A corroborated first reading of sales pipeline effectiveness at Sunshine Power, across seven capabilities and six of eight invited stakeholders. Behaviour holds wherever something checks it, and drifts or stops wherever nothing does. Of the 73 things a mature pipeline needs, 21 are fully in place, 29 are half-built and 23 are absent — and not one above Level 3 was confirmed complete.
No consultant analysis time went into producing this. Six people answered a fifteen-minute survey and the platform did the rest. This brief sets out the finding, what it costs, and what we would do about it. The full dossier holds every underlying reading, and a separate proposal sets out the next stage and its price.
The finding
Every capability was read twice — once for the artefacts a mature pipeline requires, once for whether the people doing the work still hit the problems those artefacts exist to prevent. Corroboration takes the lower of the two readings, never the average.
Both readings came back at once. 21 of the 73 artefacts are fully in place, 29 are half-built and 23 are absent — and every one of the 21 sits at Level 2 or Level 3. 40 of the 73 problems are still being reported, 19 of them at Level 4 alone.
Nothing here was abandoned. It was started, checked at the gate, and never watched again. Sunshine Power is not short of process — it is short of the thing that makes process hold: a way of seeing, between the checkpoints, whether any of it is still happening. The question is not what was bought. It is what observes it.
Read level by level across all seven capabilities. Above: how much of what each level asks for was found in place. Below: how many of that level's problems people report living with.
Not one Level 4 artefact was confirmed fully in place, 62% are absent, and nine in ten of the Level 4 problems are being reported right now. At Level 2, by contrast, every required artefact is at least started and only 14% of the problems are reported. The solid band simply stops at Level 3 — and so does the checking.
The proof
Seven capabilities down. Four maturity levels across. Within each level, one column per dimension — and within each column, the evidence reading stacked above the lived-experience reading. Nothing is summarised here; this is the assessment itself.
Dark or hatched over white, everywhere. Every Level 2 artefact is at least started and only three problems are reported. This is a defined way of working, and you have it.
Not one solid mark. Eight hatched, thirteen hollow — and nineteen of the twenty-one problems below them reported. Sales Execution is entirely hollow at this level: nothing built, nothing working.
Twenty-nine artefacts sit half-built, clustered at Levels 3 and 4. Work started, checked once, and never carried through — the largest single category in this assessment, and cheaper to finish than to start.
One row is shaded on the left: Demand and Pipeline Creation, at 1.7, which sets the firm-wide level on its own. Read it across and the pattern is unmistakable — hatched marks almost the whole way, and no problem reported until Level 4. Nothing ever signalled that it was unfinished, so nobody finished it.
Where you stand
Maturity here is non-compensatory: a pipeline is a chain of dependent activities, so a strong capability cannot carry a weak one. The band you have cleared is set by your weakest capability, not by your average. Demand and Pipeline Creation has not cleared Level 2, so the firm has cleared Level 1 — a full band below where the average would put it.
| Capability | Score | Band | Conf. | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demand and Pipeline Creation | 1.7 | Initial Pipeline Setup | 86% | Sets the floor |
| Opportunity Qualification | 2.2 | Defined Pipeline Processes | 79% | Thin evidence |
| Pipeline Foundations | 2.3 | Defined Pipeline Processes | 90% | Drift between gates |
| Sales Execution | 2.3 | Defined Pipeline Processes | 92% | Best evidenced |
| People and Skills | 2.3 | Defined Pipeline Processes | 85% | — |
| Governance and Improvement | 2.3 | Defined Pipeline Processes | 84% | No confirmed findings |
| Technology and Data | 3.3 | Consistent Pipeline Delivery | 73% | Least evidenced |
| Firm-wide, non-compensatory | 1.7 | Cleared Level 1 | 84% | |
Left, how far the evidence goes. Right, how far lived experience goes. On this reading the evidence is the binding reading in four of seven capabilities — the file is weaker than the experience, which is the opposite of what most people expect.
Only five items across all 73 have an artefact confirmed fully in place and the problem still reported. The two robust ones are both here, and both are between-gate: practice followed at the gates and worked around in between (0.79), records complete at transition and stale in between (0.75).
The mirror image. Not one Level 2 or Level 3 problem reported — no friction, no workaround, no complaint — while source recording, the coverage plan and in-period tracking all sit half-built. Nothing ever signalled it was unfinished. It scores 1.7 and sets the firm-wide level.
Same absence, two symptoms: drift where people are active, stall where they are content. Neither is people ignoring the system. Both are the system not being observed.
What kind of problem this is
Every root cause was classified by pairing the problem against what already exists to prevent it. On this reading the split is even — 20 need building, 20 need adopting — which rules out any single-track programme. Sorted by the work rather than the capability, the twenty recommendations tell you the sequence.
20 · 27%
Nothing in place and people are still hitting it. The clearest case for investment.
20 · 27%
Something exists and the problem persists. Building more will not move these.
3 · 4%
Works, but nothing protects it. A continuity risk, not a performance one.
30 · 41%
Handled and not causing problems. No action needed.
