Skill rating

Use for first principles thinking, or when the user questions an inherited default: "why do we do it this way?", "is this cost really necessary?", "should we copy what competitors do?". Strips analogi

Use when the user describes a problem, decision or stuck situation but names no method: "how should I approach this?", "help me think this through", "we can't decide", "where do I start?". Picks the b

Use for creative thinking, or when the user wants many fresh options before choosing: "give me ideas", "brainstorm names", "other ways to do this", "think outside the box". Diverges first, then picks.

Use for Six Thinking Hats or de Bono's parallel thinking, or when a decision or idea needs facts, gut feel, risks, benefits and new options kept apart: "look at this from all sides", "full perspective

Use for SWOT analysis, or when the user wants to assess where a team, product or company stands: "strengths and weaknesses", "should we enter this market?", "review our position", "competitor comparis

Use for the 5 Whys, or when the user wants the root cause of a failure: "why did this happen?", "this keeps breaking", "write the postmortem", "find the real cause". Asks why repeatedly with evidence

Use for analytical thinking, or when a question needs breaking down and evidence: "why did metric X drop?", "what drives this?", "break this down", "what data do we need?". Builds a tree, hypotheses a

Use for strategic thinking, or when the user must choose a direction under constraints: "where should we focus?", "how do we win?", "roadmap for next year", "what should we not do?". Ends in explicit

Use for tradeoff analysis, or when the user must pick between concrete options: "A or B?", "which library should we use?", "build vs buy", "compare these approaches". Scores options on weighted criter

Use for ethical thinking, or when a plan could harm or unfairly burden people: "should we do this?", "is this fair?", "privacy or bias risk", "who gets hurt?". Maps stakeholders, harms, power and cons

Use for Fermi estimation, or when a rough number is needed fast: "roughly how many...", "ballpark the cost", "estimate capacity or market size", "is this even feasible?". Decomposes, uses ranges and s

Use for lateral thinking, or when ideas feel stuck or incremental: "we've tried everything", "need a surprising angle", "break the pattern", "give me a wild idea that could work". Uses provocations an

Use for systems thinking, or when a change may ripple beyond its target: "what are the side effects?", "why does this keep coming back?", "how do these teams or services affect each other?". Maps loop

Use for design thinking, or when a product or service problem needs user understanding before solutions: "what do users really need?", "how might we...", "plan a discovery sprint", "validate this conc

Use for prioritization, or when there are more tasks than capacity: "what should we do first?", "rank this backlog", "cut scope for the MVP", "RICE score these". Picks a method (RICE, ICE, MoSCoW, imp

Use for a pre-mortem, or before committing to a plan, launch or migration: "what could go wrong?", "stress test this plan", "how might this fail?", "risks before we ship". Assumes failure, lists cause

Use for critical thinking, or when the user wants a claim, plan or decision checked for weak spots: "is this right?", "what am I missing?", "poke holes", "sanity check", "devil's advocate", "red team