Resource
Opportunity architecture
Designing the project logic before the market has fully named it.
In infrastructure consulting, responding to requests for proposals is one way to win work. Originating projects is another — finding where a genuine need, a way to fund it, and a capability you hold all meet, and shaping that intersection into a clear, fundable, deliverable offer before the brief exists.
Done well, it does not create a single project; it reveals a repeatable model. Most firms agree it is worth doing — far fewer do it systematically. This is a short method for changing that, and a worksheet to run it on a live opportunity.
The premise
The intersection
Governments and communities have needs. Funders have instruments. Firms have capabilities. Where these intersect, there are projects — long before anyone writes the brief.
The mechanism
Synthesis: finding, shaping and making an opportunity legible, then qualifying whether it is fundable, deliverable, repeatable and ownable.
Get the worksheet
A two-page worksheet: a one-page proposition template — need, capability, finance and the offer — and a four-test rubric to qualify it.