working-backwards

Contents

| File | Path | When to load | | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------- | | Canonical WB reference | ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/product-design-shared/references/working-backwards.md | 5-stage process, artifacts, principles, common pitfalls | | Pyramid composition | ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/product-design-shared/references/pyramid-principle.md | PR as Pyramid top, FAQ as antagonist test | | Research design | ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/product-design-shared/references/research-design.md | Listen-stage hypothesis + MECE sub-questions | | PR/FAQ authoring workflow | references/prfaq-authoring.md | Drafting workflow: 5CQ → PR → FAQ → visuals | | Customer-insights role | references/roles/customer-insights.md | Researcher-agent role for Listen synthesis | | 5CQ worksheet | templates/5cq-worksheet.md | Fill-in-the-blank for the 5 Customer Questions |

Working Backwards

Orchestrate the 5-stage Working Backwards process end-to-end to produce a 5CQ, PR/FAQ, or Dear Customer Letter. This skill is the user-facing runner; the canonical discipline lives in the shared reference at ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/product-design-shared/references/working-backwards.md.

When to Use

• You have a product idea and need to pressure-test it customer-first before building.
• You need to produce a PR/FAQ for an annual planning cycle or leadership review.
• You need a 5CQ to align a small team on a feature idea without the full PR/FAQ overhead.
• The real customer problem is fuzzy and you want the discipline to force clarity.

When NOT to use:

• The customer problem is already well-framed and you just need an engineering PRD → use skills/product-discovery/ directly.
• You need a strategic argument (Rumelt kernel, Wardley map) → use skills/product-strategy/ directly.

Core Concepts

The 5 stages

Load the canonical shared reference for full per-stage detail: ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/product-design-shared/references/working-backwards.md. Summary:

| Stage | Key question | Primary artifact | Upstream / downstream | | --------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | | 1. Listen | Who is the customer and what insights do we have? | Raw insights + customer data | skills/customer-research/ + customer-insights role | | 2. Define | What is the prevailing customer problem / opportunity? | Problem statement (data-backed, no solution named) | skills/customer-research/templates/problem-statement.md | | 3. Invent | What is the solution? Why is it the right one vs. alternatives? | 1-2 sentence solution + rejected alternatives | Brainstorm multiple directions; evaluate | | 4. Refine | End-to-end CX? Most important customer benefit? | PR/FAQ draft + storyboard + MLP | references/prfaq-authoring.md | | 5. Test & Iterate | How do we measure success? Unintended impacts? | Success metrics + experiment plan | Launch is the starting line |

The process is circular, not linear. What you learn in Stage 5 feeds Stage 1.

Artifact progression

The three WB artifacts stack from lightest to heaviest:

1. 5 Customer Questions (5CQ) — templates/5cq-worksheet.md. The on-ramp. Useful on its own for smaller work.
2. PR/FAQ — the Press Release (≤1 page) + FAQs + Visuals (combined ≤6 pages). Workflow at references/prfaq-authoring.md covers the structural skeleton (headline, sub-headline, summary paragraph, problem, solution, customer quote, getting-started, leader quote, then internal/external FAQs).
3. Dear Customer Letter — alternative to the PR in 2nd-person letter form. Five-paragraph template.

Pyramid connection

Working Backwards maps cleanly onto the Pyramid Principle:

• 5CQ is a mini-Pyramid. Q1–Q4 are the base (evidence: who, what, most important benefit, how we know). Q5 is the customer-facing answer (the experience).
• PR is the Pyramid top-down: headline (Purpose) → body (arguments) → customer quotes + specifics (evidence).
• FAQ is the antagonist test from Pyramid Phase 2 externalized — pre-writing responses to the 10 hardest questions a skeptic could ask.

See ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/product-design-shared/references/pyramid-principle.md for the composition discipline.

Quick Reference

A typical end-to-end run:

1. Capture intent. What is the idea? Who is the primary customer segment?
2. Listen. Delegate to skills/customer-research/ or use the customer-insights role directly. Gather raw insights; return Pyramid-base-shaped findings (per research-design.md).
3. Define. Write the problem statement using skills/customer-research/templates/problem-statement.md. Pressure-test with the antagonist lens.
4. Invent. Generate 4-6 distinct directions with tradeoffs. Do not fall in love early. Use skills/agent-ux-patterns/ if this is an agent-UX problem.
5. Refine. Draft the 5CQ (templates/5cq-worksheet.md). Build a storyboard for the customer experience. Draft the PR/FAQ following references/prfaq-authoring.md.
6. Test & Iterate. Define success metrics. Plan the experiment. Launch. Feed learnings back to Stage 1.

Composition with other skills

| Role | Skill | What it does | | -------------------------- | ------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | | Upstream (Listen + Define) | skills/customer-research/ | Research-design method → Pyramid-base-shaped findings | | Downstream (engineering) | skills/product-discovery/ | Translate a defined idea into engineering requirements | | Strategic framing | skills/product-strategy/ | Rumelt kernel, Wardley map, Minto-shaped argument | | The methodology reference | skills/product-design-shared/ | Canonical WB + Pyramid + research-design content |

Anti-Patterns

• Skipping Listen. Jumping to Invent because it's more fun. Produces well-executed wrong solutions.
• Naming the solution in the problem statement. "Customers need an AI dashboard" pre-commits the answer.
• Writing a polished PR without the thinking. LLMs make polish easy. Polish without clarity is a faster path to the wrong build.
• Executive summary at the top of a PR/FAQ. Inverts customer focus. If exec summary carries weight, wrong document type.
• Treating launch as the finish line. Stage 5 loops back to Stage 1.

References

• references/prfaq-authoring.md — step-by-step drafting workflow (5CQ → PR → FAQ → Visuals)
• references/roles/customer-insights.md — researcher-agent role for Listen-stage synthesis

Why the work is worth it

"Done correctly, the Working Backwards process is a huge amount of work. But, it saves you even more work later. It's not designed to be easy — it's designed to save huge amounts of work on the backend, and to make sure we're actually building the right thing."