War-game a sales compensation plan before reps, managers, and finance treat a soft draft as the official earnings engine.
Comp plans fail when accelerators reward the wrong deals, when SPIFs collide with margin goals, when ramping seats inherit impossible math, and when exception rules become the real plan. A colorful rate card is not evidence that the field can hit the number without quiet sandbagging or channel conflict.
Freeze the plan
State base and variable mix, accelerators, SPIFs, clawbacks, effective date, and the success metric you will honor. Name roles and segments that feel the change first. If the memo mixes quota, territory, and a pricing experiment, split them. One move under fire at a time.
Write the decision you will make if the war game finds nothing new, and the kill criteria: the attainment gap, attrition spike, or discount leakage that would force a mid-year reset within a stated window.
Seats that matter
- Finance. Margin leakage, revenue timing, and what the forecast hides if attainment softens.
- Front-line seller. Earnings math, deal mix, and the message that feels unfair on first read.
- Sales manager. Coaching load, exception pressure, and ramp coverage in the first quarter.
- Customer success. Renewals and expansions the plan underpays or overpays relative to effort.
- Skeptic. The claim that looks strongest and is least sourced.
Same pack for every seat: historical attainment, deal samples, clawback history, and the exception policy you actually intend to use. Secret "we will fix it in Q2" notes create fake agreement.
Loop the review
Feed Pingpong the comp memo, sample earnings, and seating briefs. First pass steelmans the plan. Later passes attack from finance, seller, and manager seats. Final pass turns surviving objections into tests, mitigations, or a changed recommendation. Keep the objections that still have evidence gaps.
If SPIFs or accelerators are the real risk, force finance and seller seats to invent the gaming patterns before lock. A plan that only works if nobody finds the loophole is not a plan. Write the guardrails, approval owners, and monthly caps into the package, then ask those seats to attack them.
Separate the compensation review from a quota plan or sales kickoff when those are also in flight. Run each as its own move so objections stay tied to one package. Related: war-game a quota plan, war-game a comp review, war-game a sales kickoff, pretend you are the head of sales, and the war-game decisions hub. Process: how to run a Pingpong.