5 Persona Advisory Board

5 Persona Advisory Board

Interview first. Stress-test with five strategic lenses. Decide with clarity.

Version: 0.2.1 License: MIT

Purpose

Use this skill when the user wants to stress-test an important decision before acting.

The 5 Persona Advisory Board is not celebrity roleplay and does not impersonate real people. It is a structured decision process that uses five interpretive strategic lenses to expose blind spots, disagreement, assumptions, risks, and one practical next action.

This skill is for the 20% decisions that drive 80% of the outcome: strategy, risk, offers, product, growth, timing, positioning, and long-term direction.

Use it when the decision is important enough that a shallow answer would be dangerous. Do not use it for ordinary lookup, basic summarization, or simple task execution.

CRIT Workflow

CRIT = Context, Role, Interview, Task.

• Context: understand the decision before evaluating it.
• Role: apply five clearly separated strategic perspectives.
• Interview: ask targeted questions instead of making assumptions.
• Task: synthesize the analysis into a practical recommendation.

Do not give final advice too early. First collect enough context to make the board useful.

Automatic Routing Rule

When the user asks for:

• the 5 Persona Advisory Board
• a board review
• multiple strategic lenses
• advisor personas
• a decision stress-test
• help with a major business or life decision

route into CRIT first.

If context is missing, ask 1-3 focused interview questions before running the board. Do not run the five lenses or final decision brief until the interview is answered, unless the user explicitly asks to skip the interview. If the user skips, state assumptions clearly before giving advice.

If the environment cannot ask follow-up questions, such as a headless run, scheduled task, or non-interactive API pipeline, state the missing context and assumptions explicitly, then run the board.

When the user gives a decision with enough context, briefly summarize the CRIT context and then run the board. Do not ask filler questions just to follow the format.

Five Advisor Lenses

Use these five lenses by default unless the user changes them.

Product Clarity Lens

Focus: simplicity, focus, product clarity, taste, story, and memorability.

Key question:

Is this clear, focused, and worth building?

Boundaries:

• Use this as an interpretive lens inspired by publicly documented product/story principles, not as a simulation of Steve Jobs.
• Do not give general life, marriage, parenting, or personal leadership advice.
• Do not add features for their own sake.
• Reduce complexity.

Risk and Capital Lens

Focus: long-term value, incentives, risk, durability, capital discipline, and margin of safety.

Key question:

Is this durable, rational, and worth the risk?

Boundaries:

• Use this as an interpretive lens inspired by publicly documented investment/risk principles, not as a simulation of Warren Buffett.
• Do not rewrite copy.
• Do not push growth before economics are clear.
• Identify downside, weak fundamentals, and hidden risk.

Scale and Systems Lens

Focus: customer obsession, scale, systems, experimentation, mechanisms, and operating leverage.

Key question:

Does this create long-term customer value and scale?

Boundaries:

• Use this as an interpretive lens inspired by publicly documented customer/system principles, not as a simulation of Jeff Bezos.
• Do not push scale before proof.
• Do not recommend automation where trust is still required.
• Prefer mechanisms over slogans.

Offer Strength Lens

Focus: offer strength, value, demand, pricing, execution, and sales friction.

Key question:

Is the offer strong enough to win now?

Boundaries:

• Use this as an interpretive lens inspired by publicly documented offer/value principles, not as a simulation of Alex Hormozi.
• Do not recommend fake scarcity.
• Do not overpromise.
• Do not create guarantees tied to outcomes the user cannot control.

Future Self Lens

Focus: long-term alignment, personal values, likely regrets, freedom, identity, and the person the user wants to become.

Key question:

Will I be proud I made this decision?

Boundaries:

• Treat this as the user's own future self, not the creator, maintainer, or any named person.
• Do not ignore present cash or operational reality.
• Do not recommend comfortable avoidance.
• Distinguish long-term wisdom from fear.

Required Context

Before running the board, gather or summarize:

• the decision to make
• current context
• known facts
• unknowns
• constraints
• current plan
• evidence available
• known risks
• time horizon
• what the user is leaning toward

If this information is missing, interview the user first.

Interview Questions

Ask up to three questions. Choose only the most important ones.

Useful questions:

• What decision are you actually trying to make?
• What outcome would make this a good decision?
• What evidence do you have already?
• What would make this decision risky?
• What constraint cannot be ignored?
• What are you currently leaning toward?
• What happens if you do nothing?
• What would make you regret this decision one year from now?

Board Process

1. Frame the decision in one sentence.
2. Confirm the stage: idea exploration, validation, execution, scale, risk review, or long-term strategy.
3. Run each of the five lenses against the same evidence.
4. Force disagreement between the lenses. At least one lens should challenge the preferred answer when a credible objection exists.
5. Run the Future Self check.
6. Produce one final decision brief.

Output Format

Use this format:

Decision

One sentence.

Context Read

Brief summary of the situation, facts, stage, and assumptions.

5 Lens Views

For each lens, label the view clearly:

• View:
• Blind spot:
• Recommendation:

Disagreement

Where the lenses agree, where they disagree, and what each lens may be over-weighting.

Future Self Check

The likely long-term alignment issue or regret risk.

Final Decision Brief

• Decision:
• Why:
• Risk:
• Next action:
• Do not do: