Forecasting & Pipeline
Read the weighted revenue forecast, understand what moves it, and find deals that still need Win Confidence.
After this lesson you'll be able to read the weighted revenue forecast, explain what moves it, and identify the deals that still need Win Confidence before the number is used in a meeting.
A forecast is the most consequential number leadership touches — it drives hiring, cash planning, and what gets promised upward. It is also the easiest number to get quietly wrong, because it fails through record drift, not through math. This lesson is about knowing the difference between a forecast you can present and one you need to send back for repair.
Forecast confidence
If
Fiscal value, status, and Win Confidence are current
Then
Treat the weighted forecast as usable.
If
High-value deals have no next step
Then
Treat the forecast as soft until owners update them.
If
A deal has no Win Confidence
Then
Treat it as a visible coverage gap until the owner updates it.
If
A number is going into a meeting
Then
Open the source records before presenting it.
How the forecast works
The forecast rolls up expected fiscal revenue across live opportunities, weighted by each deal's Win Confidence. Won revenue is locked at 100%. Open revenue and margin are multiplied by the selected confidence level, so the headline moves as deals progress instead of being rebuilt by hand.
The card keeps the math visible: weighted revenue, won revenue, weighted open pipeline, weighted margin, business-unit contribution, and confidence coverage. A missing confidence is never silently guessed; it is listed as a coverage gap and contributes nothing until the record is updated.
Vertical forecast
Can you trust it?
It's as current as the team's last update. Won and Verbal Agreement set confidence automatically. Every other open deal still needs an honest Win Confidence, current fiscal value, and current status. The coverage percentage tells you how complete that input is before you repeat the headline elsewhere.
A realistic scenario
The board number
Situation
Quarter-end board meeting is Thursday. The forecast widget says a strong number, but two of the largest deals in it have close dates that already passed and no recent activity.
Goal
Present a forecast you can defend: the headline, minus the deals whose inputs are stale, with a one-line note on what moved them out.
Proof
If a board member asks what is behind the number, you can name the top five deals, their probabilities, and their close dates — from memory of having opened them.
The click path
- Open the 2026 Won & Forecast by Business Unit dashboard and select 2026 Forecast.
- Read Weighted Revenue Forecast first. This is won revenue at 100% plus open fiscal revenue weighted by Win Confidence.
- Read Won locked, Weighted open, and Weighted margin to understand what makes up the headline.
- Scan the business-unit bars to see where the weighted forecast is concentrated.
- Check Confidence coverage and the orange notice. Open the missing deals and assign an honest Win Confidence before using the number in a meeting.
- Use the 2027 dashboard the same way when reviewing the next fiscal year.
The ask path
Confidence gaps
Stale input sweep
Trend read
Comparing periods is where the dashboards earn their keep: you see the trend, not just a snapshot. A flat headline can hide a pipeline that is churning underneath — new deals replacing slipped ones at the same total.
Common mistakes
Two more habits to avoid: quoting the unweighted fiscal pipeline as if it were the forecast, and ignoring confidence coverage. Win Confidence is still judgment encoded as a percentage — challenge it on large open deals the same way you would challenge it in conversation.
What good looks like
- You know the current weighted forecast per business unit and roughly what drives it.
- Confidence coverage is high enough for the meeting, and you know which large deals are still missing it.
- You can explain the gap between the unweighted fiscal pipeline and the weighted forecast.
- The number you present is the number in the system — no private adjustments in a side spreadsheet.
Now you try →
Open the 2026 Forecast tab and compare weighted revenue with the unweighted fiscal pipeline. Then open the confidence-gap list and identify the largest deal that still needs Win Confidence.
Related lessons: The Dashboards · Win/Loss · RFP to Win (Workflow)
Key takeaways
- Won revenue is locked at 100%; open fiscal revenue and margin are weighted by Win Confidence.
- The unweighted fiscal pipeline is not the forecast.
- Missing Win Confidence is exposed as a coverage gap and is never silently guessed.
- Forecast problems are routed back to deal owners as specific, named asks — not general cleanup requests.
Check yourself
A large open deal has fiscal revenue but no Win Confidence. How does the weighted forecast treat it?