10 Skills for Team Performance
Review how the team works, agree clear responsibilities, and improve meetings, handoffs, and coordination.
Build a team that learns and delivers
Each skill gives your AI assistant instructions for a specific task.
For founders, managers, and HR leads in teams of about 20–200 people. Use one skill for a specific problem, or work through the pack step by step.
Explain the situation and what you want to achieve. The assistant will ask questions and help you prepare. Before using its suggestions, check the facts and make sure they fit the situation. Ask the people involved for any information you are missing.
Our project reviews produce long action lists, but the same handoff problems keep returning. Help us plan a more useful review.
Choose a skill for your situation.
Open a skill below to see what it helps you do. After installing the skill or pasting its prompt into your assistant, use the suggested starting phrase.
Check How Your Team Works
Review delivery problems, compare possible explanations, and choose one bottleneck the team can address.
Run team-performance-check.
Download instructionsDefine the Team’s Work
Draft a one-page agreement covering the team’s purpose, goals, responsibilities, decisions, and ways of working.
Run team-performance-charter.
Download instructionsAgree How the Team Will Work
Turn recurring problems into a few specific working agreements, with exceptions and a date to review them.
Run team-performance-norms.
Download instructionsPlan a Team Review
Prepare an agenda for reviewing a recent work cycle and choosing one improvement to try.
Run team-performance-retro.
Download instructionsReview a Recent Team Event
Prepare a ten-minute discussion of what happened, what to repeat, and one change to make next time.
Run team-performance-quick-debrief.
Download instructionsPlan a Reliable Handoff
Define what the next person needs, who accepts the work, and how to handle missing information or delays.
Run team-performance-handoff.
Download instructionsMake Meetings More Useful
Review a meeting’s purpose and draft a plan to keep, change, replace, or stop it.
Run team-performance-meeting-reset.
Download instructionsMap the Work and Who Can Help
Map the work sequence, dependencies, responsibilities, and people with the expertise the team needs.
Run team-performance-shared-map.
Download instructionsPractice Team Coordination
Create a fictional teamwork exercise, role instructions, and a checklist of what the facilitator should watch for.
Run team-performance-practice.
Download instructionsTest a Change to Teamwork
Plan a small change to how the team works, then use results and feedback to decide what happens next.
Run team-performance-experiment.
Download instructionsOne download. Several ways to use it.
Unzip the download, then follow the instructions for your assistant.
Open one prompt file in portable/, copy its contents into a chat, and describe your situation.
To keep the whole pack in a project, upload portable/ALL-SKILLS.md as a project source, then paste the contents of PROJECT-INSTRUCTIONS.md into the project's instructions. If the assistant does not follow an uploaded prompt, paste that prompt directly into the chat.
In Claude, upload the individual skill ZIPs from install/ using the custom Skills feature. For another assistant that supports Agent Skills, copy the skill folders you need from skills/ into the directory that assistant uses for skills.
See README.md for installation options and a list of the included files.
Free for internal and client work under the Polar Bear license. Not for resale. Available features and results depend on the assistant you use.
Understand the research behind the pack.
The research notes explain which studies informed the skills, what those studies found, and where the findings may not apply. We have not tested whether these AI skills improve workplace outcomes.
Replace real names with placeholders and share only the information the assistant needs. You are responsible for checking facts, making decisions, and speaking with others. If the assistant predicts how someone might react, treat that as one possibility. Ask the person directly when you need to understand their view.
Download the research notes