VPE Forcing Questions
This skill runs a throughput-first VP of Engineering interrogation on any plan that touches delivery, engineering hiring, team structure, or production discipline. It applies six forcing questions covering cycle time, DORA metrics, hiring funnel, team structure, production maturity, and the VPE-vs-CTO decision, and produces a structured review report with a verdict and next steps.
✨ What it does
- Checks cycle time and identifies where work waits
- Assesses DORA performance on all four metrics
- Analyzes the engineering hiring funnel for leaks
- Evaluates team structure against IC-to-manager ratios
- Rates production discipline maturity on a 1-5 scale
- Determines if a separate VPE is needed based on CTO management load
🎯 When to use it
- Before committing to a quarterly delivery plan or OKR review
- When sprint velocity is dropping or production incidents are increasing
- Before approving an engineering hiring expansion
- Before restructuring engineering teams (splitting/merging squads)
- When deciding whether to hire a VPE separately from the CTO
🚀 How to use
Trigger: /cs:vpe-review
Trigger with the slash command /cs:vpe-review <plan> where <plan> is a description or file path of the plan to review. The skill expects input about delivery metrics, hiring funnel data, team structure, and production practices. Example prompts:
/cs:vpe-review Q3 delivery plan
/cs:vpe-review plan.md
📄 Output: A structured VPE review report in markdown with sections for the decision, DORA metrics, hiring funnel, team structure, production discipline, verdict (SHIP/SHARPEN/BLOCK), and next steps.
📦 Add this skill to Claude Code
# 1. Get the skills repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills /tmp/claude-skills
# 2. Copy this skill into your project (or ~/.claude/skills for all projects)
mkdir -p .claude/skills
cp -r /tmp/claude-skills/c-level-agents/skills/vpe-review .claude/skills/vpe-reviewSkill source: c-level-agents/skills/vpe-review/SKILL.md
⚠️ Good to know
Requires access to relevant metrics (e.g., sprint metrics, funnel data, team structure) and the referenced Python scripts to run the analysis.
❓ FAQ
What is the single best health metric for delivery?
Lead Time for Changes is the single best health metric; if you can't decompose cycle time into stages, you can't fix the bottleneck.
When should a VPE be hired separately from the CTO?
If the CTO is spending more than 50% of their time on management vs strategy, a VPE is needed; at small scale (<20 eng), one person can do both.
What does the skill output?
It produces a markdown review report with sections for the decision, DORA metrics, hiring funnel, team structure, production discipline, verdict, and next steps.
🤖 Overview, features, install steps and FAQ were generated from the project's SKILL.md on Sep 4, 2026. Always check the original source before running commands.