A pipeline is only useful if a stage tells you what happens next. If two stages have the same next action, you have one stage and some decoration.

Using the board

1. 1

   Sort by oldest, not by value

   The point of a board is finding what has stopped moving. Highest-value first shows you what you already think about.

   Pipeline→
2. 2

   Move a card only when something actually changed

   Advancing a stage because it has been a while makes the board lie to you, and the forecast with it.

3. 3

   Close lost with a reason

   Price, timing, went with someone else, went quiet. Three months of reasons tells you which part of your funnel is leaking; three months of "lost" tells you nothing.