Guide
What judges actually look for
Judges are usually senior practitioners doing this unpaid, at night, with forty entries to get through. Understanding those three facts explains most of what wins and loses.
They are scoring against published criteria
Almost every programme publishes its criteria and their weightings. Entries are scored criterion by criterion, which means an entry that is wonderful on one and silent on another loses to a competent entry that covers all of them.
Read the criteria before choosing the project, not after. The best project for the award is the one with evidence against every criterion, not the one you are proudest of.
They can only score what they can verify
A judge cannot award marks for a claim they have no way to check. Faced with forty entries all claiming innovation and significant outcomes, the ones that score are the ones carrying specifics: a number, a method, a date, a named standard, a measurable difference.
| Scores poorly | Scores well |
|---|---|
| Delivered significant efficiencies | Reduced the survey cycle from nine days to four |
| An innovative approach | First use of the technique on a live rail corridor in this state |
| Excellent stakeholder engagement | Fourteen consultation sessions, with the two design changes that resulted |
| Improved safety outcomes | Removed the need for twelve hours of work at height |
The four ways good projects lose
- The wrong project was entered. A better one existed in the same firm, and nobody compared them against the criteria first.
- The second-best angle was chosen. The project was right and the story was not.
- The evidence stayed buried. The winning fact was in a report nobody reopened.
- The entry overclaimed. A judge who is a practitioner spots one overstated claim and quietly discounts everything else in the entry.
On that last one
Overclaiming is more expensive than under-claiming and firms consistently get this backwards. A judge who catches you crediting yourself with an alliance’s outcome does not just mark that criterion down. They stop believing the rest of the submission.
Vagueness costs marks. Precision never does.
Start with two answers.
Send an award you are actually entering and whatever project material you already have. You get two complete answers, the case we would make, the questions we would send your team and the claims that one more fact would unlock.
Credited in full if you go ahead. If you read it and walk away, you owe nothing further.