Improve a Business
Diagnose and fix a plateaued business
Takes you from a stalled, plateaued business to one with an honest diagnosis, a working operating rhythm, and offers repriced to real value. It orchestrates its eight skills phase by phase, asking you the decision questions at every step and recording every result in your project's docs/ folder so the journey resumes across sessions.
npx skills add wondelai/skills/improve-business --global - 01
What single challenge is capping the business? gate
Good Strategy Bad Strategy → docs/STRATEGY.md - 02
How do we execute the strategy every week?
Traction EOS → docs/OPERATIONS.md - 03
How does the operator multiply the team, not bottleneck it?
High Output Management → docs/OPERATIONS.md - 04
Is the org structure itself the constraint?
Team Topologies → docs/OPERATIONS.md - 05
Why has the team quietly checked out?
Drive Motivation → docs/OPERATIONS.md - 06
Which one number tells us the truth?
Lean Analytics → docs/METRICS.md - 07
Where are we leaking margin, and what do customers truly value?
Negotiation → docs/CUSTOMER.md - 08
Are we charging for the value we deliver?
Monetizing Innovation → docs/OFFER.md
Each phase asks the question, then writes the answer before the next one starts.
The long read behind the phases: How to Improve an Existing Business with AI Skills
02 What it is
What is the Improve a Business journey?
When revenue flattens, the fix starts with an honest diagnosis rather than a new initiative. Eight phases name the one challenge capping the business, install a weekly operating rhythm, examine structure and motivation, pick the number that tells the truth, and reprice around value — all of it logged in docs/.
03 In practice
Diagnose and Fix a Plateaued Business
Revenue has been flat for three quarters and every fix so far was a guess.
Our business has plateaued and every fix so far was a guess. Run the improve-business journey starting with a proper diagnosis. Don't let me jump to solutions before the diagnosis is confirmed.
Use improve-business skill.
Written to your repo
- docs/STRATEGY.md
- docs/OPERATIONS.md
- docs/METRICS.md
- docs/CUSTOMER.md
- docs/OFFER.md
- docs/IMPROVE-BUSINESS-PLAN.md journey tracker
Stop anytime. The tracker records which phases are done and which decision is next, so a new session opens at the unanswered question.
04 Prompts
Say it like this.
Name the journey at the end of a prompt and it takes over from phase one. Say it again in a later session and it resumes at the unanswered question.
Our revenue has been flat for three quarters — diagnose and fix it with me. using improve-business skill
Run the improve-business journey; start with the strategy diagnosis. using improve-business skill
Continue our business turnaround from the tracker. using improve-business skill
05 Fit
One prompt runs it.
Every phase asks before it acts, and every decision lands in your project's docs/ folder as a living document.
Reach for it when
Figure out why growth stalled before launching new initiatives
Replace a goals-as-strategy plan with a real strategy kernel
Install an execution rhythm (rocks, weekly meetings, ownership)
Stop leaking margin in renewals and vendor deals
Reprice around value instead of cost-plus guesswork
Reach for something else when
Acquisition is the constraint, not execution. Grow a Business builds pipeline; this one fixes the machine you have.
There is no business yet, only an idea. start with Create a Business and its validation gate.
You just want quarterly rocks and a weekly meeting cadence. Traction EOS installs that without the other seven phases.
The problem is one renewal or vendor conversation. Negotiation on its own is the sharper tool.
07 Questions
Before you install.
How do I install the Improve a Business journey?
Run npx skills add wondelai/skills/improve-business --global. It takes about 30 seconds and needs no account. The Improve a Business skill then works in Claude, Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw and Hermes Agent — anything that reads the open agentskills.io format — and your agent loads it on its own when a task calls for it. It is free and MIT-licensed, and the source is at https://github.com/wondelai/skills.
Which skills does the Improve a Business journey run, and what does it produce?
It orchestrates 8 skills across 8 phases — Good Strategy Bad Strategy, Traction EOS, High Output Management, Team Topologies, Drive Motivation, Lean Analytics, Negotiation, Monetizing Innovation — asking you one decision question per phase. Each answer is written to your project's docs/ folder (docs/STRATEGY.md, docs/OPERATIONS.md, docs/METRICS.md, docs/CUSTOMER.md, docs/OFFER.md, docs/IMPROVE-BUSINESS-PLAN.md), so the journey survives across sessions and you keep the reasoning, not just the output.
What if the strategy diagnosis gate says my plan is a wish list?
That is the most common result, and it is why Good Strategy Bad Strategy goes first. The gate will not let you proceed to Traction EOS carrying a set of goals dressed as a strategy — it names the single critical challenge and writes the kernel into docs/STRATEGY.md, so the operating-rhythm phases have something coherent to execute. Installing a meeting cadence on top of a wish list only makes the wrong work happen weekly.
Four of the eight phases write to docs/OPERATIONS.md. Is that redundant?
They answer different questions about the same machine. Traction EOS asks how the strategy gets executed every week; High Output Management asks whether the operator multiplies the team or bottlenecks it; Team Topologies asks whether the org structure is itself the constraint; Drive Motivation asks why people quietly checked out. Each appends its own section, so the file ends up one readable account of how the business runs.
Can I skip the team phases if I run this solo or with three people?
Mostly yes. Team Topologies and Drive Motivation lose their teeth below about five people, and the skip is noted in docs/IMPROVE-BUSINESS-PLAN.md. High Output Management still earns its place — its subject is your own leverage, which is the binding constraint when there is one of you. The metrics, margin and pricing phases at the end are unaffected either way.
We tried a turnaround last year and it did not stick. Why would this?
Most turnarounds fail at the same two joints: no diagnosis, so effort scatters, and no rhythm, so the plan dies in week three. This journey gates on the first and spends four phases on the second. It also ends on money — Negotiation finds where margin leaks, Monetizing Innovation asks whether you charge for the value you deliver — which is usually where a plateau is actually resolved.
Eight skills, one deliberate order.
Run the whole journey with one prompt.
npx skills add wondelai/skills/improve-business --global MIT licensed · Claude, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw, Hermes · No account