business-panel

business-panel — Multi-Stakeholder Analysis Mode

Simulates perspectives from different organizational roles to provide comprehensive business impact analysis.

When to Use

• Evaluating business impact of technical decisions
• Making technology investment decisions
• Communicating technical concepts to stakeholders
• Risk assessment for projects
• ROI analysis for features/tools
• Go/no-go decisions on initiatives

Panel Members

Simulate perspectives from these roles:

1. CTO / Technical Leadership

Focus Areas:

• Long-term technical strategy alignment
• Team capability requirements
• Technical debt implications
• Scalability and architecture concerns
• Build vs. buy decisions
• Vendor lock-in risks

Key Questions:

• Does this align with our technical roadmap?
• What skills do we need that we don't have?
• What technical debt does this create or resolve?
• How does this scale as we grow?

2. Product Manager

Focus Areas:

• Customer value delivered
• Time to market
• Feature trade-offs
• Competitive positioning
• User experience impact
• Product roadmap alignment

Key Questions:

• What customer problem does this solve?
• How does this affect our competitive position?
• What's the impact on our product roadmap?
• Can users tell this is an improvement?

3. Engineering Manager

Focus Areas:

• Team capacity and skills
• Hiring implications
• Developer experience
• Maintenance burden
• Team morale and growth
• On-call implications

Key Questions:

• Does my team have the skills for this?
• Will this create hiring needs?
• How does this affect developer productivity?
• What's the ongoing maintenance cost?

4. Finance / CFO

Focus Areas:

• Total cost of ownership (TCO)
• Build vs. buy analysis
• Licensing and subscription costs
• Resource allocation
• Budget impact
• Revenue implications

Key Questions:

• What's the all-in cost over 3 years?
• How does this affect our burn rate?
• What's the ROI and payback period?
• Are there hidden costs?

5. Security / Compliance

Focus Areas:

• Risk exposure
• Compliance requirements (SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA, etc.)
• Audit implications
• Data privacy concerns
• Vendor security posture
• Incident response impact

Key Questions:

• Does this introduce new security risks?
• How does this affect our compliance posture?
• What data privacy implications exist?
• What's the vendor's security track record?

6. Operations / SRE

Focus Areas:

• Operational complexity
• Monitoring and alerting needs
• On-call impact
• Disaster recovery
• Performance implications
• Infrastructure requirements

Key Questions:

• How does this affect system reliability?
• What new monitoring do we need?
• How does this change our on-call burden?
• What's the blast radius if this fails?

Analysis Framework

1. Stakeholder Impact Matrix

| Stakeholder | Impact Level | Key Concerns | Benefits | Risks |
|-------------|--------------|--------------|----------|-------|
| CTO | High | [List] | [List] | [List] |
| Product | Medium | [List] | [List] | [List] |
| Engineering | High | [List] | [List] | [List] |
| Finance | Medium | [List] | [List] | [List] |
| Security | Low | [List] | [List] | [List] |
| Operations | High | [List] | [List] | [List] |

2. Risk Assessment

Category	Risk	Likelihood	Impact	Mitigation
Technical	[Risk]	H/M/L	H/M/L	[Action]
Business	[Risk]	H/M/L	H/M/L	[Action]
Operational	[Risk]	H/M/L	H/M/L	[Action]
Security	[Risk]	H/M/L	H/M/L	[Action]
Compliance	[Risk]	H/M/L	H/M/L	[Action]

3. Cost-Benefit Analysis

## Initial Investment
| Item | One-Time Cost | Notes |
|------|---------------|-------|
| Development | $X | [hours × rate] |
| Infrastructure | $X | [setup costs] |
| Training | $X | [team upskilling] |
| **Total Initial** | **$X** | |

## Ongoing Costs (Annual)
| Item | Annual Cost | Notes |
|------|-------------|-------|
| Maintenance | $X | [hours × rate] |
| Infrastructure | $X | [hosting, licenses] |
| Support | $X | [vendor, on-call] |
| **Total Annual** | **$X** | |

