Pipeline Review

Pipeline Review

When to Use

Use this skill when the user needs to build, run, or improve a structured sales pipeline review process. Specific triggers include:

• User asks to create a pipeline review template, weekly forecast format, or deal inspection framework for a sales team
• User wants to structure a recurring pipeline meeting -- weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly -- and needs an agenda, data structure, and inspection methodology
• User needs to assess pipeline health for leadership reporting, board preparation, or QBR (Quarterly Business Review) readiness
• User wants to build a pipeline coverage model with weighted forecasting, commit categories, and scenario ranges
• User needs to implement CRM hygiene standards and wants objective criteria for flagging stalled, at-risk, or phantom deals
• User is a sales manager, VP of Sales, or RevOps leader designing a deal inspection process for a team of AEs or SDRs
• User wants to calculate pipeline velocity, identify bottlenecks between stages, and diagnose conversion problems
• User needs a forecast methodology that distinguishes between weighted pipeline, rep commit, and manager-adjusted most-likely estimates

Do NOT use when:

• The user needs post-sale analysis of closed-won or closed-lost deals -- use win-loss-analysis instead
• The user wants coaching on a single deal strategy, discovery questions, or negotiation tactics -- use sales-playbook-section instead
• The user needs to analyze top-of-funnel marketing metrics, lead sources, or campaign attribution -- use marketing-analytics-report instead
• The user is building a customer success renewal process -- renewal pipeline has fundamentally different stage logic and risk factors
• The user wants to calculate sales rep compensation or quota attainment breakdowns -- this is a separate comp modeling task
• The user needs to design a sales territory or account assignment model -- that is a territory planning skill

Process

Step 1: Gather Pipeline Context Before Building Anything

Before producing any template or review structure, ask the user to confirm or provide the following context. Do not guess -- wrong assumptions about deal size or cycle length will make the output misleading.

• Sales motion type: Are these transactional deals (under $10K, under 30-day cycle), mid-market velocity deals ($10K--$100K, 30--90 days), or enterprise complex sales ($100K+, 90--365 days)? Each requires different inspection depth and stage granularity.
• Stage names and count: How many pipeline stages exist in their CRM? What are they called? (Qualified, Discovery, Demo, Proposal, Negotiation is a common five-stage B2B SaaS model; other orgs use three stages or seven.)
• Team composition: How many AEs, and is there an SDR/BDR team feeding the pipeline? Is this a single rep review or a team-level aggregation?
• Quota structure: What is the current period quota (monthly or quarterly), how much has been attained, and how many selling days remain?
• Average deal size and average sales cycle length: These two numbers drive expected stage duration, stall thresholds, and coverage ratio targets.
• Historical win rates by stage: If the team has 2+ quarters of data, use actual conversion rates as probability weights. If not, start with calibrated industry defaults and flag that they are estimates.
• Reporting cadence and audience: A rep self-review needs different depth than a VP report to the board. Weekly team meetings need velocity data; monthly board reviews need pipeline coverage trends and forecast accuracy tracking.
• CRM health baseline: Are stage definitions enforced in the CRM, or do reps self-report stage? Is close date a required field? Is activity logging tracked? CRM hygiene gaps must be noted as a risk factor in the output.