Sales forecast

Value times stage probability, summed over open deals. The assumption underneath is that your stage probabilities are drawn from enough closed history to mean something, and that the deals currently in the pipeline resemble the ones that history was built from.

When either assumption fails — a new segment, a new price point, a quarter with three deals — the number is arithmetic performed on a guess. Still worth computing, as long as nobody treats it as a measurement.

Three predictable ways:

• Concentration. One deal worth half the pipeline makes the weighted total a statement about that deal, not about a portfolio.
• Age. A deal that has sat in one stage for five months carries the same probability as one that arrived yesterday, and it should not.
• Stage inflation. If advancing a stage improves the forecast, the forecast will improve. Stages defined by evidence rather than sentiment is the only defence.

A single forecast number invites a precision it does not have. The useful presentation is the weighted total alongside the raw open value and the count of deals — three numbers that between them show whether the estimate rests on many small deals or a few large ones.

Compare it against the same figure a month ago rather than against target. Movement in a forecast is information; the level mostly is not.

The SalesShift forecast is the weighted sum of open deals — each deal's amount multiplied by its stage's win probability — reported per stage alongside the deal count and the unweighted total, so the concentration is visible rather than hidden inside one number.