Project Background

HubSpot's Revenue Analytics team detected a 9% week-over-week drop in qualified lead-to-opportunity conversion for the North America mid-market sales segment two days after a pricing page update and CRM routing rule change. The VP of Sales wants an explanation by 4 PM today because regional managers are already asking whether the issue is rep execution, lead quality, or a product change.

You are the program manager coordinating a 7-person cross-functional response team: 2 data analysts, 2 sales operations managers, 1 engineering lead, 1 product manager, and 1 marketing manager. The goal is not to complete a full root-cause analysis today, but to quickly establish what is known, what is uncertain, and what actions should happen next without creating unnecessary panic.

Key Stakeholders

The VP of Sales wants a crisp answer and immediate next steps. Sales Operations wants to avoid blaming reps before data is validated. Product believes the pricing page change is unrelated and does not want a premature rollback. Engineering is concerned the routing rule deployment may have created lead assignment delays.

Constraints

You have 6 hours to prepare an executive readout. Only $15,000 in unplanned analytics support is available this quarter. Two analysts are already committed 50% to quarter-end forecasting work. Relevant data sources include Salesforce, Marketo, product analytics, and call logging data, but call logs are delayed by 12 hours. No new headcount can be added.

Complications

1. The VP of Sales has already told the CRO that "marketing quality probably dropped," creating political pressure.
2. Early dashboard checks show the decline is concentrated in three regions, but one region also changed territory assignments this week.
3. Engineering cannot confirm routing-rule integrity until after the next ETL refresh at 1 PM.

Your Task

1. Create a same-day execution plan for investigating and communicating the performance drop.
2. Define how you would brief the VP of Sales with speed and appropriate uncertainty.
3. Recommend immediate trade-offs, including whether to pause, roll back, or continue current changes.
4. Identify the top risks in the next 48 hours and how you would manage stakeholders.
5. Define success criteria for the initial response and follow-up plan.