impediment-prioritization

---
name: impediment-prioritization
description: 'Ranks any list of impediments and their countermeasures using a value-stream scoring model (ROI, Cost to Implement, Ease of Deployment, Risk Factor) and a fixed prioritization formula. Use when someone asks to prioritize, rank, sequence, or triage impediments, countermeasures, remediation items, risks, findings, gaps, action items, or backlog entries; or mentions value-stream prioritization, A3 / lean countermeasure ranking, ROI vs. effort scoring, or building a remediation / improvement backlog. Works with GHQR findings, audit results, retrospective action items, risk registers, architecture review gaps, or any free-form `{impediment, countermeasure}` list.'
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: ajenns
  version: "2.0.0"
  created: "2026-04-19"
  updated: "2026-04-21"
  framework: value-stream-prioritization
  domain: general
---

# Impediment Prioritization Skill

A domain-agnostic skill for ranking impediments and their countermeasures. Works with any `{impediment, countermeasure}` list — GHQR findings, audit results, retro action items, risk registers, architecture review gaps, etc.

## When to Activate

Activate when the user:
- Asks to prioritize, rank, sequence, or triage impediments, gaps, risks, findings, or remediation items
- Provides a list of impediments with proposed countermeasures (or asks you to propose countermeasures for a list of problems)
- Asks "what should we fix first" on any improvement / remediation backlog
- Mentions value-stream prioritization, A3 countermeasures, ROI-vs-effort, or lean impediment ranking

## Inputs

Accepted input: a list of `{impediment, countermeasure}` pairs. Sources include (non-exhaustive):

| Source | Maps to Impediment | Maps to Countermeasure |
|--------|---------------------|-------------------------|
| GHQR / health-check findings | Finding or gap (Status ≠ Expected) | Recommendation / expected value |
| Audit results | Non-conformance | Remediation action |
| Retrospective | "What went wrong" item | Agreed improvement |
| Risk register | Risk | Mitigation |
| Architecture review | Gap vs. target state | Proposed change |
| User free-form list | Problem statement | Proposed fix |

**Rules:**
- One countermeasure per impediment. If the input suggests multiple remediation paths, select the primary one and note alternatives in the rationale — do not emit multiple rows for the same impediment.
- Collapse duplicates before scoring.
- If a source link / citation is available, attach it to the countermeasure.
- If a confidence level is available on the source, surface it as an optional `Confidence` column.

## Scoring Rubric (1–10 scales)

Score each impediment's countermeasure against all four criteria. See [references/scoring-rubric.md](./references/scoring-rubric.md) for anchoring examples at the 1 / 5 / 10 levels across multiple domains (platform engineering, security, SRE, application development, governance).

| Criterion | Scale | Definition |
|-----------|-------|------------|
| **Return on Investment (ROI)** | 1 = low, 10 = high | Efficiency gain delivered by the countermeasure to this step AND to the overall value stream. Not purely financial — weight throughput, cycle-time reduction, defect removal, user / developer experience, and compliance lift. |
| **Cost to Implement** | 1 = inexpensive, 10 = very expensive | Human capital (salary + time of people needed) plus any purchases, licenses, or infrastructure required to implement the countermeasure. |
| **Ease of Deployment** | 1 = extremely hard, 10 = very easy | Remediation effort required to actually deploy the countermeasure end-to-end. Reflects technical complexity, change-management burden, and rollback risk. |
| **Risk Factor** | 1 = low risk, 10 = very high risk | Risk weighted on impact to the overall value stream if the countermeasure goes wrong, stalls, or is deferred. |

Every score must be accompanied by a one-line rationale. When a score is an estimate rather than drawn from explicit data, mark the rationale with `(estimated)`.

## Formula

```
Priority = ((ROI * (10 / Cost)) + (Ease * (10 / Risk))) / 2
```

- Theoretical range: **1 → 100**. Practical range on typical backlogs: ~1 → 100.
- The scale minimum of `1` guarantees Cost and Risk are never zero (no divide-by-zero).
- Higher Priority = do first.
- Boundary checks:
  - ROI=10, Cost=1, Ease=10, Risk=1 → `((10*10)+(10*10))/2 = 100`
  - ROI=1, Cost=10, Ease=1, Risk=10 → `((1*1)+(1*1))/2 = 1`

Use the formula verbatim. Do not reweight, normalize, or substitute.

