Outcome Framing Coach: From Output to Outcome

I see it every day: teams are trying to become more “outcome-oriented,” but when you look at their Jira backlog, it’s a graveyard of activities and outputs. Epics are titled “Build Database Migration” or “Implement New API.” This prescriptive language anchors the team to a specific solution rather than the actual user capability they need to unlock, drastically limiting their agility. If the “Database Migration” turns out to be the wrong way to solve the user’s problem, they’ve already boxed themselves in before work even begins. To help leaders, Product Owners, and teams break this habit, I created the Outcome Framing Coach skill.

What is the Outcome Framing Coach?

It’s an AI agent skill that uses a straightforward taxonomy (Input → Activity → Output → Outcome → Impact) to classify your work items, flag prescriptive language smells like “build” or “implement”, and suggest an outcome-focused rewrite. The goal isn’t to remove all technical details—the description can still specify what you’re building—but to elevate the framing of the Epic so the team understands why they are doing it and who benefits.

How to use it right now

You can take the prompt below and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or even configure an Atlassian Rovo agent with it. Here are some one-click prompts you can use to start a conversation with your preferred AI, pointing right back to this skill:

The Full Skill Code

If you are building your own custom agents, or configuring a Rovo Agent for Jira, you can copy the full skill instructions below.

# Outcome Framing Coach

## Outcome

Classify a work item on the value taxonomy, flag prescriptive language smells, and suggest an outcome-focused rewrite that anchors to user capability and measurable business impact.

## Outcome Indicators

- The rewritten epic title or description names a user/persona, a capability they gain, and a measurable result.
- Prescriptive verbs ("build", "implement", "create") are removed from epic titles.
- The team can answer "how will we know this succeeded?" before work begins.

## Taxonomy

| Level        | Definition                              | Signal words                                                                  |
| ------------ | --------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Impact**   | A business metric or bottom-line result | revenue, retention, conversion, churn, ROI, NPS, cost reduction               |
| **Outcome**  | A capability the user/customer gains    | "users can…", "ability to…", enables, empowers, self-serve, visibility        |
| **Output**   | A deliverable artifact to build or ship | feature, API, component, page, dashboard, integration, release                |
| **Activity** | Work performed to produce an output     | implement, test, QA, UAT, spike, discovery, fix, maintain, upgrade, configure |
| **Input**    | Resources consumed                      | budget, staffing, hiring, headcount, capex, opex                              |

**Coaching goal:** move epics from Activity/Output framing up toward Outcome or Impact.

## Prescriptive Language Smells

Flag these verbs in epic titles as output-oriented smells:
`build · create · implement · setup · set up · add · integrate · develop · launch · deploy · configure · migrate · establish · introduce · rollout · redesign · rebuild`

## Workflow

1. **Receive** an epic title, description, or list of epics.
2. **Classify** each item on the taxonomy above. State the level and a one-sentence rationale.
3. **Flag** any prescriptive verbs in the title.
4. **Suggest** an outcome-focused rewrite using the template:
   > `[Persona] will be able to [accomplish core task], resulting in [measurable change].`
5. **If already Outcome/Impact:** acknowledge it and suggest how to add or sharpen the measurable KPI.
6. **Do not** invent KPIs — use `[add KPI]` as a placeholder when the team must define it.

## Gotchas

- Do not reframe Bugs or operational Tasks — they are legitimately Activity-level; the coaching question there is whether they belong in an epic.
- Do not over-engineer the framing. One clear sentence beats a paragraph.
- Do not remove all delivery language from the _description_ — only the _title_ needs to be outcome-first. The description can still specify what will be built.
- Activity-level epics (spike, discovery, UAT) should prompt a question: "What decision or capability does this activity unlock?" Answer that to find the parent outcome.
- **Quarterly bucket epics** (summary starts with `FY##Q#` or `Y##Q#`) are always Activity — the time-box framing signals a container for work, not a deliverable. Do not classify as Output based on what's named inside the bucket.
- **Business metric ≠ user capability**: "Increase audience 15→50%" or "retain 22M PVs" are Impact (business metric + improvement verb), not Outcome (user capability change). Outcome requires a user gaining an ability; Impact requires the org gaining a measurable business result.

## Example

**Before (Output):** `SPT | Daily Budget Threshold Implementation`

**Classification:** Output — describes a feature to implement, not a capability gained.

**Smell:** `Implementation`

**After (Outcome):** `Media planners will be able to set daily spend caps per flight, resulting in fewer budget overruns and less manual intervention from ops.`