War-game a SKU rationalization before catalog pages, sales talk tracks, and inventory plans harden into how every product line gets sold.
SKU cuts fail when the rationalization invents savings finance never measured, when customers still buy retired SKUs through silent side paths, when inventory write-downs never log, and when support cannot explain replacements from the same sheet. A neat catalog matrix is not evidence.
Freeze the package
State the proposed keep and cut list by segment, which customers get migrations, who owns exceptions and end-of-life dates, what success looks like after two quarters of margin and retention, and the kill criteria if churn or write-downs past a named threshold. Attach the unit-econ model, customer cohort samples, inventory ages, and the measured lag from cut announcement to catalog and ERP updates. If product, sales, and finance disagree on whether a SKU buys margin or just nostalgia, reconcile before seating.
Name the decision you will make if the war game finds nothing new, and the hold criteria if any cut SKU still lacks a named migration owner or a measured replacement path.
Seats
- Top customer. Fear that the cut erases a workflow without a clear replacement path.
- Product. Catalog math that looks clean while migration capacity cannot clear demand.
- Sales. Talk tracks that promise continuity the roadmap will not ship this quarter.
- Finance. Dual-counted savings and write-downs that invent contribution the ledger will not show.
- Skeptic. The claim that looks strongest and is least sourced.
Optional ops seat if warehouse or channel inventory binds the form. Same pack for every seat.
Run the loop
Feed Pingpong the rationalization memo and exhibits. First pass steelmans the cut list. Later passes attack from the seats above. Final pass turns surviving objections into clearer migration SLAs, a published exception floor, or a hold. Delete invented "customers already moved" claims and dual-counted savings.
Force a day-after narrative: what happens if a power buyer screenshots a missing SKU mid-quarter, if end-of-life never logs in ERP, or if finance cannot reconcile write-downs to cash. If those stories are stronger than your mitigation plan, fix the package before you cut. Separate a SKU rationalization from a packaging change or a pricing floor so each decision stays testable.
Ask every seat to mark which steps are optional in practice. Optional migration webinars become skipped within a month if nobody names the owner and the time box. Related: war-game a packaging change, war-game a roadmap cut, war-game a pricing floor, stress-test a product sunset, and the war-game decisions hub. Process: how to run a Pingpong.