What’s inside

One SKILL.md (the playbook) + one starter template. A preview:

Skills for Consultants

When to use

• You run client engagements where discovery is a rambling first call and the proposal gets written from memory
• Your recommendations are sound but your deliverables read differently every time, so clients can't tell what's final
• Follow-ups fall through the cracks and a good engagement ends with silence instead of a next phase
• You want one kit that covers the whole engagement — discovery, diagnosis, recommendation, delivery, follow-up — to a single standard
• You're bringing a junior colleague onto engagements and need the way you work written down, not just demonstrated

Workflow

1. Map the engagement arc (input: your last 3–5 engagements → output: engagement map)
   Reconstruct how your engagements actually run, phase by phase: first contact, discovery, diagnosis, recommendation, delivery, follow-up. For each phase, list the artifacts you produced (or wish you had): call notes, problem statement, data request list, analysis, memo, deck, proposal, status updates. Note where work got redone — proposals rewritten because discovery was thin, analyses rerun because the data request missed a field. The map decides what the kit must contain; a kit that skips your messiest phase is decoration.
2. Scope the kit by phase, not by tool (input: engagement map → output: kit scope)
   A consultant's kit follows the engagement, not a list of trendy techniques. Scope eleven skills, one per recurring job: discovery interview guide, problem framer, hypothesis tree builder, data request list, analysis planner, recommendation memo writer, proposal / statement-of-work writer, workshop facilitator, status update writer, final deliverable assembler, and follow-up sequencer. Each skill owns exactly one artifact and one handoff — the discovery guide produces call notes the problem framer consumes; the memo produces the decision the proposal prices. Skills that don't hand off to the next phase get cut.
3. Set the quality bar (input: kit scope → output: quality standard)
   Every skill in the kit must meet the same bar: every claim names its source (client said, data showed, assumption flagged); every recommendation names the alternative considered and why it lost; every deliverable states what the client is being asked to decide, by when, and what happens if they don't. Write the bar as a checklist and run each skill's first output through it. Clients forgive a plain deliverable; they do not forgive one that hides its assumptions.

Template preview

Skills for Consultants — Kit Template

One kit = eleven skills following the engagement arc. Fill this in from real past engagements, then build in engagement order.

1. Engagement map (your last 3–5 engagements)

Messiest phase: {the one this kit must fix first}

2. Kit scope (eleven skills, one artifact + one handoff each)

3. Quality standard (checklist — every skill's output must pass)

[ ] Every claim names its source: {client said / data showed / assumption flagged} [ ] Every recommendation names the alternative considered + why it lost: {alternative, reason}

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