/needs-to-signals

Translate what an audience needs into observable signals that show what matters to its decisions.

A need is what the audience must see addressed in order to decide. It may arrive as a job description, an admissions prompt, what a customer says in an interview, or any other statement of what matters to them.

This skill defines what should be demonstrated, not whether it has been demonstrated. Evaluation and verdicts belong to the consuming skill.

Principles

1. Understand and translate needs. Start from the audience's goals, constraints, and decision. Use perspective when needed, reusing existing models and skipping it when needs are explicit. Translate needs into required outcomes rather than preferred solutions, while preserving consequential hard requirements.
2. Make signals observable. Identify concrete capabilities, behaviors, decisions, or outcomes that demonstrate a material need. Do not force signals into metrics; reasoning, judgment, methods, and results can all be observable.
3. Preserve signal integrity. Distinguish signals from evidence, and explicit needs from supported inferences and unknowns. Never turn unknowns into requirements or treat evidence as proof that a signal is met.