Moving a deal from stage to stage, end to end

The stages of a stage change#

1. Trigger — somebody drags a card, edits the deals sheet, or asks the Assistant to advance the deal.
2. User or external event — nothing external happens; this is an internal decision about a record you already hold.
3. Authentication and workspace resolution — the workspace is entered first, so the rules are evaluated against your deal and not against a row that merely shares an identifier.
4. Ingest or request — move is called with the target, from whichever surface asked. All three surfaces call the same one.
5. Canonical record — nothing is written yet. The deal is read as it currently stands, including value, counterparty and any review flag.
6. Reasoning — the stage rules are evaluated: ordering, the evidence the target stage assumes, authority over commercial terms, and whether the target is terminal.
7. Knowledge, memory and rules — where the move depends on a commercial term, only a grounded one counts; an invented figure is refused rather than accepted as evidence.
8. Autonomy and approval — the move itself needs no approval. If the missing piece is a decision, raise_for_review puts the deal in Needs You instead of forcing it through.
9. Action through a provider — none for the move. Any message the new stage implies goes out separately, under its channel's autonomy.
10. Result — the stage is written and the card sits in its new column, or the move is declined and the card does not move at all.
11. Relationship, timeline and memory — the change appears on the person's timeline, so the relationship shows commercial progress next to conversations.
12. Audit, usage and Needs You — the decision log records what moved, who moved it and under which rule, including refusals, because a refusal is a decision.

What each outcome does#

The side effects worth knowing about#

A new commitment

Most forward moves imply a next contact. It arrives in the follow-up queue with a channel and a reason; identical timing for the same person is treated as one row.

A demo, where the stage is about one

Requesting, scheduling, completing and cancelling a demo are their own verbs, because a demo is a commitment with a time rather than a state of mind.

A changed recommendation

The next best action reads the stage, so advancing a deal changes what is suggested next — usually within the same view.

Nothing said to the customer

A stage change is internal. If the customer should hear something, that is a message and it passes the ordinary gates.

Retries, ordering and what is safe to repeat#

• A declined move writes nothing, so repeating it is harmless and equally useless until the missing thing is supplied.
• A permitted move applied twice is the same stage twice: the second is a no-op on the record but still an audit entry, which is the honest way round.
• Moves are not reordered. A deal that skipped a stage did so because the ordering rule allowed it, not because two requests raced.
• Reopening a closed deal is an ordinary move subject to the same rules, and it is deliberate rather than accidental.

Proving the move did what you wanted#

1. Check the column and the card's value together.

   Result A move that changed the stage and lost the value is visible immediately and nowhere else.

2. Open the follow-up queue for that person.

   Result The implied commitment is there with a reason, or it is not — and a missing next action is the most common quiet failure of a forward move.

3. Read the timeline entry.

   Result Commercial progress reads in sequence with the conversations that caused it, which is what makes a handover to a colleague possible.

4. Read the decision log entry, especially after a refusal.

   Result It names the rule, which is the difference between 'the board is broken' and 'this deal needs a figure nobody has agreed'.

Questions#

Related#

• Stage rules and refusals
• The pipeline board
• Creating an opportunity, end to end
• Closing a deal: won and lost
• The deal would not move stage
• The next best action on a deal