point at the end
[00:17:21] Tania: Yeah.
[00:17:21] Deb: Where someone's reviewing the document and going, we've answered the question incorrectly.
[00:17:25] Tania: Yeah.
[00:17:26] Deb: Yeah.
[00:17:26] Tania: Because, you know, and, and I'm in a live bid having the same conversation where someone's telling me that's not my interpretation of the criteria.
[00:17:35] Deb: Yeah.
[00:17:36] Tania: And we're at a silver position.
[00:17:38] Deb: We should have defined that
[00:17:39] Tania: earlier. And we had, we had had that earlier. You had to find that
[00:17:41] Deb: earlier.
[00:17:42] Tania: I mean, and this is, you're constantly onboarding new people into the process in large scale bids.
[00:17:47] Deb: So part of the shifting left, but also part of the 10 to 15% is knowing when to then re-litigate what you shifted left. So it might be in the organisational context. Yes. We have to change out those three people. [00:18:00] But in the example you just gave, it's actually no, this was agreed. The majority have agreed on it.
[00:18:06] It is the way we're answering the question. And although I appreciate your input, that's been decided a lot earlier and we're too far to change that now. So there are things you will tweak and there are things you won't, what do we call it? That's not the hill. I'm, that's not the hill I'm gonna die on.
[00:18:19] Tania: Absolutely.
[00:18:20] Deb: For this speed. I'm not, I'm not having this argument with you that's already been determined.
[00:18:24] Tania: I feel like you've also just taken me back to my HSC where I had started answering the question probably incorrectly, but I had to keep going in a certain vein, and it's not the right analogy, but I think you're so far into something, you've, you've already had a fairly good socialisation of it.
[00:18:45] You have to accept that people have already done a lot of the thinking. Yes. And you've gotta sit in that space. Yes. And then just play as a team and lean into it and go Right.
[00:18:54] Deb: Get to, and get to the end in an even keeled way, rather than, we've been using a lot of boat [00:19:00] analogies, but rather than rock the boat,
[00:19:01] Tania: no.
[00:19:01] Deb: So. What are the other aspects of the, of, of shifting lift?
[00:19:06] Tania: Uh, well a big part of it is learning what to shift. Right.
[00:19:09] Deb: What to shift, right?
[00:19:10] Tania: Yeah. I guess in my experience, when you are going into another bid team meeting with everyone all in sundry, and if you keep saying, but where is that schedule? It's still red.
[00:19:22] Where is it? And that person says, I can't do it until such a date because I don't know these five factors being
[00:19:28] Deb: accept it.
[00:19:29] Tania: Exactly. Right. Okay. And so a big, big part of that is about recognising that very early on and taking that central piece of noise out Yeah. Of the machine.
[00:19:40] Deb: Yeah.
[00:19:40] Tania: And ring fencing it.
[00:19:41] Yeah. And saying, okay, at this point in time we come back to that thing. We agree a timeline From that point forward to
[00:19:48] Deb: Launchment, it has its own, it has its own little timeline percent and it probably has its own decision making that's shifted left within its own little timeline.
[00:19:56] Tania: Exactly. And I guess my, my biggest, [00:20:00] I guess, advice in that space is that you shouldn't be doing that to everything.
[00:20:05] It is, um, I guess by exception. And it's a very small number that you recognise and you shift. Yeah. Because it is probably creating a bit of anxiety and stress and you are constantly asking for something that can't be achieved.
[00:20:20] Deb: But that, that would apply to the, that would apply to the review process as well, wouldn't it?
[00:20:24] Like there's gonna be, there's gonna be those returnables that, you know, there's no point in senior management with a finite period of time allocated to them to even look at this, to look at those documents. At this point of time, they are the ones we are actually gonna move. Right. And then here are the documents we're gonna move really early in the piece to just get them out of the way to review that aren't going to change, that aren't going to win you the bid.
