Product Strategy

Priority: P0 (CRITICAL)

Frame strategic opportunities and falsifiable hypotheses anchored in reviewed strategic authority, explicit non-goals, and viability constraints, without conflating prioritization scores with financial ROI or fabricating approval.

1. Capability Preflight

Verify product-evidence capability before validating or committing changes to docs/product/<slug>/evidence.json:

1. Skill Resolution: Load through MCP (get_skill("product-management", "product-evidence")) or resolve installed root paths <root>/product-management/product-evidence/SKILL.md, <root>/product-evidence/SKILL.md, or flattened Kiro <root>/product-management-product-evidence/SKILL.md. A missing/excluded skill is a capability gap; never infer installation from source checkout.
2. Companion Resource: Resolve scripts/validate-product-evidence.mjs relative to the loaded package directory (ordinary <root>/product-management/product-evidence/; flattened <root>/product-management-product-evidence/). Missing companion is a separate resource gap.
3. Runtime: Check Node.js >=20 separately. Missing runtime is not a missing skill/resource.
4. Offline Mode: If any prerequisite is absent, safe research/proposal work may proceed only as unvalidated; no simulated validation, readiness claim, or silent sync/install.

2. Core Protocol

1. Strategic Authority & Gap Audit:
   • Inspect strategy_authority in docs/product/<slug>/evidence.json. It must bind to an exact AUTH record revision in the strategy domain (never the technical SRS or H1 implementation hash).
   • If strategy authority is absent or conflicting, set strategy_authority: null and record an explicit strategy_gap. Permit proposal-only synthesis; never record binding decisions or invent strategy mandates.
2. Opportunity Framing (OPP):
   • Synthesize verified problems and customer jobs from CLM records into OPP records.
   • Mandate explicit non-goals and trade-offs in rationale. Define what the product deliberately will NOT do.
   • Always include the "do nothing / defer" option alongside active alternatives.
3. Hypothesis Synthesis & Disconfirmation (HYP):
   • Formulate falsifiable hypotheses: prediction, proposed causal mechanism, and supporting claims.
   • Define unambiguous disconfirmation criteria (the exact observation that would prove the hypothesis false).
   • Link candidate primary metrics (MET refs) without claiming premature validation.
4. Decision Recommendation Framing (DEC):
   • Create proposed decision recommendations (status: "proposed", outcome: "propose").
   • Strategy binding is null for proposed learning decisions; it is required only for recorded investment, specification, or value_review decisions. Include all critical_claims in depends_on.
   • Immutable DEC Invariant: Once recorded, a DEC row is immutable in records. Supersession or revocation requires issuing a new DEC ID in records with supersedes: { id, revision }. Never move an immutable recorded DEC to record_history.
   • Define explicit revisit_triggers on data (distinct from freshness.review_triggers).
   • Authority Gate: Product strategy proposals recommend actions; they do NOT grant budget or authorize spend without separate human/operator approval.
5. No Score-to-ROI Conversion:
   • Heuristic scores (RICE, WSJF, Kano) are relative ordering tools, not financial accounting. Never convert a prioritization score into monetary benefit, net ROI, or NPV.

3. Anti-Patterns & Red Flags

• No Missing Non-Goals: Reject strategy documents that promise everything without trade-offs.
• No Score as ROI: Never claim a high RICE score proves positive financial return.
• No Rewriting Recorded Decisions: Never edit or move a recorded DEC to record_history.
• Stop if Strategy Conflicted: If two directives conflict, set strategy_authority: null, record gap, and halt recording decisions.

4. References

• Strategy Protocol — Strategic alignment, non-goals, and authority binding.
• Opportunity Framing — Structuring OPP records, hypotheses, and trade-offs.
• Evidence Mapping — Schema mapping to OPP, HYP, and proposed DEC records.
• Citations and Sources — Conceptual citations and independent authorship statement.
• Semantic Rubrics — Outcome-based grading rubrics and false-pass rejection criteria.
• Synthetic Example Ledger — Complete valid standalone synthetic ledger.