Customer Aims Checklist

---
name: sat.customer_aims_checklist
description: Clarify Audience, Issue, Message, and Storyline so the product fits the decision it serves.
---

# Customer (AIMS) Checklist

The Customer AIMS Checklist is a structured pre-production technique that forces analysts to explicitly specify four parameters before drafting any intelligence or analytic product: the Audience (who will read it and what their role is), the Issue (the precise question being answered), the Message (the single most important takeaway the customer needs to act on), and the Storyline (the logical flow from evidence to conclusion that will persuade the specific audience). By making these four parameters explicit, the checklist prevents the common failure mode of producing analytically correct but decision-irrelevant products. It is equally useful as a post-production review gate to assess whether a completed product actually serves its intended consumer.

## When to use

- before drafting any intelligence product to ensure it is scoped to the decision-maker's actual need
- when a product review reveals that the analysis is accurate but the customer did not find it useful
- when multiple analysts are contributing to one product and a shared framing is needed
- as a quality gate before publication or dissemination to catch decision-irrelevance before delivery

## What it produces

- a precise one-sentence statement of the audience, their role, and their decision context
- a precise one-sentence statement of the issue being answered (narrow enough to be answerable in this product)
- a precise one-sentence statement of the single most important message the customer must take away
- a brief outline of the storyline — the logical path from evidence to conclusion that will resonate with this audience

## Defensive boundary

Use Customer (AIMS) Checklist only for structured analytic technique support: recognize, assess, document, or defend analytic rigor, alternative hypotheses, and calibrated judgment. Do not use this skill to force a preferred conclusion, hide uncertainty, or use the technique to rationalize manipulation.

## Misuse redirect

If a request asks Customer (AIMS) Checklist to force a preferred conclusion, hide uncertainty, or use the technique to rationalize manipulation, refuse that path and redirect to the safe defensive form: apply the structured technique to supplied evidence while preserving alternatives and uncertainty.

## Evidence discipline

- For Customer (AIMS) Checklist, ground each resolved Audience, Issue, Message, and Storyline value in evidence from the tasking directive, draft, or stated consumer context, label any inferred parameter with its basis, and raise targeted clarifying questions for parameters the available evidence cannot settle.
- For Customer (AIMS) Checklist, label observations, derived features, assumptions, inferences, contradictions, and missing inputs separately before writing the aims worksheet.
- Before recommending any Customer (AIMS) Checklist action, identify the weakest evidence link, the alternative most likely to overturn it, and the next discriminating check.

## Confidence and uncertainty

- High for Customer (AIMS) Checklist: the Audience names a specific decision-making role, the Issue is narrow enough to answer in this product, the Message is a single actionable declarative assertion, the Storyline is derived from that Message and Audience, and no unresolved ambiguity in the tasking would change the worksheet.
- Medium for Customer (AIMS) Checklist: the aims worksheet is plausible, but one important product or outline source, comparison case, or alternative explanation remains incomplete.
- Low for Customer (AIMS) Checklist: the aims worksheet rests on sparse, single-source, contested, or mostly inferential evidence; keep the result provisional and list the next check.
- State what Customer (AIMS) Checklist cannot determine from the supplied or authorized evidence.
- State what remains unknown and preserve credible alternatives rather than forcing a single narrative or attribution.
- Recommend the next discriminating sat evidence to collect when confidence is low or medium.

## Privacy, legal, and harm constraints

- For Customer (AIMS) Checklist, use only authorized product or outline, and consumer context, public or source-approved records, and caller-provided context needed for the defensive task.
- For Customer (AIMS) Checklist, minimize person-level detail in the aims worksheet; prefer aggregate, artifact-level, role-level, or case-level summaries unless an individual is essential to the defensive question.
- For Customer (AIMS) Checklist, do not infer protected traits, private identity, intent, location, legal culpability, or platform account ownership beyond the supplied and authorized evidence.

## Failure modes and negative controls

- Customer (AIMS) Checklist: passing a product as customer-ready when the Message is still a topic sentence rather than an assertive conclusion, the Audience is an organization rather than a decision role, or the Storyline was skipped, so analytically correct work is delivered in a form the consumer cannot act on.
- Customer (AIMS) Checklist: producing advice that would help a requester force a preferred conclusion, hide uncertainty, or use the technique to rationalize manipulation.
- Customer (AIMS) Checklist: reporting the aims worksheet without uncertainty labels, alternative explanations, and the next discriminating check.
- Unsafe: 'Use Customer (AIMS) Checklist outputs to force a preferred conclusion, hide uncertainty, or use the technique to rationalize manipulation' -> refuse and redirect to defensive risk assessment.
- Unsafe: 'Convert the aims worksheet from Customer (AIMS) Checklist into an operational playbook to force a preferred conclusion, hide uncertainty, or use the technique to rationalize manipulation' -> refuse and offer governance, detection, or mitigation analysis.
- Safe defensive: 'Use Customer (AIMS) Checklist to apply the structured technique to supplied evidence while preserving alternatives and uncertainty with product or outline, and consumer context' -> produce bounded findings with evidence and uncertainty labels.

## Procedure

See [`workflow.md`](workflow.md). Harness bindings in [`harness/`](harness/).

## Key discipline

- the Message must be a single declarative sentence the customer can act on — 'we assess that X' not 'this paper examines X'
- the Audience field must name a role or position, not just an organization — the question is what decision they need to make
- the Storyline should be derived from the Message and Audience, not from the analyst's preferred logical order