Build a pipeline around customer decisions
Use evidence-based exit criteria
Name stages around customer progress, such as discovery, proposal review and decision, then state the evidence required to leave each. Sending a proposal describes seller activity; a customer reviewing scope and identifying objections describes verifiable progress.
Keep stages only where the team needs to take a different action. If moving between two stages changes neither the next action nor the forecast, a field may be more appropriate than another stage. Retain a clear loss reason and expected close date.
Keep stalled work visible
A Kanban card should make its owner, next action, value and deadline easy to find. Moving a card must reflect real progress rather than improve a report cosmetically. Review deals spending longer than expected in the same stage.
Start with one pipeline for one sales process. Separate pipelines when the decision cycle differs materially, such as renewal versus new business, rather than just because team names differ. Excessive pipelines complicate comparisons and can hide shared problems.
Review pipeline health weekly
Sample deals from each stage and ask for the evidence placing them there. Distinguish open deal value from realized revenue and avoid adding different currencies without a consistent conversion rule. Investigate repeated close-date changes instead of automatically postponing them each month.
Use Naffes deal views according to the question: the board for movement, the table for field review and forecasting for the coming period. A healthy pipeline improves decision clarity and ownership rather than simply displaying more cards.