The Hard Half

Skills

200 in the Claude listing

• Acceptance signoffUse for client UAT / acceptance of named deliverables: tests, evidence, named acceptor, fail path.
• Account handoffUse when transferring a named account (sales to AM, AM to AM, AM to CS): what must be true, risks, intro plan, ASK both owners.
• Account healthUse when scoring ONE named account this month: usage/delivery, relationship, commercial flags, one ASK.
• Account planUse when writing a 12-month plan for ONE named account: outcomes, whitespaces, risks, next ASK.
• Acquired org onboardUse to onboard the bought organisation as cohorts with Day-1 access, 30/60/90 moments, and a receiving-BU takeover date.
• After action reviewUse when a completed or mid-run event needs a short no-blame learning record: what was supposed to happen, what did, why, and 2–5 actions with owner, date, next event.
• Ai ops policyUse when an exec needs an allowed / banned / human-review AI use policy by workflow, plus data rules and one ASK to approve.
• Analyst briefUse for a planned 30–60 minute one-way education of a named industry analyst.
• Assumption logUse when load-bearing project assumptions need owners, validate/kill dates, and status — not the mixed RAID page, not a pre-mortem, not a kill-criteria card for one bet.
• Battle cardUse when shipping a one-page competitive leave-behind for a NAMED rival: landmines, traps, landmine questions, proof.
• Benefits realizationUse when post-go-live (or mid) benefits must be scored vs business-case assumptions with owners and one ASK.
• Bid no bidUse when deciding whether to pursue before proposal hours are spent.
• Bio packUse when writing a fact-only bio pack: one-line, short, long, speaker intro, LinkedIn About.
• Board calendarUse when setting the annual board rhythm: meeting dates, consent vs discuss, pack owner, pack-send dead zones.
• Board spokenUse for the spoken 8 minutes at a board sitting after the pre-read / paper.
• Book of businessUse when ranking ALL accounts this AM/MD owns: health, revenue, renewal date, capacity, grow/hold/exit.
• Brand architecture dealUse after a close to pick Day-1 signal and end-state architecture (endorsed / hidden / branded house).
• Budget baselineUse when locking or reviewing the signed cost baseline: buckets, approved total, as-of, variance drivers vs actuals this period (NOT EAC forecast).
• Budget varianceUse when an MD must explain this period vs last vs plan with three drivers and one reallocation ASK.
• Business caseUse when an MD must allocate capital: options including do-nothing, incremental cash, NPV (or honest payback-only), sensitivity, kill criteria, named owner.
• Calendar auditUse when auditing a calendar to kill, delegate, or keep meetings and to protect deep-work blocks.
• Cap tableUse when the MD needs who owns what fully diluted, pre/post this round or SAFE stack, option-pool top-up, and who is diluted — a business page, not a term- sheet rewrite.
• Capacity demandUse when PS/delivery needs a 13-week sold-demand vs capacity view and a hire/sub decision.
• Capital allocationUse when deciding where the next euro goes this cycle: build / buy / hold / return / paydown — one page.
• Cascade scriptUse for the manager kit after a decision: headline fact, one action, approved answers, named escalation.
• Cash runwayUse when an MD (default: ventures) must see near-term cash: 13-week strip plus one-page ask — receipts, disbursements, net burn, runway, collections, payables.
• Champion coachUse when the artifact is what OUR buyer-side Champion will say when we leave.
• Change adoptionUse when a program is shipping a change and people must do the new behaviour: one-pager with owners, ADKAR barrier by role, leading indicators, one ASK.
• Change controlUse for one scope, cost, or time change against a signed baseline: baseline vs proposed, impact, approve/defer/reject, ASK the sponsor.
• Channel conflictUse when two partners (or partner plus direct) are on the same account this week: timestamp the evidence, name one referee, assign one pursuer, and give the buyer one price.
• Churn saveUse when a named account is about to leave: why, save offer or dignified exit, ASK this week.
• Client escalationUse when an angry or at-risk client needs a page this week: facts, owner, 48h plan, what we will not promise.
• Client ticketTurn a raw client request — email, chat, call notes, or a pasted spec — into a structured tracker ticket (ClickUp first; same contract on Jira, Asana, Linear) by discovering the destination list's live schema — statuses, custom fields, option IDs, templates — and binding every slot to a real field instead of guessing names.
