Stage probability

The chance that a deal at a given stage is eventually won, measured from closed deals or, more often, left at a CRM default.

DefinitionThe chance that a deal at a given stage is eventually won, measured from closed deals or, more often, left at a CRM default.

Stage probability is the weight applied to a deal in a weighted pipeline. Measured properly it is, per stage, deals that reached the stage and were won over deals that reached it and were decided, over the trailing four quarters, with stalled deals counted as lost. In most CRMs it is a default nobody tested, and the measured figures usually differ from the defaults by twenty points or more at late stages. See pipeline coverage versus weighted pipeline.

How it is computed

For each stage, deals that reached it and were won divided by deals that reached it and were decided, over four quarters, with stalled deals counted as lost.

Example

The CRM default for proposal is 60 percent. Measured on the team's own deals it is 35.

Where it goes wrong

Defaults used. Weighted pipeline is then an exact-looking figure built on five numbers nobody tested.

Articles that use this term

Forecast and pipeline

Pipeline stage definitions: exit criteria that make a weighted forecast mean something

Why a stage-weighted forecast is only as good as the stage definitions, what an exit criterion is, five stages with criteria a rep can verify and a manager can audit, how to check from the CRM that deals in a stage actually meet its criteria, the stage probabilities derived from the team's own history rather than set in a workshop, and the versioning that keeps last year's pipeline comparable.

16 Sept 20262 min read Territory, capacity and quota planning · Consulting and advisory

Sold work against the bench: matching pipeline to the people who will deliver it

How a consulting or advisory firm reconciles its sales pipeline to delivery capacity by practice and by month: sold and weighted-pipeline hours against available hours from the roster, the months where sold work exceeds the bench and the months where the bench exceeds sold work, and why the two failures need opposite responses from the same report.

16 Sept 20262 min read Forecast and pipeline

Pipeline coverage vs weighted pipeline: what is the difference, and when each one lies

Pipeline coverage and weighted pipeline are two ways of asking whether there is enough pipeline to make the number. Coverage divides unweighted in-period pipeline by the target and compares the multiple to one over the win rate. Weighted pipeline multiplies each deal by a stage probability and compares the sum to the target directly. This page sets out both, computes them on the same ten deals, shows that they agree when the stage probabilities are the team's own measured rates and disagree when they are defaults, and says which to use for what.

17 Sept 20264 min read