A disciplined go/no-go process can still build a fragile pipeline. The matrix scores pursuits one at a time: relevant experience, staff availability, win probability, profit. Every criterion is a per-pursuit question. In 2026, the risk worth worrying about isn't one bad pursuit. It's a stack of good ones all resting on the same uncertain funding source.
The Matrix Was Built for a Stable Funding Market
The standard go/no-go matrix works because it asks good questions: Do we have relevant experience? Are the right people available? Do we know this client? Can we win, and is it worth winning? Each one is scored for a single pursuit, in isolation.
That isolation was never a problem before, because the funding behind a pursuit was stable. Through the post-2021 IIJA cycle, agency, funding source, and scope moved as one, and that chain held for five years. A pursuit's score reflected its real risk, because the ground under it didn't move.
That market is ending. With IIJA set to expire September 30 and a continuing resolution looking like the most likely bridge, the money behind a federal pursuit is no longer a fixed quantity. It's a variable, and it's a variable a lot of your pursuits now share.
The Blind Spot: Correlated Funding Risk
Here's the question the matrix doesn't ask: across every pursuit you're saying yes to, how many depend on the same money?
A firm can run a clean, disciplined go/no-go on every single opportunity and still end up with a pipeline that's 60 to 70 percent leaning on IIJA-backed programs. Each pursuit earned a legitimate "go." Each one, on its own, was a sound call. Together, they're one bet placed five times.
If that funding comes through, nothing happens. The pipeline performs. If it lapses, or freezes inside a stopgap CR, the firm doesn't lose one pursuit. It loses a quarter of its pipeline in a single news cycle, after the proposal hours are already spent.
That's the difference between scoring pursuits and scoring a portfolio. The matrix does the first. Almost nobody does the second.
Add the Concentration Check
This isn't an argument for re-weighting your criteria. The matrix is fine. The fix is a second pass that sits on top of it.
After you score individual pursuits, and before you commit the hours, run one more review across the whole active list. Tag every active pursuit, and every recent "go," by funding durability. (If you don't know a pursuit's actual funding source, that's its own problem, and a sign client research is starting too late.) The IIJA action plan breaks this into detailed scenario tiers; for a fast concentration check, three buckets are enough:
- Durable: funded by sources that hold across a pass, a CR, or a lapse: state trust funds, local bonds, private capital, recurring CIP work
- Exposed: IIJA-backed work that survives a clean reauthorization but stalls in a lapse or a long CR
- Contingent: work that only exists if specific new appropriations land
Then look at the mix.
| Dimension | Per-Pursuit Go/No-Go | Portfolio Concentration Check |
|---|---|---|
| The question | Can we win this one, and is it worth winning? | If we win everything we're chasing, what's it all resting on? |
| Unit of analysis | One pursuit | The full active pipeline |
| When you run it | Every opportunity | Quarterly, and after any major funding news |
| What it catches | Weak pursuits | A pipeline one funding decision away from a hole |
If the "exposed" bucket is most of your active list, you don't have a discipline problem. Your go/no-go calls were probably all correct. You have a concentration problem. And the answer isn't to start saying no to good pursuits. It's to deliberately find a durable-funded pursuit to balance the book, or to restructure teaming on the exposed ones so a lapse costs you less.
You'd never let a single client quietly become 70 percent of revenue. Funding source is the same exposure. It just has a less obvious label.
The Matrix Isn't Wrong. The Question Changed.
The go/no-go matrix still answers its own question well: is this pursuit worth it? That question still matters. It's just no longer the only one.
In a stable market, a stack of good per-pursuit decisions added up to a good pipeline. In this one, the same stack can add up to a concentrated one. The firms that come through the next two quarters in good shape will be the ones that noticed the difference, and started scoring the board, not just the pieces on it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is funding-source concentration in a proposal pipeline?
Funding-source concentration is the share of your active pursuits that depend on the same source of money. A pipeline where most pursuits rely on one program, such as IIJA-backed federal work, carries correlated risk: a single funding decision can affect all of them at once, no matter how strong each individual pursuit looks on its own.
How is a go/no-go decision different in a post-IIJA market?
The individual decision isn't different. You still score relevant experience, staffing, win probability, and profit. What changes is that a second review is now worth running: a portfolio-level check on how concentrated your "go" decisions are by funding source. In a stable funding market, that check was optional. With IIJA expiring September 30, it isn't.
Should firms stop pursuing IIJA-funded work?
No. IIJA-backed work is real work, and much of it will be funded under any realistic scenario. The point isn't to avoid it. It's to know what share of your pipeline depends on it, and to balance that exposure on purpose rather than discovering it after a funding lapse.
How often should you run a pipeline concentration check?
Quarterly is a reasonable baseline, plus any time there's significant funding news: a reauthorization vote, a CR, a budget deal. The check takes about an hour: tag active pursuits by funding durability, look at the mix, decide whether you're comfortable with it.
Does this replace the go/no-go matrix?
No. It's a layer on top of it. The matrix scores each pursuit; the concentration check scores the pipeline those pursuits add up to. You need both. A strong matrix with no portfolio view still lets correlated risk build up unnoticed.