Foundation Sprint Basics

Try it: /pm-skills:tool-foundation-sprint-basics "Your context here"

Day 1 morning of a Foundation Sprint. The team makes four foundational choices explicit: who the product is for, what important problem it solves, why this team has a right to win, and what customers do today instead. The output is one coherent strategic frame, not four separable decisions.

Family contract: docs/reference/skill-families/foundation-sprint-skills-contract.md. This skill is a member of foundation-sprint-skills.

When to Use

Day 1 morning of a Foundation Sprint, after the brief is signed.
The team has sufficient customer and market knowledge (per readiness verdict) to make informed choices.
Each of the four sub-decisions is open or contested; the team has not pre-aligned on any of them.
The Decider is in the room and ready to sign off on the bundled output before lunch.

When NOT to Use

The team lacks enough customer knowledge to choose a target customer or name an important problem. Run customer research or problem framing first; revisit when readiness criterion 3 passes.
The team has already committed to a specific customer-problem pair and just wants to validate it. Use a lighter validation tool; Basics is for genuine decision-making, not ratification theater.
Day 1 morning has slipped into afternoon. Differentiation depends on Basics being complete; if Basics did not produce a coherent frame by lunch, do not start Differentiation. Reframe or postpone.

How to Use

Invoke the skill by name (/pm-skills:tool-foundation-sprint-basics on Claude Code, $tool-foundation-sprint-basics on Codex):

/pm-skills:tool-foundation-sprint-basics "Your context here"

Or reference the skill file directly: skills/tool-foundation-sprint-basics/SKILL.md

What This Skill Produces

A single bundled artifact with five sections:

Target customer statement: a specific, named customer with markers (demographic, behavioral, contextual).
Important problem statement: a customer-perceived pain strong enough to drive switching from alternatives.
Team advantage inventory: the capabilities, insights, relationships, data, and timing edges that make this team credible against the problem.
Competitor and alternative map: direct competitors, substitute workflows, manual workarounds, internal tools, and the strongest baseline of all: doing nothing.
Note-and-Vote trace: a record of how each sub-decision was made, including alternatives considered and Decider rationale.

The artifact is treated as one coherent output, not four separate ones. The team signs off on the bundled frame, not on the components in isolation. See references/TEMPLATE.md for the canonical structure and references/EXAMPLE.md for the Brainshelf example.

The Four Sub-Decisions

Each sub-decision uses tool-note-and-vote (the silent ideation + voting + Decider supervote protocol). The skill structures the sequence but the decision protocol is the standalone note-and-vote tool.

1. Target customer (25-35 minutes)

The team produces 3-7 candidate customer descriptions through silent ideation, then votes, then the Decider supervotes one. The chosen customer MUST be specific (not “SaaS PMs” but “PMs at Series-B SaaS companies between 20 and 100 engineers”). The skill rejects vague segments and prompts the team to add markers until the description names someone the team can recognize.

2. Important problem (20-30 minutes)

The team names 3-7 candidate pains the chosen customer experiences. Vote, then Decider supervote. The chosen problem MUST be painful enough to drive switching from current behavior (including doing nothing). Mild annoyances are not Important Problems; the skill enforces this by asking explicitly: “What does the customer currently do, and why would they leave it for our solution?“

3. Team advantage inventory (20-30 minutes)

The team enumerates its specific edges: capabilities, insights, relationships, data, technology, distribution, timing. Vote to surface the top 2-3 (multi-vote), Decider confirms. The skill rejects generic advantages (“great team,” “passionate”) and prompts for specific evidence (“Sam previously built X at Y company”; “Riley has a 12k-member network in our target segment”).

4. Competitor and alternative map (20-30 minutes)

The team maps the full alternative space: direct competitors, substitute workflows, manual workarounds, internal tools, and “do nothing.” For each, the team notes what customers use it for and why people leave (or stay). The skill enforces inclusion of “do nothing” as a competitor; many teams forget that inertia is often the strongest alternative.

Inference Inputs

Input	What the skill does with it
Sprint brief	Reads the Decision Target to scope which customers and problems are in-scope; out-of-scope candidates are flagged before voting
Customer/market context packet	Pre-populates the silent ideation board with previously-surfaced candidates so the team doesn’t reinvent them
Competitor knowledge	Pre-populates the alternative map with already-known competitors; the team adds and discusses rather than starts cold
Team advantage notes	Surfaces the team’s existing self-assessment; voting refines and prioritizes

