| name | brainstorming-values-archaeology |
| description | Facilitate a Values Archaeology session that excavates the unstated values and basic assumptions driving a team's or stakeholder's decisions. Invoke when stakeholder conflict, charter disagreements, or recurring scope disputes appear to stem from misaligned underlying priorities rather than factual differences. |
Adapted from bmad-method:bmad-brainstorming (MIT, © 2025 BMad Code, LLC). See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.
When to use
Use this skill when the surface-level disagreement between stakeholders or team members is a symptom of deeper value conflicts that have not been named. Typical triggers include:
- A charter negotiation stalled because parties keep arguing about priority without agreeing on what "success" means
- A retrospective where the same team tension surfaces every sprint with no resolution
- Onboarding a sponsor or executive who keeps overriding planning decisions in ways that seem inconsistent
- A project where stated organizational values (e.g., "quality first") appear to contradict observed decisions (e.g., consistent scope-for-schedule trade-offs)
Do not invoke when the disagreement is technical or factual; escalate to a scope or risk analysis instead. Do not invoke as a team-building exercise without a specific decision or conflict to anchor the session.
Summon the SME
Before facilitating, load the canonical organizational-culture reference to ground the session in established frameworks for value elicitation.
Reading the config. Check .pm-kit.config.json for the sourcesMode field:
- If
sourcesMode is "online" (opt-in): fetch the URL stored at the key sources.valuesArchaeology in vendor/pm-kit/sources-index.json using your available web-fetch capability. Do not name a specific tool — use whatever your runtime provides. Ground the facilitation in what you read. Do not fabricate quotations or page numbers.
- If
sourcesMode is "offline" or the field is absent (the default): rely on your general knowledge of Schein's organizational culture model — specifically the three levels of artifacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions — as described in Organizational Culture and Leadership (Schein, 1985, revised 2016). Cite the canonical URL from vendor/pm-kit/sources-index.json at key sources.valuesArchaeology in the output. Do not fabricate quotations or page numbers.
In both cases, the URL to cite is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Schein.
Facilitation script
Walk the user through these steps in sequence. Do not skip steps or combine them.
Step 1 — Anchor decision or conflict. Ask the user to name a specific decision, recurring conflict, or project tension to explore. Confirm it is concrete: a named disagreement between identifiable parties, or a specific decision that keeps being reversed.
Step 2 — Surface artifacts. Ask: "What can you observe directly? What decisions have been made? What behaviors, meeting patterns, or communication styles are visible?" List these as artifacts — the observable layer.
Step 3 — Elicit espoused values. Ask: "What values does the team or organization publicly claim to hold? What does the mission statement say? What does leadership say matters?" Record these verbatim where possible.
Step 4 — Probe for basic assumptions. For each espoused value, ask: "When this value conflicted with another priority, which one won? What does that tell us about what the organization truly treats as non-negotiable?" The answers reveal the basic assumptions — the deepest layer, rarely stated aloud.
Step 5 — Map the gaps. Compare the espoused values against the basic assumptions. Identify where they align and where they diverge. Name the divergences explicitly: "The team says quality first, but the pattern shows schedule wins every time the two conflict."
Step 6 — Implications for the project. Ask: "Given these underlying values, what does the project need to accommodate? Which decisions should be re-examined? What risks arise if we plan against the espoused values rather than the basic assumptions?"
Step 7 — Output. Produce the completed analysis using the structure in TEMPLATE.md (sibling file). Fill every section. Leave no placeholder unfilled.
Step 8 — Save the artifact. Save the filled artifact to docs/pm-kit/outputs/brainstorming-values-archaeology/<short-slug>.md. <short-slug> is a kebab-case ASCII slug (max 40 characters) derived from the anchoring decision or conflict. Confirm the final path with the user before writing. If the target file already exists, ask the user whether to overwrite, append a date suffix (e.g., -2026-04-20), or choose a different slug. The artifact must begin with the three-line provenance header below (preserved as HTML comments so they do not render):
<!-- Generated by agentic-pm-kit:brainstorming-values-archaeology on YYYY-MM-DD -->
<!-- Languages: communication=<value>, output=<value> -->
<!-- Source mode: offline | online -->
Languages
The kit separates the language used for live agent–user dialogue from the language used in the saved artifact. Both values live in .pm-kit.config.json and are free-form strings — read each value verbatim, never infer a language from the conversation, and never select from a hardcoded list.
Facilitation dialogue. Speak to the user during facilitation in the language at language.communication. Use the string verbatim.
Filled artifact (saved TEMPLATE.md output). Produce the written artifact in the language at language.output. If language.output is absent or empty, fall back to language.communication.
Example values either field might contain: "en-US", "es-MX", "Português brasileiro", "Mandarin Chinese". Accept any string as given. This bifurcation is the normative pattern for every skill in the kit.
Acceptance gate
When the analysis is complete, point the user to CHECKLIST.md (sibling file) and ask them to verify each item. Remind them that the output must be marked PASS or FAIL. On FAIL, invite the user to return with specific notes so the facilitation can be resumed or corrected.
