problem-statement

SKILL.md

User-centered problem framing that captures who is blocked, what they're trying to do, why it matters, and how it feels.

Structures problems around five dimensions: persona, desired outcomes, barriers, root causes, and emotional impact—ensuring you solve problems worth solving, not feature requests

Includes a fill-in template, quality checks, and anti-patterns to avoid solution smuggling, generic personas, and symptom-level diagnosis

Designed for discovery alignment, stakeholder buy-in, and PRD framing before solutioning begins

Works best when grounded in user research; includes guidance on gathering context, validating with users, and iterating based on feedback

Purpose

Articulate a problem from the user's perspective using an empathy-driven framework that captures who they are, what they're trying to do, what's blocking them, why, and how it makes them feel. Use this to align stakeholders on the problem before jumping to solutions, and to frame product work around user outcomes rather than feature requests.

This is not a requirements doc—it's a human-centered problem narrative that ensures you're solving a problem worth solving.

Key Concepts

The Problem Framing Framework

Based on Jobs-to-be-Done and empathy mapping, the framework structures problems as:

Problem Framing Narrative:

I am: [Describe the persona experiencing the problem]

Trying to: [Desired outcomes the persona cares about]

But: [Barriers preventing the outcomes]

Because: [Root cause of the problem]

Which makes me feel: [Emotional impact]