Pipeline Health

Pipeline Health

Overview

An open pipeline is healthy only if deals are actually moving through it. A pipeline can look reassuring at a glance — a large total value, a comfortable multiple of quota — while actually being a graveyard of deals nobody has touched in six weeks. This skill turns "how's the pipeline looking" from a vibe check into a repeatable read: stage velocity against a baseline, explicit stalled-deal detection, and a coverage ratio that distinguishes real momentum from stale inventory.

This skill covers pipeline health as read from the CRM alone — deal stage, amount, age, and activity recency. It does not follow a deal's proposal or quote artifacts outside the CRM; for that handoff (quote sent → proposal sent/viewed/signed → deal marked closed-won), use the quote-to-close-tracking skill, which builds on top of this one's stalled-deal detection.

Anti-triggers

• Working deal records — searching, creating, updating, or reporting on deals, stages, amounts, and forecast categories is the CRM's own surface; use hubspot-deals or salesbuildr-opportunities. This skill judges whether the pipeline those records describe is actually moving.
• Contact and company records behind a deal — use hubspot-contacts or hubspot-companies.

Discovering available tools first

Never assume HubSpot (or any specific CRM) is connected just because it is the primary CRM this pack is written against. Before pulling any deal data:

1. Call conduit__search_tools with a query like "list deals" or "pipeline" to discover which CRM connector is actually live for this org, and the exact tool names it exposes (they follow <vendor-slug>__<tool_name>, e.g. hubspot__list_deals, hubspot__search_deals).
2. If more than one CRM is connected (uncommon, but possible during a migration), ask which one to scope to rather than silently picking one.
3. If discovery returns no CRM connector at all, stop and say so — there is no pipeline to assess without a CRM. Do not fabricate deals or degrade to a generic answer.

Never fall back to guessing a tool name speculatively — an unrecognized tool call is a worse failure mode than asking the user which CRM they use.

Key Concepts

Stage-velocity norms

Every pipeline has an implicit "how long should a deal sit in this stage" expectation, even if it's never been written down. In the absence of an org-documented norm, use recently closed-won deals (last 90 days) to establish a baseline: average days spent in each stage before advancing. Compare currently open deals against that baseline — a deal sitting in a stage 2x (or more) longer than the closed-won baseline for that stage is a early-warning candidate, distinct from a hard stall (see below).

If fewer than roughly 5 closed-won deals exist in the lookback window, there isn't enough sample to trust a computed baseline — say so explicitly and fall back to a generic MSP-sales rule of thumb (discovery/qualification: 1–2 weeks; proposal/quote sent: 1–3 weeks; negotiation: 1–2 weeks) rather than presenting a thin-sample average as authoritative.

Stalled-deal detection

A stalled deal is defined by inactivity, not merely by time-in-stage — a deal can sit in "Negotiation" for three weeks with active back-and-forth and be perfectly healthy, while a deal with no logged activity in 14 days is a problem regardless of stage. Default staleness threshold: no logged activity (note, call, meeting, email) in 14 or more calendar days, and no future task/follow-up scheduled. State whichever threshold was actually applied if the operator asks for something other than the default.

Rank stalled deals by a combination of dollar value and days since last activity — a $60,000 deal stalled for 10 days deserves more attention than a $2,000 deal stalled for 30.

Pipeline coverage ratio

Coverage = total open pipeline value ÷ revenue target for the period. A target may come from a documented quota (if the CRM or a connected source exposes one) or a user-supplied figure; if neither is available, report raw pipeline value and state plainly that a coverage ratio couldn't be computed without a target.

Raw coverage overstates health because it counts stale deals at full value. Report a quality-adjusted coverage figure alongside raw coverage, discounting stalled deals (per the detection above) by 50% — a pipeline that looks like 3x coverage but is half stalled deals is not actually 3x covered.

Degrading gracefully with no CRM connected

If conduit__search_tools returns no CRM connector, do not attempt a degraded pipeline report from other tool families (a PSA is not a substitute for a CRM here) — state plainly that pipeline health cannot be assessed without a connected CRM, and stop. This differs from optional-signal degradation elsewhere in this pack (e.g. warm-lead-routing falling back to CRM-only signals when intent tools aren't connected) — a CRM is the one required input for this skill specifically, not an optional enrichment.

Common Workflows

Full pipeline sweep

1. Discover the connected CRM via conduit__search_tools (see above).
2. Pull all open deals: name, amount, stage, pipeline, close date, creation date, associated company, and owner.
3. Pull the most recent logged activity date per deal (note/call/meeting/ email) and any scheduled future task.
4. Establish the stage-velocity baseline from closed-won deals in the last 90 days (or fall back to the generic rule of thumb — see above).
5. Flag stalled deals (14+ days no activity, no future task).
6. Compute raw and quality-adjusted pipeline coverage if a target is available; otherwise report raw value only and note the missing target.
7. Return the sweep: coverage summary first, then stalled deals ranked by value and staleness, then any deals with a past-due close date (a forecast integrity problem worth flagging alongside stalls).

Single-deal health check

1. Discover the connected CRM.
2. Pull the specific deal's stage, amount, age-in-stage, and last activity.
3. Compare age-in-stage against the stage-velocity baseline for that stage.
4. Report: on-pace / slow / stalled, with the evidence (days in stage vs. baseline, days since last activity) shown, not just the verdict.

Error Handling

No CRM connector discovered

Say so explicitly: "No CRM connector is available through the gateway, so there's no pipeline to assess." Do not fabricate deals or a coverage figure.

CRM connected but no revenue target available

Report raw pipeline value and stalled-deal findings normally; state plainly that a coverage ratio could not be computed without a target, rather than inventing or assuming one.

Too few closed-won deals to establish a stage-velocity baseline

Say so, and fall back to the generic MSP rule-of-thumb thresholds stated above rather than presenting a thin-sample average as if it were reliable.

Multiple CRMs connected

Ask which one (or whether to run and merge both) rather than silently picking one.

Best Practices

• Treat "no activity" and "long time in stage" as related but distinct signals — report both, don't collapse them into one number.
• Always show the threshold or baseline actually used, so a sales manager can sanity-check or override the read.

Related Skills

• Quote-to-Close Tracking — follows a stalled or healthy deal's proposal/quote artifacts outside the CRM to find exactly where in the handoff chain it's stuck
• Warm Lead Routing — upstream of this skill, for deals that haven't yet been created in the CRM