Forecast confidence
Disciplined, category-based commitment of what will close, governed by coverage, weighting, and hygiene.
Forecast confidence comes from category discipline (Commit / Best Case / Pipeline / Omitted), stages gated by evidence (not optimism), probabilities from historical conversion, and coverage tied to win rate (coverage ≈ 1 ÷ win rate, not a blind '3x'). Know your finance vocabulary cold: bookings (signed) > billings (invoiced) > recognised revenue (earned over delivery). In a services firm, forecast bookings, recurring/managed-services revenue, and recognised revenue separately, and tie pipeline to start dates and staffing capacity.
"We booked $2M so that's $2M of revenue this quarter."
"That's $2M in bookings; we recognise it over delivery, so I forecast bookings, backlog, and recognised revenue separately."
"Coverage isn't 3x dogma — it's one over our win rate, and I'd rather have clean 3x than dirty 5x."