Wins Curate

Wins Curate

Take the accumulated wins log and produce an audience-specific artifact. Five modes; pick one before producing anything.

Inputs to settle first

Refuse to curate before these are clear. Audience determines structure, tone, depth, and which wins matter.

1. Mode. One of:
   • promo-packet — internal promotion case for a panel
   • interview-stories — STAR-shaped answers for behavioral interviews
   • perf-review — self-eval for the formal review cycle
   • salary-case — case for a raise, equity refresh, or counteroffer
   • year-in-review — personal retrospective; less external-facing
2. Time window. Default: last 12 months. The user can override.
3. Specifics for the mode (audience-specific):
   • Promo: target level, the company's published rubric if available.
   • Interview: target company / role, known behavioral question themes.
   • Perf: review cycle template (which sections, what rating scale).
   • Salary: comp band you're targeting, the case you'll make.
   • Year-in-review: any specific lens or theme.

If the user says "all of them," push back: each artifact has a different shape and different selection criteria. Build them one at a time.

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1. Read ~/bettersense-work-reflections/wins.md (configurable via $BETTERSENSE_WORK_REFLECTIONS_HOME).
2. Filter entries to the time window.
3. Read the structured fields per entry — type, scope, collaborators, credit framing, impact, evidence.
4. For perf-review mode, also read ~/bettersense-work-reflections/self/reflections.md (if it exists) and any registered stakeholders' files (via stakeholders.json) — composition.

Mode: promo-packet

The shape varies by company but most internal promo packets need:

• Scope demonstration — the candidate operates at the target level's scope.
• Impact — the candidate has shipped business-relevant outcomes.
• Judgment — the candidate makes calls others would have gotten wrong.
• Leadership / influence — the candidate moves people, not just code/specs.
• Growth trajectory — the candidate has stretched recently.

Curate by mapping wins to dimensions:

# Promo case: [name] → [target level]
Period: [time window]

## Scope demonstration
- [headline win] — [1-line summary] (cited: 2026-03-12 entry)
- ...

## Impact
- [headline win] — [quantified result] (cited: 2026-04-22 entry)
- ...

## Judgment
- [headline win] — [the call, the reasoning, the result] (cited: ...)
- ...

## Leadership / influence
- ...

## Growth
- ...

## Gaps to address before submission
- [Dimension X] is thin in the log. Strongest available is [Y], but a panel may want more.
- [Specific evidence the panel will likely want that the log doesn't have.]

Pull primarily from delivery, judgment, leadership types. Use mentorship and range for the leadership and growth dimensions. Skip learning for senior promo cases — panels want demonstrated capability, not capability acquisition.

Calibration is non-negotiable. Show solo-vs-shared credit in the packet — don't claim solo on team work. Reviewers know the team. Inflation costs the case more than a thinner-looking-but-honest packet.

Mode: interview-stories

Behavioral interview answers want stories with conflict and resolution, not summaries. Pick 4–6 wins that have real texture.

Prefer types: recovery, judgment, range, leadership. Skip pure delivery unless the delivery had genuine conflict embedded.

For each picked win, produce:

## Story: [headline]

**Best fit for behavioral prompts about:** disagreement, ambiguity, hard call, mentoring, [etc.]

### STAR draft (90-second target)

**Situation (15s):**
[the context — make the stakes clear without burying the listener in detail]

**Task (10s):**
[what specifically you were on the hook for — distinguish from team task]

**Action (45s):**
[what *you* did — first-person verbs. The interviewer wants to know about you, not the team. Surface the hard part.]

**Result (20s):**
[quantified where possible; if not, the qualitative outcome with audience]

### Likely follow-ups
- "What would you do differently?"
- "How did [collaborator] react?"
- "What was the most uncomfortable part?"
- [audience-specific follow-ups]

### Anti-pattern check
- ☐ Doesn't end with "and everyone lived happily ever after" — has a real result with caveats
- ☐ The "I" is real, not collective
- ☐ The conflict is real — not "I solved it by working hard"

Then a separate bench depth note: a quick scan of which themes are well-covered vs. thin in the user's log, so the user knows where to expect to fall back to weaker stories under pressure.

Mode: perf-review

Reviewers want breadth across types plus growth narrative. Different from a promo packet — perf reviews aren't trying to argue level-up, they're trying to give a calibrated read.

Structure:

# Self-evaluation: [period]

## Core deliverables
[Quantified, with collaborators named honestly. Pull from `delivery`.]

## Judgment & decision-making
[Hard calls, with reasoning. Pull from `judgment`. ADR cross-references where they exist.]

## Leadership & influence
[Pull from `leadership`, `mentorship`, `culture`.]

## Range / cross-functional
[Pull from `range`. Especially valuable in perf — shows breadth.]

## Growth this period
[Pull from `learning`, plus growth language from `self-reflect` if available. Frame as: "I've been working on X" with a concrete example of progress.]

