Skills on AI 459 skills

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Strategy & planning frameworks

20 skills.

Big Hairy Audacious Goal

Use when asked to write a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) — a long-horizon, ambitious statement of ultimate organizational purpose — as distinct from a nearer-term, directly trackable North Star metric (see north-star) that operationalizes progress toward it.

Critical Success Factors

Use when asked to identify Critical Success Factors (CSFs) — the few essential areas an organization must excel at to achieve its mission — as the qualitative, area-of-focus counterpart to key-performance-indicators's quantitative metrics, and a direct input to strategic-balanced-scorecard.

Emergent Task Planning

Use when asked to apply Emergent Task Planning (ETP) — Francis Seah's just-in-time, flexible-goal productivity framework for unpredictable environments — as distinct from a fixed, upfront-planned approach like a yearly-planning-meeting's annual cycle or a rigid work-breakdown-structure.

Guide Star

Use when asked about a "guiding star" objective — the single overarching goal orienting a team or organization's decisions — the same underlying concept as a North Star metric (see north-star), under an alternate name some teams and frameworks use.

Key Performance Indicators

Use when asked to define, choose, or improve a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) — leading vs lagging indicators, measure vs metric, or how to check whether a proposed KPI is actually good — grounded in joelparkerhenderson/key-performance-indicator, as distinct from OKRs (see objectives-and-key-results).

Key Risk Indicators

Use when asked to define or choose a Key Risk Indicator (KRI) — an early-warning metric for organizational risk — as the risk-focused counterpart to key-performance-indicators's performance-focused metrics, typically used together for a full view of health.

Maturity Models

Use when asked to design, apply, or explain a maturity model — level naming conventions, top-down vs bottom-up construction, or well-known examples (CMMI, DevOps, Agile maturity models) — grounded in joelparkerhenderson/maturity-models, including documented rebuttals.

North Star

Use when asked to define a North Star metric or objective — the single overarching goal guiding a company's strategy and decisions — as distinct from a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (see big-hairy-audacious-goal), which is longer-horizon and more aspirational than a trackable North Star metric.

Objectives and Key Results

Use when asked to write OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) — an inspirational, team-actionable objective paired with measurable key results — grounded in joelparkerhenderson/objectives-and-key-results, including known real-world pros/cons, as distinct from KPIs alone (see key-performance-indicators).

OODA Loop

Use when asked to explain or apply the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) — John Boyd's decision-cycle theory — for business strategy or competitive situations, or to compare it against PDCA/DMAIC — grounded in joelparkerhenderson/ooda-loop.

PESTLE Analysis

Use when asked to run or explain a PESTLE (or PEST) analysis — the macro-environmental factors framework for strategic planning — sourced from Wikipedia's PEST analysis article, including its PESTEL/STEEPLE variants and known limitations.

Pitch Deck

Use when asked to write, structure, or critique a startup pitch deck — fundraising slideshow content, common templates, or investor-advice frameworks (market-first, asymmetric bets, aggregation theory) — grounded in joelparkerhenderson/pitch-deck.

Plan Do Check Act

Use when asked to explain or apply the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) improvement cycle, its PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) variant, or how it compares to other iterative-improvement cycles (OODA, DMAIC) — sourced from Wikipedia's PDCA article.

Smart Criteria

Use when asked to write or check a goal/objective/task against SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relatable, Timely) or its SMARTER/FAST extensions — grounded in joelparkerhenderson/smart-criteria, as a quality check that pairs with OKRs (see objectives-and-key-results) and KPIs (see key-performance-indicators).

Strategic Balanced Scorecard

Use when asked to build a strategic balanced scorecard — a destination statement across financial/external/internal/learning perspectives, connected to OKRs, KPIs, and CSFs — grounded in joelparkerhenderson/strategic-balanced-scorecard, as distinct from the plain OKR or KPI frameworks it connects.

SWOT Analysis

Use when asked to run or explain a SWOT analysis — Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats — the internal-vs-external strategic planning framework, sourced from Wikipedia's SWOT analysis article, including its history and known limitations.

Total Project Control

Use when asked to explain or apply Total Project Control (TPC) — Stephen Devaux's ROI-focused project-management method, critical path drag, DIPP, and Value Breakdown Structure — sourced from Wikipedia's Total project control article, as distinct from the plain Critical Path Method (see critical-path).

Vision Mission Values

Use when asked to write a vision statement, mission statement, or set of organizational values — the three foundational components of a company's strategic plan — as distinct from a North Star metric (see north-star) or BHAG (see big-hairy-audacious-goal), which operationalize a vision into something trackable.

Voice of the Customer

Use when asked to capture and act on customer feedback — VoC channels (surveys, focus groups, support interactions, social media) feeding product decisions — as the customer-facing input that grounds objective-setting (see objectives-and-key-results) and product management (see product-management) in real user need.

Volatile Uncertain Complex Ambiguous

Use when asked to apply the VUCA framework (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) to describe or navigate a turbulent business environment — as a diagnostic lens for choosing an appropriate response, distinct from applying any one specific strategic framework (see swot-analysis, pestle-analysis) without first identifying which VUCA dimension is actually at play.