Cascade OKRs into the shaping queue

Use this when: you have company objectives and need to turn the gaps they expose into typed shaping-queue entries the build loop picks up automatically. Prerequisites: product-strategy pack installed and workspace.toml present in the repo. Result: an okr-cascade.md in docs/product/shaping/ and {type = "strategy"} gap entries appended to the initiative’s shaping queue in workspace.toml.

You have company objectives, and you need them to become work the build loop picks up — not a slide that stops at the leadership offsite. This guide covers the three Pillar-1 skills that carry an objective from altitude down to a typed shaping-queue entry: run-okr-cascade, write-prfaq, and synthesize-stakeholder-research.

Run an OKR cascade for our company goal of reducing enterprise churn.

It assumes the pack is installed and that workspace.toml exists in the repo the downstream product-engineering pack reads. Skip the OKR primer; this is about wiring, not definitions.

Cascade the objectives: run-okr-cascade

This is the skill that closes the gap between strategy and the build queue.

Cascade our FY objectives down to the shaping queue.

run-okr-cascade walks company objectives down through team level and, at the bottom, identifies the gaps that have no product answer yet. It commits two things:

• okr-cascade.md in docs/product/shaping/ — the readable cascade, company to team to gap.
• {type = "strategy"} entries appended to ["ini-NNN".shaping_queue].backlog in workspace.toml.

The workspace.toml write is the load-bearing part. The product-engineering pack’s frame-situation reads that backlog as its shaping queue, so a {type = "strategy"} gap becomes work the downstream pack shapes without anyone copying it across by hand. Treat the cascade as the wire and workspace.toml as the socket the build packs plug into.

Two things to get right:

• Only real gaps become entries. An objective already covered by in-flight work is not a gap. Cascading every objective into the backlog floods the queue and trains frame-situation to ignore it. Emit an entry only where there is no product answer yet.
• The ini-NNN initiative must match the one the downstream pack reads. A gap written under the wrong initiative id is invisible to frame-situation — it will sit in workspace.toml doing nothing.

Force the altitude-0 commitment: write-prfaq

An objective survives contact with reality when someone commits to its outcome in concrete terms. The PRFAQ is that forcing function.

Write a PRFAQ for the objective we cascaded.

write-prfaq produces the press release plus FAQ — the artifact that states, at altitude 0, what the world looks like when the objective has landed and answers the hard questions in advance. It commits prfaq.md to docs/product/shaping/. Run it against a cascaded objective and the vagueness surfaces fast: a PRFAQ you can’t write a credible press release for is an objective that isn’t yet real. Use it as the pressure test on the cascade output, not as a launch document.

Fold in the stakeholder picture: synthesize-stakeholder-research

Objectives don’t exist in a vacuum; stakeholders have already said things that should shape the cascade.

Synthesize the stakeholder research into a strategic narrative.

synthesize-stakeholder-research reads across stakeholder groups and builds a strategic narrative by theme, committing stakeholder-synthesis.md. It consumes existing research — desk-research pack outputs, interview notes you already have — it does not run interviews. If you have no source material, this skill has nothing to synthesize; gather first, then synthesize. Run it before the cascade when stakeholder input should inform which gaps matter, or after it to sanity-check that the cascaded gaps reflect what stakeholders actually raised.

A working order

A common sequence: synthesize the stakeholder picture, cascade the objectives against it, then PRFAQ the top gap to pressure-test it. But the skills are independent — each commits its own artifact — so run only the ones the situation needs. The one that changes downstream behaviour is run-okr-cascade; the other two sharpen its input and output.

What you have now

You have an okr-cascade.md that connects company objectives to team-level work and identifies real gaps. The gaps are registered in the shaping queue, so product engineering can pick them up for further shaping.

See also

• Run a market and competitive analysis — the analysis half of Pillar 1 that frames the objectives.
• Set UX and content strategy — the experience and content direction that runs alongside the cascade.
• Frameworks and artifacts — the complete skill-to-artifact map.
• Why strategy is its own seat — how the cascade wires strategy into the build loop.