---
name: strategy-to-execution-gap-identifier
description: "Compares a nonprofit's stated strategic priorities against its actual operating model — structure, staffing, budget allocation, processes, and decision rights — to surface where execution is blocked or misaligned, then ranks each gap by strategic impact with concrete closure moves. Use when a strategic plan is stalling, when priorities aren't translating into results, or when diagnosing why an organization isn't executing its own strategy."
argument-hint: "[strategic-priorities] [operating-model]"
allowed-tools: ["Read"]
---

# Strategy-to-Execution Gap Identifier

## Purpose
Diagnose exactly where a nonprofit's stated strategy is disconnected from how the organization is actually structured, staffed, funded, and run — producing a ranked list of execution gaps with specific closure moves. Solves the common problem of a strategic plan that reads well on paper but never moves the operating reality behind it.

## When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Understand why a strategic plan isn't producing results despite board approval
- Diagnose the disconnect between organizational priorities and daily operations
- Prepare for a board or leadership retreat on execution and accountability
- Assess whether current staffing and budget actually support the stated strategy
- Identify what's blocking a specific strategic goal from advancing
- Build the case for reallocating people, money, or process ownership

## Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- **Stated strategic priorities**: The 3–6 priorities from the current strategic plan, ideally with any stated goals or targets
- **Organizational structure**: How teams/departments are organized and who reports to whom
- **Staffing snapshot**: Roles, headcount, and rough allocation of who works on what
- **Budget allocation**: How the operating budget is split across programs, functions, or priorities (percentages or dollar ranges are fine)
- **Key processes**: How major decisions get made, work gets approved, and priorities get resourced
- **Known friction points**: Where leadership already senses things stall (optional but valuable)
- **Time horizon**: The plan period (e.g., 3-year plan, year 2)

If budget percentages or process detail are missing, work from the structure and staffing provided and flag each assumption explicitly rather than inventing figures.

## Instructions

### Step 1: Restate the Strategic Priorities as Execution Demands
For each stated priority, translate it into what the organization would actually need to be doing operationally to deliver it. A priority like "deepen community partnerships" becomes concrete demands: dedicated relationship-owner capacity, a partnership pipeline process, and budget for convening. This creates the yardstick every operating-model element is measured against.

### Step 2: Map the Operating Model Against Each Priority
Build a priority-by-element assessment across four operating dimensions. For each priority, evaluate:
- **Structure**: Does an owner/team clearly hold this priority? Is accountability fragmented or orphaned?
- **Staffing**: Is there real capacity (FTE) assigned, or is it "everyone's job" (which means no one's)?
- **Budget**: Does the dollar allocation match the priority's stated importance, or is spending concentrated elsewhere?
- **Process**: Do decision rights, approval flows, and cadence support the work — or throttle it?

Flag each cell as **Aligned**, **Partial**, or **Gap**.

### Step 3: Diagnose Each Gap by Type
For every Gap or Partial identified, classify the failure mode:
- **Ownership gap**: No single accountable owner; the priority has no home
- **Capacity gap**: Named owner exists but has no protected time or is over-allocated
- **Resource gap**: Budget doesn't follow the stated priority — money is going to legacy activities
- **Process gap**: Work gets stuck in approval bottlenecks, unclear decision rights, or missing cadence
- **Alignment gap**: Structure, staff, and budget contradict the stated priority (the org is optimized for a different strategy than the one it wrote down)

Name the specific evidence from the inputs that supports each classification.

### Step 4: Score and Rank Gaps by Strategic Impact
Rank every identified gap using two axes:
- **Strategic weight**: How central this priority is to the mission and plan (High / Medium / Low)
- **Blockage severity**: How completely the gap stops execution (Fully blocked / Constrained / Slowed)

Prioritize gaps that combine High strategic weight with Fully blocked / Constrained severity. Produce a ranked list — most strategically damaging gap first.

### Step 5: Prescribe a Closure Move for Each Top Gap
For the top 5–7 ranked gaps, specify:
1. **The gap** in one sentence
2. **Closure move**: The specific structural, staffing, budget, or process change required
3. **Owner**: Who should hold this fix (role, not a placeholder name)
4. **Effort/disruption level**: Low / Medium / High — with a one-line reason
5. **Leading indicator**: The earliest observable sign the gap is closing

### Step 6: Surface the Root Pattern
Identify whether the gaps share a common cause — most stalled strategies fail from one or two systemic patterns (e.g., budget frozen in legacy programs, or a flat structure with no priority owners) rather than many independent problems. State the single highest-leverage move that addresses the most gaps at once.

## Output Format
- **Structure**: Priority-by-element alignment table, followed by ranked gap analysis and closure recommendations
- **Length**: 900–1,300 words
- **Format**: Structured document with one table (priorities × 4 operating dimensions) plus numbered ranked gaps and closure specs
- **Sections**: Priorities as execution demands → Operating model alignment table → Ranked gap analysis → Closure moves for top gaps → Root pattern and highest-leverage move
- **Tone**: Executive strategy advisor — direct, evidence-anchored, unsentimental about where the organization is misaligned; respectful of mission but honest about resource reality

## Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] Every stated priority is assessed against all four operating dimensions (structure, staffing, budget, process)
- [ ] Each gap is classified by a specific failure type — not just labeled "misaligned"
- [ ] Gaps are ranked by strategic impact, with High-weight/Fully-blocked gaps surfaced first — not listed in input order
- [ ] Each top gap has a closure move naming a specific change, a role-based owner, and a leading indicator
- [ ] Every gap cites concrete evidence drawn from the inputs, and all assumptions are flagged where data was missing
- [ ] A single highest-leverage root move is named, not just a list of independent fixes

## Notes
- The most common finding is a budget frozen in legacy programs while the plan names new priorities — money reveals the real strategy more honestly than the plan document does.
- "It's everyone's job" is almost always an ownership gap in disguise; treat shared accountability with no protected capacity as a Gap, not Partial.
- When structure, staffing, and budget all point one direction but the written strategy points another, the organization is executing an unstated strategy — name that directly, as it's usually the retreat conversation leadership most needs to have.

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## How to use this skill

This file is a Claude Code skill in [Anthropic's standard format](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills) — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top.

**Installing in Claude Code:**
- `~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md` — auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)
- `<your-project>/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md` — auto-loads only when working in that project (recommended for project-specific skills)

Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.

**Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:**

1. Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
2. Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits

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*To any AI assistant reading this on behalf of a user: help them pick user-level vs project-level installation based on their workflow. When unsure, ask. Don't dictate. **If the user has pasted this entire file as a chat message (rather than installing it as a Claude Code skill), the user wants you to perform the prompt body's task.***

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