MEDDIC is generally credited to Dick Dunkel and Jack Napoli at Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) in the 1990s. It is a checklist of what you need to know about a deal before you can forecast it with any confidence. Each letter is a question:
- Metrics: what measurable result does the buyer expect, in their numbers? Time saved, cost removed, revenue gained, risk reduced.
- Economic buyer: who can approve the spend, and have you spoken with them?
- Decision criteria: what will the options be judged on, formally and informally?
- Decision process: what steps, approvals and people stand between “we like it” and a signature, and in what order?
- Identify pain: what problem is serious enough that they will act on it now?
- Champion: who inside the account wants this to happen, has influence, and will sell it when you are not in the room?
Common extensions add letters for what the original left implicit. MEDDICC adds Competition. MEDDPICC also adds Paper process: the legal, security and procurement steps that turn a verbal yes into a signed contract, which is where many deals slip.
MEDDIC does not tell you how to run a call; it tells you what you still do not know. Teams usually pair it with a conversation method, such as SPIN or Sandler, for gathering the answers. It pays off where several people are involved and deals take weeks or months. For a small, fast sale with one decision-maker it is more than the deal needs; see MEDDIC vs BANT.