Common Pitfalls

Vague customer. “SaaS PMs” or “readers” is not a target customer. The skill prompts for markers until the team can name a specific person archetype.
Mild-annoyance problems mistaken for painful ones. If the customer would not switch from doing nothing or from a paid alternative, the problem is not painful enough. The skill tests this explicitly.
Generic team advantages. “Great engineers” is not an advantage; “Sam built the original Pocket sync engine and knows offline-first patterns” is. The skill rejects unspecific advantages and prompts for evidence.
Ignoring “do nothing” as a competitor. The most common oversight. Many teams skip it because they think of competitors as named products; the skill forces inclusion.
Treating the four sub-decisions as separable. A target customer whose important problem is not solvable by the team’s advantage cannot win. The skill ratifies the BUNDLED artifact, not the components; if the components don’t cohere, the team revisits.
Skipping note-and-vote trace. The decision moments are load-bearing. Without the trace, Day 1 PM Differentiation begins on a fragile foundation and may end up re-litigating Basics under a different name.

Decider Role

The Decider’s job during Basics is to:

Frame each of the four sub-decisions (or approve the facilitator’s framing).
Listen during silent ideation and vote discussion without dominating.
Supervote each sub-decision with explicit rationale when the supervote diverges from the team’s top choice.
Sign off on the bundled artifact as a coherent strategic frame before Differentiation begins.

A Decider who blesses everything without challenge is not adding value; a Decider who overrides without rationale is not building trust.

Canonical Sources

Character Capital. “Foundation Sprint guide.” Basics agenda and decision sequence.
Knapp, J., and Zeratsky, J. Click. Day 1 morning sequence.
Knapp, J., and Zeratsky, J. “Introducing the Foundation Sprint.” Lenny’s Newsletter. Target customer and important problem framing.

Cross-Skill Usage

Prerequisites: tool-foundation-sprint-brief. The Brief’s Decision Target tells the skill which customer-problem space is in-scope.

The skill invokes tool-note-and-vote four times (once per sub-decision). Each invocation produces its own decision record; the four traces are aggregated into the bundled artifact.

Next invocation in the sprint: tool-foundation-sprint-differentiation on Day 1 afternoon, immediately after lunch.

Decider Checkpoint

This skill ends with a Decider Checkpoint in references/TEMPLATE.md. The Decider signs off on the bundled artifact as a coherent strategic frame, not on the components individually. Without sign-off, Differentiation cannot start cleanly because the inputs are still under negotiation.

Output Template

Foundation Sprint Basics: [Initiative name] (Day 1 Morning)

Target Customer Statement

[A specific, named customer archetype with markers. Not a vague segment. The team should be able to recognize this person.]

Specific markers: [demographic, behavioral, contextual signals that make the archetype concrete].

Note-and-vote outcome: [N of M votes for this customer over [count] alternatives. Decider supervote confirmed / overrode top vote because [rationale].]

Important Problem Statement

[“The customer currently [does X], and the pain is [Y].” Single sentence framing the painful-enough problem.]

Why this is painful enough to matter:

[Concrete evidence of pain: time lost, money spent, frustration, abandoned alternatives, switching behavior.]
[Why the customer would leave their current behavior (including doing nothing) for a better solution.]
[Behavioral signals from prior customer research that confirm the pain.]

Team Advantage Inventory

Advantage	Evidence	Strength
[Specific advantage, not generic]	[Concrete evidence, not “we’re passionate”]	[Capability / Insight / Relationship / Data / Distribution / Timing]
[Specific advantage]	[Concrete evidence]	[Type]
[Specific advantage]	[Concrete evidence]	[Type]

Note-and-vote outcome: team selected [top advantage] and [second advantage] as the two advantages worth committing to.

Competitor and Alternative Map

Competitor / Alternative	What customers use it for	Why people leave (or stay)
[Direct competitor 1]	[primary use]	[why leave or stay]
[Direct competitor 2]	[primary use]	[why leave or stay]
[Substitute workflow]	[primary use]	[why leave or stay]
[Manual workaround]	[primary use]	[why leave or stay]
[Internal tool or DIY]	[primary use]	[why leave or stay]
Do nothing	[why doing nothing is a valid choice for some customers]	[the reasons inertia wins]

“Do nothing” is the strongest alternative for many customer segments. The team explicitly considers it before evaluating against named competitors.

Note-and-Vote Trace (Decisions Made This Morning)

Decision	Options considered	Vote distribution	Decider supervote
Target customer	[list]	[counts per option]	[Decider’s call; rationale if non-obvious]
Important problem	[list]	[counts per option]	[Decider’s call; rationale]
Top 2 advantages	[list]	[multi-vote counts]	[Decider’s confirmed pair]
Strongest alternative to beat	[list]	[counts per option]	[Decider’s call]

Decider Checkpoint

Decider sign-off required before Day 1 afternoon (Differentiation) begins.