## What I'm working on next period
[Pull from any "open" / "to do" notes in `self-reflect` or stakeholder files.]

## Calibration notes
[Honest acknowledgement of where the user underperformed or where credit was shared. This builds reviewer trust.]

Composition with other skills:

• self-reflect file → growth narrative and "working on next" sections.
• stakeholder-synthesize → relationship signals reviewers ask about ("how have you worked with X?").
• decision-log → judgment evidence with rationale.

When reviewers ask about a relationship, the user's stakeholder file is where the real data lives. Surface a 3-sentence read on each major relationship.

Mode: salary-case

Different framing entirely: business value over personal scope. Reviewers (manager, comp committee, hiring loop) want to see the value the user creates is misaligned with the comp the user gets.

Structure:

# Comp case

## Business value created (last [period])
- Revenue: [if quantifiable] (sources: [wins entries])
- Retention/expansion: [if quantifiable]
- Cost saved or risk reduced: [if quantifiable]
- Strategic impact (qualitative but anchored): [...]

## Scope vs. peers
[Honest framing of where the user's scope is — at level, above level, materially above level. Cite specific wins demonstrating scope.]

## Market context
[Comp-band research the user has done. The skill doesn't fabricate market data.]

## The ask
[Specific number range, with reasoning.]

## What I'm willing to commit to
[Optional: results the user is willing to be on the hook for in exchange.]

Critical: don't inflate. A salary case that overclaims is a salary case the comp committee dismisses. Every dollar figure cited should map to a logged win with evidence. If the log doesn't have the numbers, name the gap and say what would need to be true to claim them.

Mode: year-in-review

Personal retrospective — less external-facing, more "what did I actually do this year and what does it tell me?"

Structure:

# Year in review: [year]

## By the numbers
- N wins logged
- Type distribution: [delivery: X, judgment: Y, ...]
- Top 3 by impact

## What I shipped
[Brief list. The user already knows; this is for the file.]

## What I'm proudest of
[2-3 wins, with the why. The hardest, not the loudest.]

## Patterns
- [Did one type dominate? Was there a quarter that felt off?]
- [Did the user log mostly delivery and miss leadership? That's signal.]
- [Trajectory: was Q4 stronger than Q1?]

## What's missing from the log
[Probably-real wins that didn't make it into the file because the user forgot. Useful for next year's discipline.]

## What I want next year
[Pull from `self-reflect` if available.]

This mode is meant to be lower-pressure and more reflective than the others. Honest patterns matter more than impressive headlines.

Operating principles (apply to all modes)

• Never invent wins. Curate from the log only. If the requested artifact needs a win the log doesn't have, name the gap explicitly. Tell the user what would need to be true to claim X — don't paper over it.
• Honor the user's voice. No marketing buzzwords. The artifact should sound like the user, not like LinkedIn. "Spearheaded a strategic initiative" is a flag — replace with what they actually did.
• Calibrate solo vs. shared credit. This is the difference between an artifact that holds up under scrutiny and one that gets the user dismissed. Inflation always costs more than calibration.
• Cite log entries. Every claim in the artifact maps to a specific entry in wins.md. Same discipline as stakeholder-synthesize — the cite is what makes the artifact defensible.
• Surface gaps as prep targets. A thin promo case in the judgment dimension is information the user can act on (log more judgment wins; or rethink the timing). Name the gap.
• Match the audience's risk tolerance. A perf review tolerates honest growth language. A promo panel reads growth language as "not ready." Tune accordingly.
• Compose, don't duplicate. When self-reflect and stakeholder-synthesize have material that matters, pull it in by reference rather than restating. The artifact is a curation, not a rewrite.

Anti-patterns to flag

• One artifact for all audiences. Tempting and wrong. Each mode produces a different shape because the audiences need different things. Refuse to merge.
• Inflation by adjective. "Massively transformed" / "industry-leading" / "transformational." Replace with the number that justifies the adjective, or drop the adjective.
• Hidden plurals. "I led teams across the org" when the user worked with two teams. Force singular when singular is honest.
• Skipping calibration. A perf review or promo packet without a single shared-credit acknowledgement reads as collusive or oblivious. Almost no work is solo.
• Recency-bias only. Promo cases that pull only from the last quarter look thin. Pull across the time window.
• Listing wins in chronological order. That's the log itself; the artifact should rank by the audience's selection criteria.
• Ending with "and the rest is up to you." Always end with concrete next moves: what to log before submission, what to rehearse, where the gaps are.