Definition
A decision mode is the award standard a general contractor applies when ranking the subcontractor bids it receives on a scope package. Once the bids are leveled to one scope of work and scored, the decision mode decides which number wins: it sets what "best" means for this particular award and weighs the six scoring dimensions — price, scope, schedule, compliance, performance, and risk — accordingly. The same leveled field can produce a different winner depending on the standard you choose.
Bid Reasoner ships seven decision modes: Lowest Responsible Bid, Best Value, Lowest Risk, Schedule Priority, Scope Completeness, Budget-Constrained, and Custom Weighting. Lowest Responsible Bid leans almost entirely on price among bidders who clear compliance. Best Value blends price with scope, schedule, performance, and risk. The others tilt the weighting toward whatever the package demands — a tight calendar, full scope coverage, a hard budget cap, or a mix you set yourself.
A worked example
You have a field of nine leveled bids on an earthwork package. The low bidder comes in at $1,180,000; the next two sit at $1,225,000 and $1,260,000. Under Lowest Responsible Bid, the low bidder ranks first — the price is real and the bidder clears compliance. But that low bid carries a scope-coverage gap worth about $48,000 and a thin performance record on similar work, while the $1,260,000 bid covers the full scope and has a strong record. Switch to Best Value, where risk and scope weigh in, and the low bidder drops to third: the $1,225,000 bid ranks first and the $1,260,000 bid second, because each buys down risk worth more than the price spread. Same nine bids, two defensible orders.
Why it matters when you evaluate sub bids
On a heavy-civil package with 5 to 15 bidders, the leveled tab tells you what each bid costs for the same scope — but it does not tell you who to award. The decision mode is that judgment, made explicit. Choosing it up front keeps the award honest: you commit to a standard before you see who it favors, instead of reverse-engineering a rationale around the bidder you already wanted. It is also what you defend to an owner or a project executive later. "Lowest responsible price for the full scope" and "best value once risk weighs in" are different commitments, and the decision mode is where you record which one this award rests on.
How Bid Reasoner handles it
Bid Reasoner scores every leveled bid across all six dimensions, then applies the decision mode you select to rank the field. Switching modes re-ranks instantly, so you can see how Lowest Responsible Bid, Best Value, and Lowest Risk reorder the same bids before you commit. The four deterministic risk rules — unbalanced unit prices at or under $1.00, peer outliers above 2x or below 0.5x the peer median, total-bid outliers beyond 20%, and front-loaded mobilization over 10% of total — feed the risk dimension, and the two-way scope-coverage gap analysis feeds scope, so a mode like Best Value is reacting to real findings, not a hunch. If you override the mode's top pick, Bid Reasoner records it in a forced-override audit trail, and the rationale flows into the generated Word documents you hand up the chain.