Weekly Pipeline Review Template

A standing agenda and a defined data set for a weekly pipeline review. The purpose of the structure is to stop the meeting becoming a status update: the data is prepared beforehand, so the time is spent on decisions rather than on reading records aloud.

What this is for

Most pipeline reviews run long because they start with everyone finding out what the pipeline says. If the data is prepared and circulated first, the meeting can be about what to do rather than about what is true.

When to use it

When the review regularly overruns
When most of the meeting is spent on updates rather than decisions
When the same stalled deals are discussed every week with no resolution
When different people arrive with different numbers

Prepared before the meeting

Circulated the day before, so nobody reads it for the first time in the room:

Movement since last week: what progressed, what slipped, what closed
New entries added
Anything untouched beyond the agreed threshold
Stage-by-stage totals, with the change on last week
Items with a date in the past
Items missing required information

The agenda

Movement, five minutes. What changed. No discussion, just the picture.
Slipped and stalled, fifteen minutes. Only items that moved backwards or have not moved. Each one gets a decision: a next action with an owner and a date, or closed out. Nothing stays on the list undecided for a second week.
New entries, five minutes. Brief, factual, so everyone knows what has come in.
Decisions needed, ten minutes. Items where someone needs a resource, an introduction or a judgement from the room.
Actions, five minutes. Read back, with owners and dates.

Where it usually goes wrong

Reading the pipeline aloud. If the data was circulated, it does not need narrating. This is the single biggest cause of an overrunning review.

No decision on a stalled item. A deal discussed three weeks running with no decision is a deal nobody wants to close out. Force the choice.

Updating the CRM in the meeting. Corrections made in the room and not recorded are lost. Update before, not during.

Everything on the agenda. A review covering every open item is a status report. Cover exceptions.

What good looks like

The meeting ends on time. Every stalled item leaves with a decision. The pipeline after the review matches the pipeline in the system, because the updates were made beforehand. Nobody brings their own version of the numbers.

Related resources

What Is Pipeline Maintenance?

Keeping a pipeline current enough that the reporting off it can be trusted.

What Is Role Based Support?

A named person in an ongoing role, recruited for the experience the role needs.

Operations Support vs Hiring Internally

Cost, speed, cover and control, and the circumstances in which hiring directly is the better answer.

Who prepares your pipeline review?

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