• Close askUse when this week’s ask plus the next paper step is the object.
• Close calendarUse when month-end needs named owners, business-day slots, and a lock date — not “finance will close.” NOT for synergy-tracker (first combined close), not operating-review (exec exception pack), not day1-continuity (M&A morning).
• Cobra equilibriumBefore a metric, incentive, SLA, policy, ranking, or agent reward ships, compute the cobra — how the measured system will adapt to eat the fix, the post-adaptation equilibrium after two or three cycles, and whether the original intent still holds once the number is gamed.
• Cohort retentionUse to inspect logo vs GRR vs NRR by cohort age, not blended company NRR.
• Commitment registerUse when tracking promises an MD made to board, customers, or the team, with owners and dates — an integrity register.
• Comp band decisionUse for one hire/promo: band, market, exception, fairness check, approve/deny ASK.
• Competence to skillUse when compiling a Source-to-Competence instance (concepts + playbook) into a generic AI SKILL.md other agents can run.
• Competitive teardownUse when tearing down a named rival to decide our move: where they play, how they win, activity-system fit, durable power if citable — then a so-what we will do or refuse.
• Consulting deckUse when producing a strategy-consultant leave-behind .pptx: Minto pyramid/SCQ, action titles as takeaway sentences, one exhibit per slide, exec summary first, appendix out of the room.
• Contingency reserveUse when governing the contingency/risk reserve: amount, unlock owner, triggers, remaining balance, draws, one ASK.
• Contract novationUse when a deal needs a consent / novation log: stock vs asset, notice vs consent vs public-sector novation, close-critical vs post-close.
• Control handoverUse when handing control at close: GC / CISO / CFO sign the register (bank mandates, IdP, domain, repos, IP assignments, hold-separate denies).
• Covenant complianceUse when flashing lender covenant status: headroom, breach path, cure options, one ASK.
• Create projectScaffold a brand-new development project: the folder, an architecture that fits what is actually being built, and the agent-facing files that let a fresh session pick the work up cold.
• Create skillBuild a new agent skill, or repair one that isn't working.
• Critical pathUse when naming this week's critical path + slips + float + one ASK to protect the path.
• Culture fault linesUse in the first 30 days post-close to write a 6–8 row ways-of-working collision map (decisions, meetings, tools).
• Customer ceo letterUse for a sendable letter FROM us TO a named customer CEO this week: one idea, one proof, one ask.
• Customer concentrationUse when top-N customers are a material revenue or credit risk and an MD needs the math plus what we will do this quarter.
• Cutover planUse for the hour-by-hour cutover of a named go-live: sequence, owners, freeze, rollback trigger.
• Cyber incident briefUse for a CEO/board one-pager in the first 24–72h of a cyber incident: facts known/unknown, customer/regulator, containment, one ASK.
• Data reconciliationUse when matching and reconciling records across 2+ systems / CSV / Excel — billing hours vs tickets, CRM vs ERP, timesheet vs PSA, payroll vs HRIS, AP 3-way, intercompany.
• Data residencyUse when customer data location must be checked against contracts: gap map, remediation, one ASK.
• Day1 continuityUse for close go/no-go: payroll, legal entity, bank, access for critical roles, customer comms.
• Day1 employee packUse for legal-cleared Day 1 employee words: what is changing, what is not, what is not yet decided.
• Deal deskUse for a pre-quote yes/no on non-standard price + legal + delivery as one package.
• Decision debtUse when aged undecided items need a single owner, age in days, and a next decision date.
• Decision journalUse when logging a consequential decision before the outcome: situation, options, pick, expected, review date.
• Decision logUse for a short project/program audit trail of settled decisions: D, date, alternatives killed, revisit trigger; one ASK if stale.
• Decision meetingUse when one named decision must be taken in a room this week: invite with a named D, narrative pre-read, same-day decision record.
• Decision rightsUse when a named decision is stuck: one-page RAPID map with one D.
• Demo narrativeUse when the demo this week must run as a story with a governing thought, last-thing-first mapped to discovery, Situation Slide ≤2 min, wrap next-steps ~4 min.
• Dependency unblockUse for ONE named dependency (internal/external/vendor): owner, need-by, unblock options, one ASK.
