An important part of every bid is the post bid review. This should happen from two perspectives:
- Internal – with the bid team to understand what in the process worked well, what made it more difficult and the reasons for that.
- External – with the customer win or lose, the customer will tell you much more about you and your competition.
So, how soon after submission should you hold the internal review? Too early and it will be too emotionally charged to be useful. Too late and much of the learning will be lost to the part of our brains that locks away bad experiences.