# GTM operating cadence Human Guide

## What This Is For
The meeting structure that worked at 30 people collapses at 100. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for paid media: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the GTM operating cadence agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for GTM operating cadence.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the GTM operating cadence guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- "Our meetings don't produce decisions"
- "We're growing but alignment is getting worse"
- "Nobody knows what's happening across functions"
- "Leadership is in meetings all day"
- Companies scaling from 20 to 300+ people
- Post-PMF through growth stage
- Any stage where "we need to talk about this" has become the default
- What we finished yesterday, what we're starting today, what's blocking us
- 5-10 people max. Whole-company standups are theater
- Anti-pattern: Status reporting (use Slack, not meetings)
- Anti-pattern: Strategic discussion (wrong time, wrong place)
- Success criteria: Finishes in 15 minutes, surfaces 1-2 blockers

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: When to Use, Core Frameworks, The Five-Level Meeting Architecture, Weekly Metric Reporting (The Dashboard That Catches Problems Early), Quarterly Planning (The Process That Prevents Strategic Drift), Decision Velocity and Authority, Async-First Communication, The CEO Weekly Update, Role Clarity > Titles, Decision Trees.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- "Our meetings don't produce decisions"
- The single most important alignment mechanism at a scaling company.
- Every meeting must produce decisions or be cancelled. Status updates are async. If you're in a meeting and nobody is making a decision, leave.
- **Same metrics every week.** Consistency enables pattern recognition. OK to add metrics, never drop them.
- **Traffic light colors.** GREEN (on track), YELLOW (watch), RED (action needed). Every RED item must have: owner, specific action, deadline.
- Vanity metrics that look good but don't predict business outcomes. Total downloads without adoption context. CEO headlines without supporting metrics.
- Without quarterly planning, companies drift. Each function optimizes locally. Sales chases deals outside ICP. Product builds features for one customer. Marketing runs campaigns that don't connect to pipeline.
- Review retrospectives (30 min — pre-read, don't present)

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the GTM operating cadence human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the github/awesome-copilot skill entry for `gtm-operating-cadence`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Operating Cadence

The meeting structure that worked at 30 people collapses at 100. What worked at 100 collapses at 300. The failure mode is always the same: too many people in too many meetings making too few decisions.

## When to Use

**Triggers:**
- "Our meetings don't produce decisions"
- "We're growing but alignment is getting worse"
- "How often should we meet?"
- "Nobody knows what's happening across functions"
- "Decisions take forever"
- "Leadership is in meetings all day"

**Context:**
- Companies scaling from 20 to 300+ people
- Post-PMF through growth stage
- Distributed / remote teams
- Any stage where "we need to talk about this" has become the default

---

## Core Frameworks

### 1. The Five-Level Meeting Architecture

**The Pattern:**

Different meetings serve different purposes. Conflating them creates either inefficiency (too much time) or confusion (unclear decisions). Separate meetings by function, frequency, and decision authority.

**Level 1: Daily Standup (15 min, teams only)**

- What we finished yesterday, what we're starting today, what's blocking us
- 5-10 people max. Whole-company standups are theater
- Anti-pattern: Status reporting (use Slack, not meetings)
- Anti-pattern: Strategic discussion (wrong time, wrong place)
- Success criteria: Finishes in 15 minutes, surfaces 1-2 blockers

**Level 2: Weekly Functional Reviews (60 min, function leadership)**

Each function gets its own weekly rhythm:
- Product team Friday 4pm: metrics, user feedback, roadmap blockers
- GTM team Tuesday 4pm: pipeline, customer updates, deal health
- Engineering Wednesday 4pm: velocity, bug backlog, deployment

Format: Metric recap (10 min) → Wins/blockers (15 min) → One deep-dive (30 min) → Next week priorities (5 min)

Anti-pattern: Trying to solve every problem in the meeting. Pick 1-2, delegate the rest to follow-ups.

**Level 3: Weekly All-Hands (60 min, whole company)**

The single most important alignment mechanism at a scaling company.

- CEO update (15 min): north star progress, week focus, what's changed
- Metric dashboard (10 min): same format every week (consistency enables pattern recognition)
- Deep dive (20 min): one strategic topic needing team input — not a presentation, a discussion
- Q&A (15 min): real questions, real answers

Anti-pattern: Defensive tone. All-hands should be straightforward, not spin.
Anti-pattern: Inconsistent metrics. If you change the dashboard, the team can't track progress.

**Level 4: Bi-Weekly Leadership Alignment (90 min)**

- North star progress (5 min)
- Functional updates (30 min, 5-7 min each)
- Major decisions needing resolution (30-40 min): resource conflicts, strategic pivots, customer/product decisions
- Next 2 weeks planning (15 min)

This is where cross-functional blockers get resolved. If functions operate independently, this meeting isn't working.

**Level 5: Quarterly Strategic Planning (half-day to full-day)**

- Previous quarter retrospective (90 min): What worked, what didn't, what we'd do differently
- Next quarter planning (120 min): What are we optimizing for? What's the roadmap?
- Function breakouts (90 min): Each function plans their quarter
- Synthesis (60 min): Functions share commitments, resolve conflicts

Anti-pattern: Too much "fun activity," not enough substance.
Anti-pattern: No clear decisions coming out.