• Deprecation noticeUse when a BAU feature or SKU needs last-sell, last-support, and grandfather on one customer notice.
• Director onboardingUse when building a new board director 30-day kit: materials, 1:1s, first board, conflicts.
• Discount exceptionUse for a yes/no on a named discount versus list: fence, expiry, give-get, pocket impact.
• Discovery callUse when notes from ONE live discovery call this week are the object: pain (implicate), paper process, metrics, Economic Buyer.
• Document kitUse when setting colours, type, grid, lockup, and light/dark tokens for business files (deck, Excel, PRD, paper).
• E2e manual test listUse when designing a MANUAL end-to-end test inventory for an app, web app, or enterprise system from PRD / stories / AC / Figma — prioritized list humans (or later automation) execute.
• Eac pulseUse when Estimate at Complete / Estimate to Complete must be compared to budget and actuals with one ASK.
• Economic buyerUse when the artifact is a 30-minute agenda / ask / proof with the buyer Economic Buyer.
• Editorial calendarUse when planning a 4–8 week personal-brand cadence: thesis-first assignments with owner, format, due date, and a kill rule.
• Empty andProve or kill the claim that several locally-working solutions can coexist: write each constraint as a set of allowed values, find the empty AND — the smallest pair or n-tuple whose intersection is empty — and name which constraint must be dropped, relaxed, or sequenced in time.
• Estimate confidenceUse when a delivery date and/or cost needs a confidence band (P50/P80 or best/likely/worst), named drivers, and one ASK.
• Exec sponsor liveUse to put one named seller-side executive on a live pursuit with one ask.
• Executive board memoWrite a decision-grade memo a CEO, ELT, or board uses to decide — for- decision, for-discussion, or for-noting papers and one-pagers a principal can sign.
• Expansion whitespaceUse when finding where else we can create value in a named account: job, offer, next conversation.
• Experiment briefUse when briefing one experiment: hypothesis, primary metric, sample, kill and scale rules, owner, and dates.
• Finance workbookUse when making a real .xlsx: IB three-statement MODEL or ISA/PCAOB WORKING- PAPER / flux — never mixed.
• Find skillFind, browse, or recommend the one Hard Half skill that owns a job — by purpose, category, audience, or artifact — and if none fits, write a brief for a skill that should exist, then offer create-skill.
• First principlesAttack a problem that is stuck — every known approach tried, the accepted answer is "impossible with current technology", or the cost, physics, or scale numbers refuse to work.
• Flight risk 90Use for a 90-day post-close flight-risk watchlist with this-week conversation owners.
• Follow onUse when the question is yes / partial / no on this insider, pro-rata, or extra check — with reserve and signal.
• Follow up 48hUse when the sendable note after a live meeting is the object: decision, owners, next date, inside 48 hours.
• Forecast callUse when this week's Commit / Best Case / Slip is the period number.
• Fundraising one pagerUse when an MD must run a raise as a process: amount, use of funds, instrument, who, parallel timeline.
• Ghost problemFind whether the stated problem is a ghost — a proxy metric, a war that already ended, a political artifact, a symptom whose parent would kill it, or an inherited slogan nobody can justify — and either prove the stated problem is load-bearing or name the problem whose death would make this one evaporate.
• Go live readinessUse for the go / no-go on a named go-live: exit criteria, defects, owners, rollback.
• Headcount planUse when an MD must lock roles, start dates, fully-loaded cost, and freeze vs hire for the next 12–18 months.
• Hiring scorecardUse when opening a role before sourcing: mission, 12-month outcomes, must vs nice, walk-aways, named D.
• Hostile roomUse for the LIVE session spine under fire AFTER the Q card exists.
• Imo charterUse when standing up the Integration Management Office for a named deal: integration thesis, D, Integration Leader, Value Lead, Day 1 vs end-state.
• Ims rollupUse when rolling up >=2 component schedules into one program IMS view: program milestones, slip deltas, critical cross-links, one ASK.
• Incentive planUse for one bonus or equity cycle: metrics, weights, gates, unintended gaming, approve ASK.
• Insurance renewalUse when renewing D&O / cyber / E&O: coverage vs risk appetite, gaps, premium vs limit ASK.
• Integration 100Use for the first 100 days after a close or a major vendor go-live: outcomes, owners, kill-the-old-path dates.
