If you’re in sales ops or a revops role, you’ve probably been burned by complicated dashboards and “insights” that never turn into action. This guide is for anyone who wants to actually understand their pipeline velocity and track deal progression without getting lost in vanity metrics or endless exports. We’ll walk through how to use 11x reporting tools to get real answers, not just more noise.
1. Know What You’re Actually Trying to Measure
Before you dive into reports, get clear on what pipeline velocity and deal progression really mean for your team:
- Pipeline velocity: How quickly deals move through your pipeline from one stage to the next.
- Deal progression: The actual movement of specific opportunities—who’s stuck, who’s barreling ahead, and who’s ghosting you.
Forget about “total pipeline value” for now. If you can’t see how deals move, you’ll just keep getting surprised at quarter end.
2. Get Your Data House in Order
No tool can save you if your CRM data is a mess. Here’s what you need to check before even looking at 11x:
- Are your pipeline stages clearly defined and actually used by reps?
- Are opportunities updated in real time, or do people treat the CRM like a chore?
- Is there a single owner for each deal, and are close dates taken seriously?
- If your data isn’t trustworthy, any reporting tool will just give you prettier lies.
Pro tip: Run a quick audit—pick five recent deals and see if their stage history and close dates match reality. If not, fix that first.
3. Dig Into 11x’s Reporting Basics
Once your data’s not garbage, 11x actually makes it pretty simple to start analyzing:
- Pipeline velocity reports in 11x break down how long deals spend in each stage and where they stall.
- Deal progression views let you filter by team, owner, deal size, or product line.
- You can set up dashboards to see stuck deals, fast-moving deals, and average stage duration.
Don’t worry about building a “perfect” dashboard. Start with the out-of-the-box reports—most teams overcomplicate this.
4. Measure What Matters (and Ignore the Rest)
Here’s where most teams mess up: chasing every metric just because it’s available. Stick to these:
- Stage duration: How long deals spend in each stage.
- Conversion rate per stage: Percentage of deals that move forward at each step.
- Aging deals: Deals stuck in a stage longer than your average.
- Win rate by stage: Where do most deals die?
Skip the “average deal size per stage” or “number of activities logged.” Those rarely tell you anything actionable.
What to watch for: If you see deals stuck in the same stage week after week, that’s a red flag—either your process is broken or your reps are sandbagging.
5. Spot Bottlenecks and Patterns
Use the visual pipeline flow in 11x to:
- See which stages collect the most dust.
- Compare velocity across teams or reps.
- Identify if certain products or deal types get stuck more often.
Pro tip: Pull a list of deals that have been stuck longer than your 75th percentile for that stage. Call a meeting and ask why. Nine times out of ten, someone just forgot to close-lost them.
6. Track Velocity Over Time (Not Just a Snapshot)
A lot of people look at pipeline velocity as a single number. That’s lazy. In 11x, filter by month or quarter to see:
- Has your average stage duration improved or gotten worse?
- Are deals moving faster after a comp plan change or new process?
- Did that new enablement initiative actually speed things up, or is it just more noise?
Charts are nice, but focus on trends—not just where you are today.
What doesn’t work: Trying to compare this quarter’s velocity to last year if your pipeline stages changed. It’ll just confuse everyone.
7. Drill Into Individual Deals for Real Insight
Dashboards are good, but nothing beats looking at actual deals:
- Use 11x to pull deal histories and see where things actually slowed down.
- Check the notes—was it a stalled legal review, or just a rep who stopped following up?
- Look for patterns: Do certain reps always have slow-moving deals, or is it certain products?
Don’t get caught up in averages; the outliers usually tell you what’s really broken.
8. Share Insights That People Can Act On
Data is only useful if it leads to change. Here’s how to make sure your findings don’t just sit in a slide deck:
- Bring specific stuck deals to your pipeline review meetings.
- Highlight stage bottlenecks in your weekly team huddles.
- Give reps a list of “deals to focus on” based on actual velocity, not just deal size.
If your insights don’t prompt a clear next step, they’re just trivia.
9. Set Up Alerts for Stuck or Aging Deals
11x lets you set up alerts for deals that have gone stale in a stage. Use them:
- Get notified if a deal sits more than X days in a stage.
- Send automated reminders to reps.
- Set up manager dashboards for “deals at risk.”
Just don’t go overboard—if you alert people on every minor delay, they’ll start ignoring you.
10. Keep Your Process (and Reports) Simple
The more complicated your reporting, the less likely anyone is to use it. Stick to:
- 2–3 core pipeline velocity metrics.
- 1–2 deal progression dashboards.
- Regular reviews and tweaks as your process evolves.
Avoid the urge to build a 20-tab monstrosity that nobody opens after month one.
11. Common Pitfalls (and How to Dodge Them)
Here are a few things to watch out for:
- Data decay: If reps stop updating deals, your velocity numbers are worthless. Build a culture of real-time CRM hygiene, or automate updates where you can.
- Vanity dashboards: Just because you can build a fancy funnel chart doesn’t mean you should. Only show what drives action.
- Changing definitions: If you tweak your stages, flag it in your reports. Otherwise, historical comparisons turn into fiction.
- Analysis paralysis: If you’re spending more time slicing and dicing than actually closing deals, it’s time to simplify.
Wrap-Up: Start Simple, Iterate Often
You don’t need a PhD in Excel or a $100k analytics stack to get real insight into your pipeline. Clean up your CRM, use 11x’s basic reports to find bottlenecks, and focus on what actually moves the needle. Review your setup every quarter—ditch what’s not working, double down on what is. Sales teams that keep things simple (and honest) get better, faster.
Now go look at your pipeline, and don’t let those stuck deals collect any more dust.