Opportunity Visioning With Pr Faq

Opportunity Visioning with PR-FAQ

Purpose

Make an AI opportunity concrete and evaluable without anything having been built yet. Many AI opportunities stay abstract ("we could use AI for X") because no one has forced themselves to describe precisely what the finished solution would look like from the customer's/user's perspective. This skill applies Amazon's Working Backwards method and its PR-FAQ document: first write a short, future-dated press release as if the solution had already shipped, then a question-and-answer section that works through the customer benefits, risks, and metrics. This is faster and cheaper than prototyping, and it often reveals that the vision isn't actually clear yet — before a more expensive prototyping round begins.

Anchored in research

• Amazon's "Working Backwards" method and PR-FAQ document (Bryar & Carr, Working Backwards, 2021): start from the customer and the finished experience, and work backwards to what needs to be built. The PR-FAQ is a short (roughly 6-page) narrative document in two parts: a one-page mock press release dated at a future launch, and a question-and-answer section that works through the customer problem, the solution, the risks, and the success metrics.

Method

1. Write a one-page mock press release, dated in the future (e.g. "released [date], when the solution is in use"), as if the solution already existed and had succeeded:
   • Headline and a one-sentence summary.
   • The customer problem that was solved (concrete, not generic).
   • How the solution works from the customer's perspective (no technical detail — what the customer EXPERIENCES).
   • One quote from a hypothetical customer describing the benefit concretely.
   • How the customer gets started.
2. Write an FAQ section that works through the hard questions honestly:
   • Customer questions: what does this cost, how is this different from the current way of doing the same thing, what if the solution is wrong.
   • Internal questions: what data/capability is needed that doesn't yet exist, what are the biggest technical and organizational risks, how will success be measured, what does THIS solution deliberately NOT do (scope it consciously). Honesty on the hard questions is the whole point of the method — the PR-FAQ isn't meant to sell the idea to yourself, but to expose its weaknesses before anyone invests in it.
3. Use the PR-FAQ as a basis for discussion, not as an end product. Take the document to stakeholders and ask specifically: is the customer problem right, is the solution credible from their perspective, is there an important obstacle missing from the FAQ. Update the document based on the feedback before moving on to prototyping.
4. Use the PR-FAQ even when prototyping isn't yet sensible — e.g. when technical feasibility is highly uncertain or the cost of building anything is high. The PR-FAQ gives you a way to communicate and cheaply test the vision before committing.
5. Once the PR-FAQ is stable and stakeholders agree on the vision, feed it into ../rapid-prototype-and-vibe-coding-craft/SKILL.md: the PR-FAQ's "how the customer experiences the solution" description becomes the prototype's hypothesis (that skill's step 1).
6. Don't conflate the PR-FAQ with a business case — the PR-FAQ tests the clarity and appeal of the VISION, not its financial viability. Once the vision is clear, build the economic case separately with ../../../business-case-and-analysis/skills/business-case-builder/SKILL.md.

What this skill does NOT do

• Doesn't build a prototype or write code — produces a written vision ahead of prototyping, not a substitute for it.
• Doesn't calculate ROI or costs — the PR-FAQ's FAQ section may mention a rough cost estimate, but precise financial calculation is done with ../../../business-case-and-analysis/skills/business-case-builder/SKILL.md.
• Isn't marketing material for the customer — the PR-FAQ is an internal thinking and discussion tool, not a document meant for publication (even though its form resembles a press release).
• Doesn't guarantee a vision is right just because it's written convincingly — the point of the FAQ section's honest, hard questions is precisely to stress-test the vision, not to dress it up.

Refinement notes

Areas to keep deepening with real practice:

• your own PR-FAQ template with an exact structure (into ../../references/)
• concrete examples of a PR-FAQ that exposed a weakness in the vision before a more expensive prototyping round
• rules of thumb for when a PR-FAQ is enough and when you need to move straight to prototyping

This is an internal working note, not a claim about the skill's current usability. Track depth privately via the maturity field in skills_index.json (see ../../../meta/maturity_levels.md). Don't add new fields to the frontmatter — name and description are the only ones allowed (see ../../../meta/frontmatter_schema.md).

Continue from here

• Before this (if a fitting industry pattern is still missing): ../../../ai-strategy-and-governance/skills/ai-capability-pattern-matching/SKILL.md
• Next in this pack: ../rapid-prototype-and-vibe-coding-craft/SKILL.md
• A deeper narrative for leadership: ../../../change-and-communication/skills/executive-narrative-and-storyline/SKILL.md
• Economic case once the vision is stable: ../../../business-case-and-analysis/skills/business-case-builder/SKILL.md
• A ready-made skill chain for this situation: see ../../../playbooks/
• This pack's shared guardrails: ../../CLAUDE.md

References

• Bryar, Colin & Carr, Bill — Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon (2021) — the Working Backwards method and the PR-FAQ document
• ../../references/ — the pack's shared background material
• ../../CLAUDE.md — the pack's shared guardrails