• Interdependency mapUse when a program has cross-project dependencies that need owners and an unblock ASK — critical cross-links only.
• Intro askUse for a double opt-in intro request: who asks whom for whom, forwardable, one Target.
• Investor spokenUse for a spoken slot on ALREADY PUBLIC facts, then Q&A.
• Issue escalateUse for ONE named issue: impact, options tried, escalate ladder, one ASK.
• Issue treeUse when an MD must diagnose a messy problem before anyone writes: one governing question, a MECE tree, a hypothesis, and a starred workplan.
• Jobs to be doneUse when you need the customer job and what to stop building: switch interviews, job story, hire/fire.
• Joint roadmap q1Use after a close to publish a joint 2-quarter roadmap: what ships, what is frozen, what is not promised.
• Key talent slateUse after a close (or in the sign-to-close window) to name retain / walk-away / watch for one deal, with stay-bonus yes/no.
• Kickoff packUse for the first session with client and team after the charter is signed: purpose, in/out, RACI pointer, next 2 weeks, ASK to start.
• Kill criteriaUse when one named venture or bet needs dated kill tests and the next tranche: what must be true, the test, the date, who calls kill.
• Launch briefUse when a customer-facing go/no-go needs the promise, the support path, and the kill-old-path.
• Leadership day1Use to name who runs the combined unit on Day 1, including CEO–1: interim vs end-state, empty box = interim + date.
• Lessons registerUse when maintaining a living cross-project lessons register: lesson, source project, action, owner, due, status, reuse.
• Litigation reserveUse when a material dispute needs exposure, reserve range, settlement band, counsel status, and one ASK.
• Loi screenUse when a named LOI or indication of interest needs a pre-DD go/no-go: strategic fit, valuation-band sanity, deal-breakers.
• Make vs buyUse when choosing how to source a capability: make, buy, partner, kill, or do- nothing.
• Milestone burnUse when milestones need a traffic light plus burn/slip rate and one ASK.
• Missing axisFind the missing axis — a measurable coordinate the current search space does not have, so every incumbent option, including clever rebuilds from the stated invariants, is the same option written differently — and name the cheapest observation that would confirm the axis exists.
• Mutual action planUse when writing a MAP with the customer: joint outcomes, their owners plus ours, dates.
• Named account day1Use in the close week so every named account has one owner, a written script, and an SLA freeze.
• Negotiation tradesUse when the artifact is a give/get table for this week’s commercial conversation, not a discount.
• Ninety day onboardingUse when planning the first 90 days in a role or for a senior hire: situation diagnosis, learning agenda, early wins, checkpoints.
• Nrr bridgeUse for a logo→NRR revenue bridge: beginning book, new, expansion, contraction, churn; one ASK.
• Objection mapUse when named objections this week need a next line and an owner.
• One on oneUse when running this week's 1:1 with a direct report (MD) or workstream lead (program manager): their agenda, one challenge, actions with dates.
• Operating model choiceUse when choosing hold / absorb / merge / harvest per function after a deal, plus Day-1 interim vs end-state.
• Operating reviewUse when an MD or program manager needs this period's exception pack: one-page score, red/yellow with owner and date, one ASK.
• Ops handoverUse when a project must hand to BAU: run owners, runbooks, SLAs, open defects, hypercare exit, one ASK.
• Org one pagerUse when drawing who reports where for a named team of N: boxes, spans, layers, vacancies, one solid line.
• Packaging collisionUse after a close when two price lists meet: map every collision, freeze quotes, grandfather named accounts.
• Partner exitUse when exiting a named partnership or channel: notice, customers, IP, economics, message.
• Pe monthly flashUse when sending the PE/sponsor monthly flash: KPI strip + cash + 3 risks + 1 ask.
• Phase gateUse when a named delivery phase (design/build/UAT/etc.) needs exit criteria go/no-go, holes, and one ASK.
• Pmo cadenceUse when designing the program/PMO operating rhythm: standup → weekly status → SteerCo → phase gates → portfolio — who, when, artefact, decision rights.
• Portfolio keep killUse after a close to label every SKU Keep / Kill / Combine / Harvest with a customer sentence, last-sell, last-support, owner.
• Portfolio stage gateUse when an MD must Go / Kill / Hold / Recycle one internal bet: one-page gate paper with evidence bar, kill criteria, named resources, one ASK.
