| name | qbr-composition |
| description | Compose a Quarterly Business Review end-to-end — data pull plan, narrative arc, deck outline, talk track, post-QBR commitment tracker. Reach for this skill 1–2 weeks before a QBR is scheduled, OR after a QBR to convert in-meeting promises into a tracked plan. |
Skill: QBR Composition
A QBR with no commitments is a status meeting. This skill prevents that.
Step 1 — Identify the partner's stated goals from the success plan
Pull the success plan (success-plan-authoring) and the partner profile. The opening content slide of the QBR is the partner's goals, verbatim, with attribution. Don't paraphrase. Don't substitute internal KPIs.
If the success plan doesn't have explicit partner-stated goals, stop. Loop in partner-profile-curator to capture them first. A QBR against goals you assumed is worse than no QBR.
Step 2 — Data pull plan
For each partner-stated goal, identify the measurable outcomes that prove progress (per the success plan). Then build the data pull:
- Source — which database / dashboard / export
- Query — the actual query, written down so a successor can re-run it
- Date range — usually quarter-over-quarter; sometimes year-over-year for seasonal partners
- Comparison baseline — vs prior quarter, vs onboarding baseline, vs same-cohort average. Pick deliberately, name it on the slide.
- Freeze date — when the data is cut. Don't change it after this date.
If a goal can't be measured with available data, that's a finding — flag it in the data pull plan and route the gap to learning-analytics-analyst for instrumentation in the next cycle.
Step 3 — Narrative arc (the storyline that makes the data make sense)
A QBR is a story. Default structure (15–18 slides):
- Opener — partner's goals, in their words, from the success plan
- Where we are — for each goal, the relevant outcome with chart + date range + baseline
- What's working — 2–3 specific wins, named (specific user, specific feature, specific outcome)
- What's at risk — 1–2 honest concerns (don't bury them; partners notice)
- What we recommend next — 3–5 specific actions; mix of partner-side, our-side, joint
- Followups — named owners, dates, cadence for review
Anti-pattern: opening with "Here's how we did this quarter" — that's PSM-internal framing. Open with the partner's reasons for being here.
Step 4 — Deck outline (one headline per slide)
Each slide:
- One headline (the claim)
- One chart or visual (the evidence)
- One sentence of context (if any; often the headline + chart is enough)
- No body-copy paragraphs
If a slide has two competing claims, it's two slides. If a slide needs an appendix, the appendix is a follow-up doc.
Step 5 — Talk track (what the PSM says between slides)
For each slide, the talk track answers:
- What does the partner already know about this?
- What's the new claim being made?
- Where is the partner most likely to push back?
- What's the right response if they do?
- What's the transition to the next slide?
The talk track is for the PSM rehearsing the night before. It is not shown to the partner.
Step 6 — Followups slide (the most important slide)
Default structure:
| Action | Owner | Date | Cadence to review |
|---|
| [Specific action, in the partner's framing] | [Named person, our side OR partner side] | [Real date, not "Q3"] | [Weekly / biweekly / monthly until done] |
Rules:
- Every action has all 4 columns. Missing any column = the action isn't tracked.
- Multiple owners on one action = no owner. Pick one.
- "Continue to monitor X" is not an action.
- Capture commitments in the partner's words, not yours, where possible. ("Susan committed to enabling feature X by 2026-07-01" — not "Partner agreed to expand usage.")
Step 7 — Post-QBR commitment tracking
The followups slide doesn't track itself. After the QBR:
- Convert the followups into a tracked plan (the touchpoint-log template captures this)
- Set the review cadence (default: biweekly during the followup window)
- Block calendar time for each review
- Surface at-risk actions in the next touchpoint, not at the next QBR (3 months later)
A QBR followup that's only re-examined at the next QBR is a churn vector.
Step 8 — Mock-QBR rehearsal (the easy 30-min win)
Before the real meeting, the PSM runs through the deck out loud — to a colleague, a manager, or a recorded version of themselves. Catches:
- Slides that read fine and present terribly
- Claims that the PSM can't actually back up (revealing the data pull is shakier than the slide implies)
- Talk-track transitions that don't work in spoken form
- Time-bombs (the slide that will spark a 20-minute debate; decide upfront whether to keep, soften, or move to appendix)
Renewal-QBR variant
When the QBR is ~90 days from a renewal date, add:
- Decision-maker confirmation — verify the named decision-maker is still in the role; refresh the partner profile if not
- Multi-year vs single-year framing — explicit recommendation with rationale
- Objection pre-handling — top 3 likely objections, with the prepared response for each
- Champion engagement check — at least one named champion-side stakeholder is in attendance
What this skill does NOT cover
- Designing the underlying metrics (route to
partner-health-scoring or learning-analytics-analyst)
- Designing the renewal play itself (route to
success-playbook-designer)
- Parent / school-facing summaries of QBR content (route to
ferpa-comms-translator)
- Long-form post-QBR executive memo (route to
ravenclaude-core/documentarian)