Decider confirms target customer statement is specific enough to design for.
Decider confirms important problem is painful enough to drive switching from current alternatives (including “do nothing”).
Decider commits to the top 2 advantages as the bets the team will build on.
Decider confirms the strongest alternative to beat (often “do nothing,” sometimes a named competitor).
Decider signs off on the bundled artifact as a coherent strategic frame: the customer, problem, advantages, and alternatives compose into one story.

Signed: [Decider name, role], [ISO date and local time]

Example Output

Foundation Sprint Basics: Brainshelf (Day 1 Morning)

The Brainshelf team’s Day 1 morning output. Four sub-decisions ratified as one coherent strategic frame.

Target Customer Statement

People who read 25 or more books a year, treat their personal library as memory rather than identity, and feel friction with both Goodreads (too social, too noisy) and paper journals (too lossy, hard to search).

Specific markers: age 30-55, urban or suburban, owns 100+ books physical or digital, has tried at least one tracking tool and abandoned it, uses Pocket or Notion or Apple Notes for non-book knowledge capture today.

Note-and-vote outcome: 3 of 4 votes for this customer over “social readers in book clubs” (1 vote). Decider supervote confirmed.

Important Problem Statement

“I read a lot, but I can’t remember what I’ve read or what I want to read next, and the tools that should help me feel like work or like social media.”

Why this is painful enough to matter:

Active readers report losing 15-20 minutes per book trying to remember “did I read this already?” at the bookstore or library.
Recommendations from friends and articles accumulate but are never captured because the friction is too high (open app, log in, search book, add to shelf, tag, save).
Goodreads collected 12 of the 22 interviewees’ early enthusiasm and then lost them within 90 days. The reasons clustered as “too many notifications,” “embarrassing public reading,” “the data is theirs not mine.”

This is a painful enough problem to drive switching from “do nothing” or paper journals. It is not a mild annoyance.

Team Advantage Inventory

Advantage	Evidence	Strength
Riley’s network of 12k book bloggers	Active Discord; warm intros for customer research	Distribution + research access
Alex’s design heritage in low-friction capture tools	Shipped 2 features at Notion-like company	Capability: fast-capture UX
Sam’s mobile + offline-first engineering experience	Previously built Pocket-style sync engine	Capability: fast launch on iOS
Jamie’s reader-community background	8 years running a private reading group of 60+ active readers	Insight: knows the audience

Note-and-vote outcome: team selected “low-friction capture UX” and “private-by-default reader insight” as the two advantages worth committing to.

Competitor and Alternative Map

Competitor / Alternative	What customers use it for	Why people leave (or stay)
Goodreads	Social shelving, friend feeds	Too social; owned by Amazon; stale UX; private surface dropped
StoryGraph	Tracking + recommendation alternative to Goodreads	Better than Goodreads but still social-first; limited iOS polish
Bookly	Reading-stats tracking on mobile	Feels like a gym tracker, not a memory tool
LibraryThing	Cataloging-focused, hobbyist	Dense UI, learning curve
Notion / Apple Notes / Excel	DIY tracking	Friction to set up; no book metadata
Paper journal / bullet journal	Manual tracking	Lossy; not searchable
Do nothing	Memory + bookstore browse	Books re-bought; recommendations forgotten

“Do nothing” is the strongest alternative for the team’s target customer. The team named it explicitly before evaluating against named competitors; this is the dominant baseline.

Note-and-Vote Trace (Decisions Made This Morning)

Decision	Options considered	Vote distribution	Decider supervote
Target customer	Individual collectors / Social readers / Book club coordinators	3 / 1 / 0	Books-as-memory readers (Decider confirmed top vote with reframing rationale)
Important problem	Forgetting books / No good recommendations / Tracking statistics	3 / 0 / 1	Forgetting books (Decider confirmed)
Top 2 advantages	Capture UX / Engineering / Insight / Distribution	4 / 1 / 3 / 2 (multi-vote)	Capture UX + Insight (Decider confirmed top 2)
Strongest alternative to beat	Goodreads / Do nothing / Paper journal	1 / 3 / 0	Do nothing (Decider confirmed; explicitly named inertia as the baseline)

Decider Checkpoint

Decider sign-off required before Day 1 afternoon (Differentiation) begins.

Jamie confirms target customer statement is specific enough to design for.
Jamie confirms important problem is painful enough to drive switching from “do nothing.”
Jamie commits to capture UX + private-by-default reader insight as the two advantages we will build on.
Jamie confirms “do nothing” is the strongest competitor (more so than Goodreads).
Bundled artifact ratified as a coherent strategic frame; ready to proceed to Differentiation.

Signed: Jamie (founder, PM), 2026-05-13 12:45 PT