• Positioning houseUse when building a personal or company messaging house: one roof, three proof pillars, five this/not-that pairs.
• Prd specUse when builders need a spec: one named problem, RFC 2119 MUST with test and owner, non-goals, alternatives, privacy, rollout/kill.
• Pre mortemUse when a plan is about to launch and the room is too invested to dissent: imagine it already failed, harvest why, change the plan.
• Pre readUse for the 2–5 page pack BEFORE the room: reader-complete, no voice-over.
• Program charterUse when writing the one-page authorisation for a program: outcome, in/out of scope, benefits, constraints, D, success tests, first 90 days.
• Program roadmapUse when a program needs this-quarter waves/tranches, capacity, and the decisions the board must take — one page, one ASK.
• Project charterUse when writing the one-page authorisation for one client project: outcome, in/out, sponsor, dates, budget envelope, success tests.
• Project closeUse to close a named project: outcomes vs charter, leftovers, handover, lessons pointer to AAR.
• Project healthUse when scoring RYG health of ONE named project this period: delivery, risk, stakeholder, commercial (or capacity) flags + because + one ASK.
• Proof storyUse when one customer, one metric, and permission status must travel into this week’s sales conversation.
• Proposal narrativeUse when the cover the Economic Buyer will actually read is the object: answer first (APMP exec summary as compass).
• qbrUse when running a quarterly review with one named customer or one named sponsor: outcomes scorecard, risks, next-quarter ask.
• Quality dodUse when a named deliverable or phase needs Definition of Done / quality gate BEFORE client acceptance: exit criteria, evidence, residual defects, Go/No-Go to present for accept.
• Raci deliveryUse when naming who does the WORK on named deliverables: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed.
• Raid registerUse when building an MD-readable RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies): owner, date, trigger, residual, one ASK.
• Rate cardUse when the team needs the frozen list they may quote until a dated review.
• Recovery planUse when a project is red and needs a 14-day recovery pack: stop-doing, critical-path protect, resource, stakeholder message, one ASK.
• Red queenTreat the problem as a player that updates when you move: name their payoff and update rule, the half-life of your fix, and either a reachable equilibrium or an explicit arms-race budget with a stop rule.
• Reference askUse for one named customer, one sentence, this week: the ask, the format, the date, and who owns scheduling so the customer does zero logistics.
• reforecastUse when the remaining fiscal year must be rewritten vs the original plan (actuals occupy closed months; open months are re-assumed).
• Renewal riskUse for a named renewal inside 2 quarters: risk, multi-thread, commercial, ASK to save or walk.
• Repo setupConfigure this repository to use The Hard Half: where generated one-pagers and memos are saved, which categories matter here, and the default audience.
• Research paperUse when producing an IMRAD (or venue) manuscript: claim, evidence, limitation, methods that replicate, labelled confirmatory vs exploratory.
• Resource collisionUse when the same scarce people or skills are contended across ≥2 projects this horizon: collision table, priority rule, resolve ASK.
• Room narrativeUse for what you SAY in 8–12 minutes: interruptible spoken spine after the pre-read.
• Sales datasheetUse when shipping a 1–2 page product/offer sheet: outcome H1, who, Three Reasons, use cases, sourced proof, how-it-works caption, features grid, one CTA.
• Sales proposalUse when producing a customer-named proposal FILE: cover, this-customer situation, recommended solution, commercial, assumptions, next step.
• Schedule crashUse when compressing the critical path: crash vs fast-track options with cost/risk, recommended path, one ASK.
• Scope baselineUse for in/out scope baseline + cost of saying yes to a creep ask.
• Severity customerUse after the first 60–90 minutes of a customer-visible incident for owner, customer sentence, and next-update clock.
• Signal vs noiseCut everything competing for your attention down to the 3–5 things that actually move the mission in the next 18 hours, and give every remaining item a disposition — delegated, deferred, batched, or deleted.
• Skip levelUse when preparing one skip-level conversation: purpose, questions, what you will not do with it.
• Sla creditUse after an SLA breach: credit owed, root cause class, customer letter spine, prevent-repeat ASK.
• Social carouselUse when producing a LinkedIn / Instagram 4:5 personal-brand carousel (PDF document post / image set) with the default visual kit: glass, grain, #111318 / #F5F3EE / #FF4F32, Instrument, lockup from the user's name.