## Method (agent procedure)

1. **Ingest** the impediment list. Confirm 1:1 impediment-to-countermeasure mapping; collapse duplicates.
2. **Confirm the countermeasure** for each impediment. Prefer documented best practice for the domain. Cite a public / authoritative link when one is available.
3. **Score** all four criteria using the rubric. Write a one-line rationale per criterion.
4. **Compute** Priority using the formula. Round to one decimal place.
5. **Sort** rows by Priority descending. Assign Rank starting at 1.
6. **Render** the output table (see below).
7. **Call out** the top 3 impediments with a short "why act first" paragraph.
8. **Optional tags**: if the workflow requires ownership flags (e.g., `[CSA Action Required]` vs. `[Customer Self-Service]` for GHQR/PAK, or `[Owner: Team X]` / `[Self-Service]` for internal backlogs), include them on the top-ranked items. Skip if not requested.

## Output Template

```markdown
## Prioritized Impediments

**Scoring:** ROI (1 low → 10 high), Cost (1 cheap → 10 expensive), Ease (1 hard → 10 easy), Risk (1 low → 10 high).
**Formula:** `Priority = ((ROI * (10/Cost)) + (Ease * (10/Risk))) / 2`

| Rank | Impediment | Countermeasure | ROI | Cost | Ease | Risk | Priority | Rationale |
|------|------------|----------------|-----|------|------|------|----------|-----------|
| 1 | [gap] | [action + link] | [n] | [n] | [n] | [n] | [n.n] | ROI: …<br>Cost: …<br>Ease: …<br>Risk: … |

### Top 3 — Act First
1. **[Impediment]** — [why it wins on the formula + optional ownership tag]
2. …
3. …
```

**Worked example (GitHub Enterprise adoption):**

| Rank | Impediment | Countermeasure | ROI | Cost | Ease | Risk | Priority | Rationale |
|------|------------|----------------|-----|------|------|------|----------|-----------|
| 1 | 2FA not enforced at org level | Enforce org-wide 2FA ([docs](https://docs.github.com/en/organizations/keeping-your-organization-secure/setting-up-two-factor-authentication/requiring-two-factor-authentication-in-your-organization)) | 9 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 42.5 | ROI: removes broad credential-compromise class<br>Cost: admin toggle + member comms<br>Ease: single org setting, members re-enroll<br>Risk: low — can stage with grace period |
| 2 | Secret scanning disabled | Enable secret scanning + push protection org-wide ([docs](https://docs.github.com/en/code-security/secret-scanning/about-secret-scanning)) | 8 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 25.0 | ROI: catches leaked creds pre-merge<br>Cost: GHAS seats if not bundled (estimated)<br>Ease: org-level default<br>Risk: push-protection may block legitimate commits; stage per repo |
| 3 | No CODEOWNERS on critical repos | Add CODEOWNERS to top-20 repos ([docs](https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/about-code-owners)) | 6 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 15.0 | ROI: targeted review coverage<br>Cost: team time to define owners (estimated)<br>Ease: file-level change, but requires owner buy-in<br>Risk: review bottlenecks if owners undersized |

**Worked example (generic retrospective action items):**

| Rank | Impediment | Countermeasure | ROI | Cost | Ease | Risk | Priority |
|------|------------|----------------|-----|------|------|------|----------|
| 1 | Flaky test suite blocks deploys daily | Quarantine top-10 flaky tests + add retry policy | 9 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 42.5 |
| 2 | No on-call runbook for payment service | Draft runbook from last 3 incidents | 7 | 3 | 8 | 2 | 31.7 |
| 3 | Manual release notes take 2h/release | Generate from Conventional Commits via CI | 6 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 15.8 |

## Assumptions & Guardrails

- Scores are estimates informed by the rubric and any available source / citation. Mark estimated rationales explicitly with `(estimated)`.
- Never fabricate context (team size, budget, tool inventory, organizational constraints). If required, ask the user or mark the score as estimated.
- Final ranking is a recommendation — it should be reviewed with the accountable team / owner before it's committed to an execution plan.
- Read-only by default — this skill does not execute remediations; it produces a ranked list consumed downstream.

## Downstream Integration (optional)

The ranked table produced by this skill is the deliverable. Wire it into whatever downstream artifact your workflow needs (Jira epic, ADR, OKR backlog, incident review, health check report, etc.). This skill does not depend on any sibling skills or external templates.