# Initiatives AI Skill Focus Area · Initiatives Move · Decision Map --- ## 1. What the Skill Does The Initiatives skill helps teams name the area of work that deserves attention before any testing or comparing begins. It is the first move inside the Focus area of Glare's Decision Map. This is where scattered requests — redesign this page, fix this flow, test this feature — get organized into one focused effort with a clear goal. Most teams have more ideas than capacity. Without a clear initiative, everything feels equally important at the same time. Design work scatters. Tests get run without a shared target. Results come back but do not connect to a decision. The Initiatives skill fixes that by giving the team a container for signals, methods, comparisons, and decisions. A strong initiative connects three things. | Part | What it names | |---|---| | User Need | What users are trying to do and where they are getting stuck | | Business Goal | What outcome the business is trying to move | | Measurable Part of the Experience | The specific area that needs to improve | All three must be present. An initiative with no user need is a roadmap item. An initiative with no business goal is a design exercise. An initiative with no measurable part of the experience is a direction without a target. **The Framing Rule** The most common failure in Focus is jumping to methods and testing before the initiative is named. Teams start comparing versions before they agree on what problem the versions are supposed to solve. Results come in and the team interprets them differently because they never aligned on the goal. The rule is simple: do not choose a method until the initiative names the area of experience, the audience, the user need, the business goal, and the UX metric that would show progress. If any of those is missing, the initiative is not ready. Stop and frame it before moving forward. --- ## 2. Business Benefit A clear initiative keeps design work focused on the problems that matter most to users and the business. It prevents teams from running tests that produce results nobody can act on. This helps teams: - connect scattered requests to a shared goal - choose the right methods and metrics for the work - make findings easier to explain to product and leadership - avoid spending time on work that does not connect to a business outcome - give stakeholders a clear picture of what the team is improving and why Work becomes easier to prioritize, defend, and build on over time. --- ## 3. Skill Output When used correctly, the skill produces a clear initiative brief for a design effort. The brief shows: - the area of experience being improved - the audience affected - the user need behind the work - the business goal it connects to - the UX metric that will show progress - the decision the team needs to make next The example below shows how this works for a mobile banking dashboard. | Field | Example Output (Mobile Banking Dashboard) | |---|---| | Initiative Type | Optimize Navigation & Discovery | | Area of Experience | Mobile banking dashboard home screen | | Audience | Habitual users who log in three or more times per week | | User Need | Findable — users need to locate balance and recent transactions without extra navigation | | Business Goal | Reduce session abandonment — users who cannot find key information leave without completing any action | | UX Metric | First-click success rate on balance and transaction history, session abandonment rate | | Decision Needed | Which home screen layout creates the strongest first-click signal for habitual users | | Failure Mode to Watch | Defining two or more initiatives at once. One initiative at a time forces the right focus. Multiple initiatives running in parallel is a sign the work has not been scoped yet. | | Next Step Handoff | → glare-focus-methods to choose the right frame for bringing data into this initiative | The output connects directly to the other Focus moves: - Methods uses the initiative to choose the right research frame - Comparing uses the user need and metric to place signals side by side fairly - Decisions uses the initiative to name what is actually being chosen --- ## 4. Prompt Strategies The prompts below show different ways to use this skill. Each example uses a mobile banking dashboard update. --- ### Prompt 1 — Diagnostic Entry: Start from scattered requests "Our team has been asked to redesign the mobile banking dashboard home screen, fix the transaction history flow, and test a new summary card feature — all at the same time. We are not sure what to focus on first. Using the glare-focus-initiatives skill, help us map these requests to a single initiative by connecting them to one user need, one business goal, and one UX metric." **Why this works:** Three separate requests without a shared frame is the exact symptom the Initiatives skill is built to fix. This prompt uses the five-step method to pull all three requests toward one clear area of improvement so the team can test and decide with focus. **Best for:** - sprint planning where the brief has too many directions - any situation where the team is trying to run multiple tests at once - connecting a list of design requests to a single business outcome --- ### Prompt 2 — Typing Entry: Name the right initiative type "We are improving the mobile banking dashboard and we are not sure whether to frame this as a Navigation initiative, an Engagement initiative, or a Personalization initiative. Using glare-focus-initiatives, help us identify which initiative type fits our work, explain what that type is designed to improve, and confirm whether our current framing has the right user need, business goal, and metric." **Why this works:** Choosing the wrong initiative type leads to the wrong methods, the wrong metrics, and comparisons that do not support the real decision. This prompt uses the ten initiative types to anchor the work in the right frame before testing begins. **Best for:** - teams starting a new focus effort without a clear category - any project where the scope keeps expanding because the type is unclear - preparing an initiative brief that needs to be shared with product or leadership --- ### Prompt 3 — Confidence Entry: Check an initiative before moving to methods "We have defined our initiative as: improve the mobile banking dashboard home screen to help habitual users find their balance and transaction history faster, reduce session abandonment, and track first-click success rate. Using glare-focus-initiatives, check this initiative against the three-part framework — user need, business goal, measurable experience — and tell us whether it is ready to move to methods or needs more framing." **Why this works:** Teams often think their initiative is clear but have left out the metric or left the user need too vague to test. This prompt uses the framing rule to catch gaps before methods are chosen, saving time and avoiding a round of research that cannot support a decision. **Best for:** - quality-checking an initiative before a research sprint - preparing for a methods discussion with product or engineering - any situation where the initiative has been described but not yet validated --- *Glare Framework · glare-focus-initiatives · Focus Area* *Handoffs: glare-focus-methods · glare-focus-comparing · glare-focus-decisions · glare-define · glare-measure*