• Solution briefUse when shipping a 4–8 page industry or persona solution brief: Challenger order, Required Capabilities before the offer, permissioned proof, architecture, one CTA.
• Source to competenceTurn a book, paper, document, or video into concept objects a person can actually remember, then (if asked) into a practice playbook that builds competence.
• Span of controlUse when deciding managerial density / layers vs throughput this quarter — rightsize spans by work type, flag over/under-management, one ASK.
• Sponsor briefUse for a 15-minute LIVE 1:1 with the PROJECT sponsor: agenda spine, 3 facts, 1 decision, landmines, close ASK.
• Sponsor statusUse for the client-facing one-pager this period: on track / at risk / off, exceptions, one ASK.
• Stack decisionUse after a close to pick, per domain, keep-buyer / keep-target / dual-run / rewrite.
• Staffing mixUse when one named program needs an onshore / contractor / vendor split that still clears the SOW margin.
• Stakeholder alignmentUse when a program, decision, or change will stall unless named people believe and act: map plus belief gaps plus conversation plan with one ASK each.
• Stakeholder message mapUse for this week’s one sentence per named person.
• Steering packUse for a steering-committee sitting: up to 3 decisions needed, exceptions, capacity.
• Succession slateUse for critical-role succession: ready-now / ready-1-2y / emergency cover.
• Synergy trackerUse when a deal needs baseline-locked cost and revenue run-rate versus leakage, monthly finance recon.
• Team method transferUse when teaching a method to a human team in one session plus a 2-week practice loop.
• Thought leadership thesisUse when choosing the ONE idea a person will be known for: a disagreeable sentence with lived proof and a three-year spend.
• Title grade mapUse to freeze titles and pay on Day 1, then date a role-to-family-to- grade map with red/green/hold.
• Trust packUse when producing a security/compliance/architecture one-pager a CISO can keep: SPARC-shaped, named audits with scope/date/exclusions or HOLE.
• Tsa scheduleUse when the seller is the bridge after a carve-out or close: TSA catalog, monthly cost and markup, exit test plus date per service.
• Unbilled leakageUse when hours or scope were eaten without a change request and the invoice line is missing.
• Utilization benchUse when named people are off billable this week and need a date back on work plus an owner of the next seat.
• Value engUse when producing a quantified value/ROI one-pager or simple model the AE can defend: assumptions table, customer inputs required (labelled INPUT).
• Value problem solverRun a product idea, feature, decision, project, PRD, vendor proposal, company initiative, or agent task through seven value filters — real problem, efficacy, validation, communication, access, sustainability, integrity — and produce either an Audit verdict on something that already exists or a Design walk before anyone writes a PRD or starts building.
• Value realizationUse when scoring promised vs delivered value for a named account this period: evidence, gap, next proof.
• Vendor milestoneUse at mid-delivery vendor milestone accept/reject: evidence vs SOW, defects, payment gate, one ASK.
• Vendor orchestrationUse when one program has multiple vendors (SI / agencies / specialists) and needs who-leads-whom: cross-vendor RACI, named integration owner, interface risks, one ASK.
• Vendor scorecardUse when scoring whether a named vendor is passing the SOW tests this month: quality, schedule, cost, management, credits, continue/cure/exit.
• Vendor sowUse when a program manager is buying an agency, integrator, or software implementation and needs a statement of work: outcome, acceptance tests, price-to-scope, IP choice, exit, one ASK.
• Verified hard problemAttack one locked SUPER-COMPLEX claim that has stayed unsolved — millennial and prize-grade statements, systems-safety or legal-grade proofs, or anything the field calls unsolvable — with claim-lock, a lemma swarm, a dual deliverable (human-auditable writeup plus machine-checkable artifact), and an independent verification gate before any "solved" language.
• Weekly cadenceUse when designing or resetting an MD's personal week: contribution block, process meetings, Friday close.
• Weekly statusUse when writing the INTERNAL delivery-team weekly narrative: what happened / what matters / risks that moved / next week / one ASK.
• Wip limitUse when too much is in flight: personal or program work-in-progress.
• Working capitalUse when this month’s operating cycle is the object: DSO, DIO, DPO, CCC, and one cash ASK.