The Illusion of Certainty
You’ve sat in that bid review. Someone asks: “What’s our probability of win, 60%? 80%?” The room exhales when the number’s high. Because it’s comforting. PWin feels neat, quantitative, a safe way to reassure execs that the world is predictable. But here’s the question: does that number actually tell you if you’re going to win? Why spend time with a “PGo and PWin calculator” when you’re adding made-up numbers together to create another made-up number?
Spoiler: it doesn’t. It’s a psychological comfort blanket, not a measure of competitive reality. Teams cling to PWin the same way gamblers cling to their “due win” after ten spins on a roulette wheel. And that illusion of certainty costs money, time, and focus.
Where PWin Came From
PWin was never meant to be a capture tool. It started life in sales forecasting. Leaders needed to predict quarterly revenue, so sales teams slapped probabilities on pipeline deals, 30%, 50%, 70%, and multiplied them out. For bulk forecasting, it made sense. Over enough deals, the odds roughly balance.
But then, capture managers borrowed PWin as if it could show campaign health. “Are we on track? Should we invest more? Should we bid at all?” That’s where the wheels come off. A probability across a portfolio is not the same as a probability for one high-stakes campaign.
I’ve heard CEOs rationalise: “Four bidders, so our chance is 25%.” As if billion-pound procurements are roulette wheels with longer word counts.
The first academic use of PWin in bids was back in 1956, when Lawrence Friedman modelled competitive win rates mathematically. But Friedman’s work looked at large sets of bids, not single campaigns. Somehow, capture teams took that logic and twisted it into a litmus test for individual pursuits.
The Cognitive Traps
Once teams commit heavy resources, the PWin number mysteriously rises. Why? Sunk cost bias. “We’ve put too much in, we must be closer to winning.” That’s human psychology, not strategy. Kahneman and Tversky called it decades ago.
Then there’s the gambler’s fallacy: believing that sticking with something longer makes a win more likely. Capture teams convince themselves a win is “due,” just because they’ve lost the last three. Reality doesn’t care.
I’ve seen multi-billion-pound defence bids where teams declared 90% PWin, only to be blindsided by a competitor with a sharper position. Confidence is not evidence.
And bidder comparison matrices? Another pseudo-objective trap. They look structured: weight criteria, assign scores, colour-code the heatmap. But the judges are also the contestants. Groupthink and optimism bias creep in. You end up with numbers that make you feel good, not numbers that reflect what the buyer actually thinks.
Why Competitive Position Works
So what’s the alternative? Competitive Position. It’s blunt but honest. Forget probabilities. Ask: “Where are we on the grid?”
- Incumbent = pole position (unless the relationship is toxic).
- P1/P2 = the front row; serious contenders.
- P3/P4 = trailing, needing disruption or mistakes from leaders.
- Back of the grid = invisible, short of miracles.
This forces real conversations. Who do we need to beat? How? Where are we weak? What is the buyer really looking for? Instead of navel-gazing with numbers, you’re mapping yourself against the field.
Not a F1 analogy
No F1 team asks: “What’s our probability of winning today?” They obsess about grid position, lap times, tyre life, and strategy.
- Qualifying = pre-RFP capture. You fight for P1 or P2 before the race begins.
- Race day = live evaluation. Execution matters, but if you start mid-pack, you’re hoping for chaos, not racing for a win.
- Tracks differ. Imola has pole-sitters win two-thirds of races. Monaco, with its narrow streets and billion-pound yachts, is chaotic; winners often come from further back. Knowing the “track type” matters.
Yes, shocks happen, think Hockenheim 2019 when rain turned the race upside-down. In bids, that’s a budget cut or sudden policy shift. But those are rare. Most wins come from those who earned front-row starts and executed cleanly.
Why would you bet your capture strategy on the rare chaos?
The Cost of Chasing PWin
Clinging to inflated PWin numbers leads to wasted bid budgets, exhausted proposal teams, and missed opportunities elsewhere.
It convinces execs to keep pouring money into unwinnable bids, disrupts BAU delivery, and blinds companies to better, more winnable pursuits. PWin doesn’t guide strategy; it sedates it.
Enable’s Pit Wall Approach
This is why at Enable, we don’t talk PWin. We talk about Competitive Position.
Think of us as the pit wall in Formula One. Independent, unemotional, data-driven. We crunch the telemetry, competitor intelligence, customer insight, price-to-win modelling, and tell you where you stand.
Sometimes that means hard truths: you’re in P3 at Imola, so stop pretending you can win. Save resources for the next race. Sometimes it means spotting the opening to leapfrog a weak incumbent.
The point is objectivity. We strip away optimism bias and focus on positioning you to take the chequered flag.
There are only two PWins
In racing and in capture, there are only two PWins: 100% and 0%. Grid position matters. Lap times matter. Competitor moves matter. But the percentage on a slide deck? That doesn’t.
So ask yourself: where are you starting this race? Front row, or praying for chaos from the midfield?
References
Red Team Consulting. Bid/No-Bid Decisions and Sunk Cost Fallacy.
Friedman, L. (1956). A Competitive Bidding Strategy. Operations Research.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk.
Shipley Associates. Capture Guide (3rd ed.).
APMP Body of Knowledge. Probability of Win (PWin) definition and usage.
Formula One Statistics Database (Monaco, Imola, Hockenheim win data).