[00:20:49] Tania: Yeah. And in taking riffing off that point. Reviewers should be shifted to the right. Those that are of a very senior level [00:21:00] who need to see something more fully formed, they need
[00:21:03] Deb: to see a 90%
[00:21:04] Tania: document. 'cause if they come in too early, it also can change the dynamic of a bid team and the focus when they start to, because rightly so, they probably become concerned Yes.
[00:21:16] Around probably the lack of what they're saying in terms of capability of a solution.
[00:21:21] Deb: So interestingly, so we've got some documents, some returnables are gonna have to shift, right? Because, um, they are reliant on other decision making. They are reliant on other information. But then we actually have returnables that have to shift all the way to the left because they're the bid winning returnables.
[00:21:38] Mm-hmm. So really, you know, those really senior level reviewers need to be strategically involved very early on, on particular returnables so that there's no surprises at the end.
[00:21:50] Tania: A hundred percent it's not pricing, but I think it's probably things around the actual technical solution in some regards.
[00:21:56] Deb: Yep.
[00:21:56] Tania: And to that point, you can also use that as a, a [00:22:00] submission lead strategically when you're not getting action on certain things. So bringing people in early
[00:22:06] Deb: Yep.
[00:22:06] Tania: To sort of, cause not a, this sounds manipulative a sense of alarm, but it's also
[00:22:12] Deb: we can be, sometimes we need to be, sometimes
[00:22:14] Tania: well, well, I think it's best bid, right?
[00:22:16] Deb: Yep.
[00:22:17] Tania: You want people to lodge a strategic, compelling, compliant bid. Yep. And you want them to lodge it. Yep. Full stop.
[00:22:23] Deb: Yep.
[00:22:24] Tania: And so sometimes you need influence
[00:22:27] Deb: and you need to create a sense of urgency for particular returnables.
[00:22:30] Tania: Yeah. Especially where there is, uh, a flow on impact that schedule has, is uniquely intrinsically linked to a whole bunch of other things.
[00:22:38] Yeah. So it's a bottleneck schedule potentially. Exactly.
[00:22:42] Deb: Yeah. I think there's something underlying this shift left that we haven't touched on yet, and that's this concept of long hours as a badge of honour. Do you see this mechanism of shifting left as a way to get people to move away from. That perspective.
[00:22:55] Tania: Yeah. It's a sole intention. My position is wanting people to stay [00:23:00] in the career as long as possible so it's sustainable. Um, so that's from the bid and proposal professional side of things, but it's also all of the teams that you bring in on a bid.
[00:23:10] Deb: Mm.
[00:23:10] Tania: And the social capital that you burn every single time.
[00:23:13] When you put people in that environment and an organisation should be aware of that and be managing it carefully. Yeah. Because it has such a negative flow on impact.
[00:23:24] Deb: Yeah.
[00:23:24] Tania: It also destroys that opportunity when you bring people in, which I think are really beautiful niche moments in their career where they get to be part of those tenders projects, you know, from their day-to-day job.
[00:23:36] They're kind of fun. It is that team spirit environment.
[00:23:40] Deb: Mm.
[00:23:40] Tania: And if they get burnt by that experience, they're less likely to lean in or
[00:23:44] Deb: Yeah.
[00:23:44] Tania: Tell other people to lean in on them.
[00:23:46] Deb: Yeah.
[00:23:47] Tania: They sort of have a bad rap for themselves. Yeah. So I think the, the intent behind it is of course to flatten the curve.
[00:23:55] It doesn't assume that you're not gonna get out of, [00:24:00] sometimes a a longer day is expected
[00:24:02] Deb: here and there,
[00:24:03] Tania: but that is exactly what happens in any other job.
[00:24:06] Deb: Yep.
[00:24:06] Tania: But
[00:24:07] Deb: we want it a smoother cycle. There's an expectation you'll be working hard. We work on bids, we work hard, but it has the potential to remove that badge of honour.
[00:24:17] Tania: I'd probably like to challenge that. We kind of go to a probably more of a, an equal curve where you start low, you go to a peak, you come down at the end.
[00:24:27] Deb: Okay.
