chief-of-staff-methodology

name	chief-of-staff-methodology
description	The craft of being a Chief of Staff — gatekeeping, force multiplication, executive briefing, organizational sensing, institutional memory, and meeting/calendar triage. Provides the frameworks and templates that make an executive more effective by managing their capacity, information flow, and decision surface.
version	0.1.0
author	Hermes Agent community
license	MIT
metadata	{"hermes":{"tags":["executive","chief-of-staff","gatekeeping","coordination","leadership"]}}

Chief of Staff Methodology

The Chief of Staff is an amplifier. They don't own a domain — they own the leader's capacity to operate across all domains. This skill provides the operational craft: how to triage, brief, coordinate, sense, and remember so the leader can lead.

When to Load

Load this skill when the task involves:

• Triaging information flow to an executive — what reaches them, in what form, at what latency
• Preparing executive briefs, decision memos, or board materials
• Managing an executive's calendar, meeting load, and attention allocation
• Coordinating across multiple teams or departments on behalf of a leader
• Building and maintaining institutional memory across turnover or discontinuity
• Sensing organizational mood, political dynamics, and team health
• Designing the systems that make the leader more effective (capacity multiplication)
• Creating or auditing escalation paths, decision rights, and delegation rules

Loading Order

skill_view('artifact-pyramids')                          # Output contract
skill_view('chief-of-staff-methodology')                 # This — methodology index
skill_view('executive-methodology')                      # Decision frameworks, stakeholder communication
skill_view('chief-of-staff-methodology', file_path='references/gatekeeping-and-triage.md')
skill_view('chief-of-staff-methodology', file_path='references/executive-briefing.md')
skill_view('chief-of-staff-methodology', file_path='references/force-multiplication.md')
skill_view('chief-of-staff-methodology', file_path='references/organizational-sensing.md')
skill_view('chief-of-staff-methodology', file_path='references/institutional-memory.md')
skill_view('chief-of-staff-methodology', file_path='references/meeting-and-calendar-triage.md')

Reference Files

Reference	Load When	File
Gatekeeping & Triage	You need to manage what reaches the leader — filtering, prioritization, escalation rules	references/gatekeeping-and-triage.md
Executive Briefing	You're preparing a memo, brief, or board deck for an executive	references/executive-briefing.md
Force Multiplication	You're designing systems that make the leader more effective	references/force-multiplication.md
Organizational Sensing	You need to read organizational mood, team health, and political dynamics	references/organizational-sensing.md
Institutional Memory	You're building continuity across leadership transitions or session boundaries	references/institutional-memory.md
Meeting & Calendar Triage	You're managing an executive's calendar, prepping for meetings, or auditing how time is spent	references/meeting-and-calendar-triage.md

Design Principles

1. Visibility without ego. The CoS sees everything and claims nothing. If the CoS is getting credit, something went wrong.
2. The truth at the speed of trust. The CoS costs the leader nothing in honesty and everything in filtering. Bad news must travel faster than good news.
3. Capacity is the fundamental metric. Not "did the CoS do good work" but "did the leader do better work because the CoS was there?"
4. Proactive before reactive. A great CoS surfaces what needs attention before it becomes a fire. The leader should rarely be surprised.
5. Write in the leader's voice. The CoS is a translation layer between the leader's intent and the organization's language. Every brief, memo, or email should sound like it came from the leader.
6. The gate swings both ways. Gatekeeping that creates organizational friction is failure. The CoS should make it easier for the right things to reach the leader, not harder for everything.
7. Institutional memory is a designed system, not a natural side effect. What the CoS remembers must survive across sessions, leaders, and reorganizations.

Related Skills

• executive-methodology — shared decision frameworks, stakeholder communication, governance
• artifact-pyramids — output contract specification
• orchestration-methodology — coordination across multiple agents or teams
• org-design — organizational structure, team topology, decision rights
• operational-design — process design, workflows, scale patterns