Product Methodology — Prioritize, Decide, Specify, Communicate
Translate validated evidence into prioritized backlogs, documented decisions, actionable specifications, and audience-specific stakeholder communications.
Why Install This Skill
Product teams don't struggle to generate ideas — they struggle to decide what to build, why, and how to communicate those decisions. This skill gives your agent a practical method for:
- Scoring feature proposals with RICE (Reach × Impact × Confidence / Effort) so you can compare unrelated ideas on a common scale
- Scoping time-boxed releases with MoSCoW (Must/Should/Could/Won't) so the team knows exactly where the boundary is
- Mapping customer needs to solutions with opportunity solution trees — without jumping to the wrong answer
- Documenting decisions with structured records that survive the next reorg
- Writing specifications that engineers, designers, and stakeholders can all work from
- Communicating with different audiences in the format each one needs — recommendation-first for executives, context-first for engineers, listening-first for customers
It picks up where product discovery ends and hands off to design and UX with a clean spec.
What You Get
| Path | What it provides |
|---|---|
SKILL.md |
Pipeline overview, trigger conditions, reference guide, and provenance table |
references/rice-framework.md |
Full RICE scoring methodology: formula, dimension tables, pitfalls, and example |
references/moscow-prioritization.md |
MoSCoW categories, capacity heuristics, and guidance on when to use it instead of RICE |
references/opportunity-solution-trees.md |
OST structure, five-step practice, riskiest-assumption testing, anti-patterns |
references/decision-log.md |
When to write a decision log, full template, good/bad examples |
references/spec-template.md |
Complete spec structure: problem statement, success metrics, scope, edge cases, risks |
references/stakeholder-communication.md |
Audience-specific formats: executives, engineers, designers, customers, everyone |
references/source-index.md |
Provenance, portability boundary, and authoritative source links |
templates/DECISION_LOG.md |
Fillable decision log with YAML frontmatter and the sections provided by this methodology |
templates/SPEC.md |
Fillable spec template with YAML frontmatter and guidance text |
Quick Start
This is a reference-only skill. No setup, API key, or dependency is required. Start with the pipeline in SKILL.md, then load the reference for the specific task.
Triggers
- Prioritize a backlog of features, initiatives, or proposals
- Compare unrelated feature ideas with a common scoring framework
- Scope a time-boxed release with Must/Should/Could/Won't boundaries
- Document a product decision with rationale and expected outcomes
- Write a specification (PRD) for a feature or integration
- Communicate a product decision to executives, engineers, designers, or customers
- Map customer opportunities to potential solutions with opportunity solution trees
Requirements
No software dependencies or credentials. This skill assumes you have validated evidence (interview notes, usage data, competitive analysis). If you're still discovering requirements, start with the product-discovery skill.
Source and Maintenance
This skill was ported from magnus919/hermes-profiles at commit 867a555. See references/source-index.md for the portability boundary and source review details.