[00:24:28] Tania: So that, you know, you've done
[00:24:30] Deb: Oh, I like
[00:24:31] Tania: that in, you're in the middle of the cycle where you're doing all, you're heavy lifting and leaning in where you more energy and you still have the energy.
[00:24:36] Yeah,
[00:24:37] Deb: yeah. Right. Yep.
[00:24:37] Tania: Because a lot of the aspect of bidding, I think is about treating your body as an athlete. So Okay. It's being really, um, kind and considerate with nutrition, sleep, all of that sort of stuff. And so therefore training is not, you know, being able to do that in
[00:24:54] Deb: a not lumpy
[00:24:55] Tania: kind of a Exactly.
[00:24:56] Right. In a cycle that's probably has more regularity to [00:25:00] it.
[00:25:00] Deb: There's one more aspect that I just wanna touch on, um, in terms of how you think it can shift left and that's governance and approvals. What do you reckon?
[00:25:09] Tania: Yeah. Well, I strive really hard to know those answers immediately in a bid I'll sit down.
[00:25:16] Um, usually in the programme that I put together, I say, tell me when the approvals are needed for each of the organisations.
[00:25:22] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:23] Tania: And fundamentally, just from a timeline perspective, I'll use the gates around those times because that's an efficient use of a a, a milestone. It's less of, I haven't invented a sixth milestone.
[00:25:35] I've basically still got three milestones that are aligned to natural approval dates.
[00:25:40] Deb: Yeah.
[00:25:40] Tania: So it works in favour, but then it's also about knowing if there's a bunch of people that have to sign a form, which they
[00:25:47] Deb: still do,
[00:25:48] Tania: it's, it's finding that person that supports possibly the person who's gonna sign the piece of paper.
[00:25:53] 'cause they're usually a CEO level or above.
[00:25:55] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:56] Tania: And it's making sure that there's a date in the diary Yeah. Where that, that [00:26:00] approval will occur.
[00:26:00] Deb: An unmovable date in the diary where you will be available to sign this bid form.
[00:26:06] Tania: And that's exactly right. 'cause a lot of those people are probably travelling overseas.
[00:26:10] Deb: Yep.
[00:26:11] Tania: And they're uncontactable at most times. Yep. And it's unfair to expect them to just turn on a dime.
[00:26:16] Deb: Yeah.
[00:26:17] Tania: So,
[00:26:17] Deb: so really defining who is involved in the governance process, what the milestones are in the governance process. And when you've got, you know, three or four parties making, try to, trying to get them to marry them together to some extent.
[00:26:30] And then, as you say, not overlaying another one, but us bringing in a, a submission timetable that meets that. And then defining what the approval requirements are and getting it in diaries as early as possible.
[00:26:44] Tania: The planning process is way more important than people give it credit for
[00:26:49] Deb: in bids. Yeah.
[00:26:49] Tania: Yeah.
[00:26:50] And I think it's probably the silent party in some respects. Yeah. Um, because people can't see, it's not visible.
[00:26:56] Deb: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:56] Tania: But there should be enough time spent on it [00:27:00] to take advantage of natural occurrences mm-hmm. In a bid bid timeline.
[00:27:05] Deb: Yep.
[00:27:06] Tania: And just kind of set the tone, um, and stick, stick to those milestones as much as possible because you don't wanna be changing, changing dates, eroding, trust, all of those sorts of things.
[00:27:17] So the planning part of it is an essential part of shifting left.
[00:27:21] Deb: If you were to sum up the philosophy of shifting left as to how will it benefit the proposal managers that are listening to this, how will it benefit, ultimately the bid dynamic as a whole?
[00:27:34] Tania: I think it's just a steady flow. An opportunity to do your best work.
[00:27:39] Um, take advantage of energy, manage social capital. Just, just to treat resources well over that time and appreciate there's a, there's a real opportunity and a, a benefit in doing these projects. Let's make it a great experience for people.
[00:27:58] Deb: Wholeheartedly [00:28:00] agree. Thank you very much.
[00:28:01] Tania: Thank you.
