Deal aging

Definition

How long a target has sat in the same stage without anything happening.

Why It Matters

A pipeline lies by accumulation: every target that ever entered it is still on the board, so a list of forty looks like momentum when thirty-two of them have not moved in a quarter. Aging is what turns the list back into a fact. It also decides where the next week goes, since a target untouched for two months needs either a real reason to still be live or a dead stamp. Set an age at which a target must be worked or closed out, and hold to it.

In numbers: Thirty-two of forty targets untouched for 90 days means 80% of the board is a list, not a pipeline.