Pipeline

# Pipeline > **A pipeline's job is not to make you feel good about your forecast. Its job is to tell you the truth.** Pipeline is a truth-enforcing control skill for active sales opportunities. Use this skill when you need to: - identify which deals are truly advancing vs sitting idle - detect stalled or fake-active opportunities - enforce stage discipline - surface the few deals that need attention this week - improve forecast accuracy by cleaning pipeline pollution - turn a messy deal list into a pipeline you can actually trust This skill does NOT: - find new targets (use `@dpetcr/prospect`) - qualify a single engaged contact from scratch (use `@AGIstack/lead`) - write or structure formal proposals (use `@dpetcr/proposal`) - redesign your full sales process from zero --- ## Pipeline vs Lead These skills handle different layers of the sales process. | | Pipeline | Lead | |---|---|---| | **Scope** | Many active opportunities | One engaged opportunity | | **Question** | "What is the health of my whole deal flow?" | "Should I keep pursuing this person?" | | **Input** | Deal list, stages, dates, next steps, values | One prospect, reply history, buying signals | | **Output** | Health diagnosis, priorities, pipeline actions | Qualification score, next action | | **Focus** | System truth and control | Single-opportunity judgment | **Typical flow:** 1. `@dpetcr/prospect` filters who is worth pursuing 2. outreach happens 3. `@AGIstack/lead` judges engaged opportunities 4. **Pipeline** manages the whole active book 5. `@dpetcr/proposal` supports formal closing progression Use **Lead** for one opportunity. Use **Pipeline** for the full active system. --- ## What This Skill Does Pipeline helps: - identify stalled deals - detect stage pollution - find unsupported forecast optimism - surface which deals need action now - spot weak next-step discipline - reveal where the pipeline is unhealthy - recommend clean-up actions that improve control Pipeline is not a design lecture. It is an operating view for active opportunities. --- ## What to Provide Useful input includes: - deal or account name - current stage - owner - last activity date - next scheduled step - expected close timing - deal size or value - blockers or risks - notes from recent conversations The more concrete the pipeline data, the more reliable the diagnosis. --- ## Standard Output Format PIPELINE HEALTH ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Status: [Healthy / Warning / Critical / Broken] BREAKDOWN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Hygiene: [Strong / Weak] — [one-line reason] Stagnation: [Low / Medium / High] — [one-line reason] Balance: [Healthy / Uneven] — [one-line reason] Forecast Credibility: [High / Medium / Low] — [one-line reason] TOP 5 TO ACT ON NOW ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1. [Deal] — [why it matters now] 2. [Deal] — [why it matters now] 3. [Deal] — [why it matters now] 4. [Deal] — [why it matters now] 5. [Deal] — [why it matters now] STALLED / FALSE-ACTIVE DEALS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - [Deal] — [days inactive] — [why it no longer looks truly active] - [Deal] — [days inactive] — [why it no longer looks truly active] STAGE RISKS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - [Stage] is accumulating stalled deals - [Deal] appears over-advanced for the evidence available - [Deal] has no credible next step - [Forecast] is inflated by weak late-stage deals IMMEDIATE ACTIONS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1. [Action] 2. [Action] 3. [Action] WORKS WELL WITH ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - `@dpetcr/prospect` for pre-contact filtering - `@AGIstack/lead` for single-opportunity judgment - `@dpetcr/proposal` for formal deal progression If user provides a small pipeline, include deal-by-deal detail. If user provides a large pipeline, summarize first, then expand only the top-risk and top-opportunity deals. --- ## Core Truth Principles - A deal without a real next step is weaker than it appears. - A stage name means nothing without stage evidence. - A stale deal is not active just because it still exists in CRM. - Forecast quality comes from honesty, not optimism. - Pipeline control is about truth, not comfort. --- ## Heuristic Health Assessment When user asks about overall pipeline health, assess these dimensions: ### Hygiene Look for: - deals with no recent activity - vague or missing next steps - close dates that look arbitrary - old deals still sitting in active stages ### Stagnation Look for: - stages where deals enter but rarely exit - deals aging without visible movement - repeated follow-up with no real progression - “still alive” deals that show no buying behavior ### Balance Look for: - too much weight in early stages - too many late-stage deals with weak evidence - weak pipeline replenishment - an unhealthy mix of deal age and stage position ### Forecast Credibility Look for: - close dates unsupported by current behavior - advanced-stage deals lacking stakeholder movement - proposal/late-stage deals with no scheduled next step - pipeline value that depends on fake-active deals Use these dimensions as judgment aids, not fake precision. --- ## Review Routes Use these default routes: **Advance** - deal has momentum - stage evidence is real - next step is clear **Recover** - deal may still be viable - momentum has weakened - action is needed quickly **Watch** - deal is not dead, but not worth heavy effort this week **Downgrade** - stage is too optimistic for the evidence - move deal back to a more honest stage **Close Out** - no credible momentum remains - remove from active forecast and stop pretending --- ## When to Use Pipeline Use this skill when: - you want to review the health of an active deal book - you need to find stalled or fake-active deals - you want to know what deserves attention this week - you need a more honest forecast view - you need to clean up stage discipline Do not use this skill when: - you are still selecting targets before contact (`@dpetcr/prospect`) - you are judging one engaged opportunity (`@AGIstack/lead`) - you need proposal help (`@dpetcr/proposal`) - you need broad sales-process consulting rather than pipeline control --- ## Execution Protocol (for AI agents) When user provides pipeline data, follow this sequence: ### Step 1: Parse Pipeline Extract: - deal names - stages - owners - last activity - next steps - values - expected close timing - blockers ### Step 2: Detect False Activity Identify deals that look active in name only: - no recent activity - no real next step - late stage without supporting evidence - close date based on hope rather than movement ### Step 3: Assess Health Review: - Hygiene - Stagnation - Balance - Forecast Credibility ### Step 4: Surface Top 5 Pick the 5 deals that most deserve attention now: - biggest upside with real recoverability - biggest forecast risk - biggest stage-discipline issue - biggest next-step urgency ### Step 5: Assign Route For each key deal, recommend: - Advance - Recover - Watch - Downgrade - Close Out ### Step 6: Produce Actions Return: - overall pipeline status - main risks - top 5 priorities - concrete actions for this week ### Step 7: Handoff When Needed If a deal needs one-opportunity judgment, suggest `@AGIstack/lead`. If a deal is ready for formal closing progression, suggest `@dpetcr/proposal`. If user is still filtering targets before contact, suggest `@dpetcr/prospect`. --- ## Activation Rules (for AI agents) ### Use this skill when the user asks about: - pipeline health - stalled deals - forecast reliability - stage discipline - deal-book review - what needs attention across many active opportunities ### Do NOT use this skill when: - the task is pre-contact filtering - the task is single-lead qualification - the task is proposal writing - the task is a non-sales workflow unless explicitly reframed into active opportunity control ### Ambiguous cases If pipeline is mentioned but the user may mean a general workflow, ask: "Are you asking about a sales opportunity pipeline, or a different kind of process?" Proceed as Pipeline only if the context is active opportunities and stage control. --- ## Quality Check Before Delivering - [ ] Health status is clear - [ ] False-active deals are identified - [ ] Top 5 priorities are justified - [ ] Stage risks are explicit - [ ] Forecast credibility is addressed - [ ] Actions are concrete - [ ] Handoffs to related skills are used when helpful --- ## Boundaries This skill supports active opportunity control for sales pipelines. It does not replace: - legal or compliance review - finance approval logic - CRM administration - hiring, onboarding, or delivery workflow design - ethical judgment about forecast reporting Adapt outputs to your actual sales motion, stage definitions, and operating rules.