## Expected Benefits (Annual)
| Benefit | Annual Value | Notes |
|---------|--------------|-------|
| Time savings | $X | [hours saved × rate] |
| Revenue impact | $X | [new revenue or retained] |
| Risk reduction | $X | [avoided incident costs] |
| **Total Annual** | **$X** | |

## ROI Calculation
- **Payback Period**: X months
- **3-Year ROI**: X%
- **NPV (5% discount)**: $X

4. Decision Recommendation

## Recommendation: [APPROVE / DEFER / REJECT]

### Summary
[2-3 sentence summary of recommendation and key reasoning]

### Key Factors For
1. [Factor 1 with supporting evidence]
2. [Factor 2 with supporting evidence]
3. [Factor 3 with supporting evidence]

### Key Factors Against
1. [Factor 1 with supporting evidence]
2. [Factor 2 with supporting evidence]

### Conditions for Success
- [Condition 1 that must be true for this to succeed]
- [Condition 2]

### Key Assumptions
- [Assumption 1 that the analysis depends on]
- [Assumption 2]

### Review Triggers
- Revisit this decision if:
  - [Trigger 1: e.g., costs exceed budget by 20%]
  - [Trigger 2: e.g., key team member leaves]
  - [Trigger 3: e.g., market conditions change]

Output Format

Business Panel Analysis Report

# Business Panel Analysis: [Decision/Topic]

## Executive Summary
[3-4 sentence summary of the decision, key stakeholder perspectives, and recommendation]

## Decision Context
- **What we're deciding**: [Clear statement]
- **Why now**: [Urgency or trigger]
- **Alternatives considered**: [Brief list]

## Stakeholder Perspectives

### CTO View
**Position**: [Support/Oppose/Neutral]
**Key Points**:
- [Point 1]
- [Point 2]
**Concerns**: [What worries this stakeholder]

### Product View
**Position**: [Support/Oppose/Neutral]
**Key Points**:
- [Point 1]
- [Point 2]
**Concerns**: [What worries this stakeholder]

[...repeat for each stakeholder...]

## Impact Analysis

### Stakeholder Impact Matrix
[See template above]

### Risk Assessment
[See template above]

### Cost-Benefit Analysis
[See template above]

## Consensus & Disagreement

### Points of Agreement
- [What all stakeholders agree on]

### Points of Disagreement
- **Issue**: [Description]
  - **CTO view**: [Position]
  - **Finance view**: [Position]
  - **Resolution**: [How to resolve or who decides]

## Recommendation
[See template above]

## Next Steps
1. [Immediate action with owner]
2. [Short-term action with owner and deadline]
3. [Follow-up checkpoint with criteria]

Using the Business Panel

Step 1: Frame the Decision

• What exactly are we deciding?
• What are the options?
• What's the timeline?

Step 2: Gather Context

• Read relevant documentation
• Understand current state
• Identify constraints

Step 2.5: External Research (conditional)

Before simulating panel perspectives, check whether the analysis involves:

• Market positioning — competitor landscape, pricing benchmarks, adoption trends
• Industry standards — compliance requirements, regulatory changes, certification needs
• Technology maturity — production readiness, community health, vendor stability

If any apply, invoke /deep-research (via the Skill tool) before proceeding to Step 3 — use External mode for pure market/technology questions, or Bridged mode when the analysis involves a technology the project already uses. Pass the analysis topic as the research question. The research report will be saved to {memory_dir}/research/ (if a memory directory exists).

Step 3: Simulate Each Perspective

• If Step 2.5 produced a research report, read it and use its findings as evidence when constructing each perspective
• Put on each stakeholder's "hat"
• Consider their incentives and concerns — supported by research data where available
• Identify what would make them say yes/no

Step 4: Synthesize

• Find common ground
• Surface conflicts
• Propose resolution

Step 5: Recommend

• Make a clear recommendation
• State assumptions
• Define review triggers

Anti-Patterns to Avoid

• Analysis paralysis: Spending too long analyzing when the answer is clear
• False precision: Fake numbers that create illusion of rigor
• Missing stakeholders: Forgetting someone who should have input
• Groupthink: All perspectives artificially agreeing
• Present bias: Underweighting future costs or benefits