In his article Sales Teams Aren’t Great at Forecasting. Here’s how to Fix That in HBR:
Bob Suh is explaining that even with use of new CRM and forecasting tools, we still can’t get forecasting right, since inaccuracy is mainly on human side not technology.
Main areas of mistakes are:
- Withholding bad news
- Maintaining two sets of books
- Hoping against hope
- Using conveniently fuzzy definitions
- Failing to ask the obvious question
When looking for a solutions today we use technics like “haircutting ” forecast coming from the system, working with people to make better inputs, but this is solving consequences not the reason of problems. We should acknowledge human limitations and design systems to cope with it. Techniques to do that are:
- Provide adjustable algorithms
- Continuously track probabilities
- Apply the test time
- Detect who is gaming the system
- Reward accuracy