A build-only programme leaves half the causes untouched. So does a training programme. Whatever is commissioned has to do both — and the sequence matters, because this organisation demonstrably builds things and then loses them.
| What you would buy | Recs | Confirmed | The work |
|---|---|---|---|
| See between the checkpoints | 4 | 2 | Sample practice between gates, sample records between transitions, group-score live deals, compare two starters’ first months. |
| Close the loop | 3 | 0 | Track improvements to done, record an action per review finding and check it, track forecast accuracy across three periods. |
| Hold the rhythm | 2 | 2 | Deal review on cadence even when nothing is wrong; close checklist applied at stage exit. |
| Name who is accountable | 3 | 0 | A data quality owner with authority, a business-triggered change route, decisions recorded in the meeting. |
| Twelve above build the observation layer · eight below finish the artefacts | |||
| Finish or build the artefact | 8 | 5 | Coverage plan, source field, qualification information and re-check, RACI tie-break, stage criteria, capability framework, published gaps. |
| Twenty recommendations | 20 | 9 | Nine confirmed; eleven rest on an open question |
Twenty-three artefacts were confirmed absent, and nineteen of them are feedback loops: stall alerts, slippage warning, coaching records, win rate against qualification score, forecast accuracy, propagation between teams, a standing agenda that requires decisions. Everything describing how to do the work exists in some form; almost nothing that would tell you whether doing it worked exists at all. The eight builds are what the floor rests on. The twelve are what keeps them from going stale again. All twenty-three are named in the full dossier.
Limits
Confidence is 84%. This is a first reading taken quickly: defensible, and not yet settled. Eleven open questions could change a capability rating, and only 30% of the evidence is corroborated across respondents; the rest rests on a single report. That difference matters commercially, so it is stated before the proposal rather than after it. All forty-two are listed in the full dossier.
Under Technology and Data, five of six respondents said people never keep spreadsheets alongside the system. Under Pipeline Foundations, Rob S wrote that half the team runs their own tracker because the CRM view does not match how they sell.
Both cannot be true, and this one is the falsifier for the whole positioning. If Rob S is right and half the team really does run trackers outside the CRM, this is partly a tooling-fit and compliance problem rather than purely an observation one. We are naming it so you can hold us to it. Technology and Data drew the fewest responses of any capability and carries the lowest confidence at 73%. Settling it takes about two days.
| Two capabilities have no confirmed findings at all | Technology and Data (73% confidence, four of six responses) and Governance and Improvement (84%, six of six) contribute six recommendations between them, and not one is confirmed. Those two are precisely where the observation story would live — so they are where the settle week earns its fee. |
| Two stakeholders did not respond | Six of eight is a good rate and the findings are corroborated across all seven capabilities. But the two absent voices are not randomly distributed — they are absences, and we would want them in before committing to the Technology and Data reading. |
| Nothing has been settled since baseline | This is the reading as it stood on 9 August, uncorrected. Settling a question later corrects what we now believe was true on that day; it is not progress, and it will not be presented as progress at remeasurement. |
The platform's analytical priority puts Pipeline Foundations first. The written conclusion points instead at Demand and Pipeline Creation and Opportunity Qualification. Both are defensible on this reading, and that is the problem: with eleven rating-movers open and 70% of the evidence unchecked, the sequencing question cannot yet be answered on evidence.
A fixed-scope, fixed-price programme built on this reading would be priced against a picture that may not survive contact with the evidence. The proposal in part two therefore commits to one week of settling — the open questions are already listed, so it is a day and a half of work — and prices everything after that against the recalculated reading.
Recommendations
The platform produced twenty recommendations, each tied to a named root cause. Grouped by the work rather than the capability, they give a sequence rather than a list. Nine rest on confirmed findings; eleven rest on an open question.
| What you would buy | Recs | Confirmed | The work |
|---|---|---|---|
| See between the checkpoints | 4 | 2 | Sample practice between gates; sample records between transitions; group-score three live deals; compare two starters’ first months. |
| Close the loop | 3 | 0 | Track each improvement to done; record an action per review finding and check it next time; track forecast accuracy across three periods. |
| Hold the rhythm | 2 | 2 | Deal review on cadence, held even when nothing is wrong; close checklist applied at stage exit. |
| Name who is accountable | 3 | 0 | A data quality owner with authority to change the system; a business-triggered change route; decisions recorded in the meeting. |
| Twelve above build the observation layer · eight below finish or build an artefact | |||
| Finish or build the artefact | 8 | 5 | Coverage plan from what closed; source as a required field; the information behind the criteria; re-check at transitions; RACI tie-break rule; stage entry and exit criteria; capability framework; published capability gaps. |
| Twenty recommendations | 20 | 9 | Six carry priority weight; eleven rest on an open question |
| Capability | Recs | Confirmed | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pipeline Foundations | 3 | 3 | All findings confirmed |
| Opportunity Qualification | 3 | 2 | Most build-heavy capability |
| Sales Execution | 3 | 2 | Best evidenced at 92% |
| Demand and Pipeline Creation | 2 | 1 | Sets the floor at 1.7 |
| People and Skills | 3 | 1 | Thin evidence base |
| Governance and Improvement | 3 | 0 | No confirmed findings |
| Technology and Data | 3 | 0 | Lowest confidence at 73% |
| Overall | 20 | 9 | Six of the eleven open sit in the bottom two rows |
Not commission a transformation programme off this reading. Forty-two questions are still open, eleven of them could move a capability rating, and only 30% of the evidence is corroborated across respondents. A fixed scope priced against that picture would be priced against something that may not survive contact with the evidence.
The next step is short. The assessment already lists all forty-two open questions, ranked, with the eleven rating-movers flagged — so settling them is a working session with the people who know, not an investigation to be scoped. One and a half consultant days inside one week. The outcomes are recorded in the session, the platform recalculates, and a roadmap with timescales comes out of the corrected assessment to be worked through and agreed. A separate proposal sets out that week, what is warranted, and what it costs.
Sales pipeline effectiveness — assessment findings, first reading. Baseline 09 August 2026. Conducted by BIG Consultants Inc using AXAT corroborated assessment on TheAX platform; maturity calculated non-compensatory, with the floor setting the level.
Based on 6 of 8 invited stakeholders across seven capabilities, 73 evidence items and 73 problem statements, 30% of evidence corroborated across respondents. Forty-two questions remain open, eleven of which would move a rating. Overall confidence: 84%. Every reading behind this brief is set out in the full dossier.
Commercial in confidence.