pestel-delta-monitor skill

PESTEL Delta Monitor

Purpose

Refresh a PESTEL analysis by diffing each factor — Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal — against the prior run and reporting material movement only: search plan → factor-by-factor diff → broken assumptions → new entrants to the frame → next-step options. Macro factors move slowly, which is exactly why teams stop looking; the value of a cadence is catching the two factors that moved, not re-debating the twenty that didn't. Diffing also reveals which baseline entries were live assumptions versus furniture — broken assumptions are the real output.

Input

Works best with: the prior PESTEL analysis (pasted or attached) and the product/market scope it covered — this skill requires a baseline to diff against. Also useful: any events since the last run you already suspect matter — they get checked first.

Input supplied inline with the invocation — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended ARGUMENTS: line — counts as answers already given. Use it against the question budget; don't re-ask.

Arriving empty-handed? This is the one investigation skill with a hard prerequisite: with no baseline, it recommends running pestel-analysis first and stops — there is nothing to diff. (That referral is the empty-handed path: you leave knowing exactly what to do first.)

Example invocation: PESTEL delta against the attached Q1 analysis — scope is our EU payments product; I suspect the new AI liability directive matters.

Key Concepts

contract — question budget of 2, search-plan gate, Fact/Inference/Assumption labels, Just Enough Mode, stable schema, 4-option Final Step. Disciplines: GEOINT/DEMOINT statistics plus FININT regulatory sources (see intelligence-collection-disciplines); this is the annual/quarterly layer of the fusion cadence.

• Governing protocol: honors the autonomous-investigation

crossing thresholds your baseline named, technology maturation with adoption evidence, social signals with data behind them. "No material movement" per factor is a valid and common result — a quiet quarter reported honestly keeps the radar trusted.

• Materiality for macro factors: regulation passed or credibly proposed, macro indicators

ten new observations, because strategy was built on it. The diff exists to find these.

• Broken assumptions are the headline. A baseline entry now contradicted by evidence outranks

flag them for retirement at the next baseline refresh rather than re-scanning them forever.

• Assumptions vs. furniture. Entries that never move and touch no decision were furniture —

the full PESTEL; never diff across a scope change.

• Scope changes break diffs. New market, pivot, fundamentally different business context → redo

invented regulation is this domain's signature fabrication risk.

• Do-not-invent list: regulations, statistics, dates, events. Real URLs and dates on everything —

Application

and stop. Scope changed since the baseline → recommend a fresh full analysis and stop.

1. Check the prerequisite. No prior PESTEL → recommend pestel-analysis

target, not your general knowledge of the macro environment.

1. Credit inline context, then ask only the unanswered questions (max 2):
2. Prior PESTEL to paste?
3. Any events since then you already suspect matter?
4. Read the prior analysis fully; diff factor by factor — the baseline document is the diff

(suspected events first), source types (government and regulatory sources, central-bank and statistical data, credible news, industry bodies, standards organizations), fact/inference separation. Continue unless revised.

1. Show the 3-bullet search plan — which factor categories get active searching this cycle

1. Emit the schema below exactly.

Output schema (do not reorder)

~~~markdown

PESTEL Delta Report

1. Run Header

Scope (from prior analysis): | Prior analysis date: | This run date:

2. Factor-by-Factor Delta

For each of P / E / S / T / E / L:

[Factor]: [moved / no material movement]

• What moved: [1-2 bullets, labeled, cited — only if moved]
• Prior assumption affected: [which entry from the baseline]
• Reading: [Inference — implication for the product scope]

Keep "no material movement" factors to a single line each.

3. Broken Assumptions

• [Baseline entries now contradicted by evidence — the run's most important section; cited]

4. New to the Frame

• [Factors absent from the baseline that now warrant a slot]

5. So What?

Each bullet: label, confidence, URL where relevant. ~~~

• 3 implications for strategy or roadmap
• 2 factors to watch closely next cycle
• 3 assumptions to validate

A copy/paste fill-in version of this schema, with quality checks, lives in template.md.

Final Step (offer exactly 4 options)

1. Update the baseline PESTEL with these deltas (new baseline)
2. Deep-dive the most consequential moved factor
3. Trace the broken assumptions into roadmap or OKR impact
4. Set next cycle's watch priorities

Accept 1, 2, 3, 4, 1 and 2, Verbose Mode, or a custom path.

Examples

A factor that moved, traced to its assumption (fictional):

### Legal: moved

- What moved: the data-residency provision cleared committee with an 18-month compliance

window — Fact ([legislature record, URL, date])

- Prior assumption affected: baseline entry L2 assumed "no residency mandate before 2028,"

which justified deferring the regional storage architecture

- Reading: the deferral logic is dead — Inference: the architecture decision moves from

someday to next two roadmap quarters, and compliance becomes a sales asset in regulated verticals

before it's a legal obligation.