MASTER Risk Model - Learning Resources - Abilities

Which area or field do you primarily work in?

Strategic Planning

Redesign your venture brief to show problem, solution, segment, and measurable impact.

Facilitate a thirty-minute session distinguishing strategic bets from operations—do it solo or with an advisor to align weekly focus.

Sketch a 6–12 month roadmap; test assumptions with two experienced founders today.

Convert three strategic goals into weekly actions; track visibly on a dashboard.

Create a kill list of misaligned initiatives; review with advisors for decisiveness.

Host a strategy trade-offs workshop; explicitly choose what not to pursue now.

Operational Execution

Break down MVP into small tasks—assign yourself or named helpers, set deadlines, and define demo acceptance criteria.

Audit execution status now—overdues, blockers, unclear responsibilities—and publish a reset plan today.

Run a daily ten-minute self-standup on outputs, blockers, priorities; maintain strict timing discipline.

Streamline one process; remove an unnecessary meeting, tool, or approval immediately today.

Pilot a two-hour daily no-meeting zone; measure output and focus improvements weekly.

Timebox deep work blocks daily; protect them and measure output improvements weekly.

Performance Monitoring

Choose one lagging metric; define a leading signal enabling earlier corrective action.

Write a brief post-mortem on one project—wins, misses, and underlying causes clearly.

Ask two mentors to rate confidence in targets; surface gaps and needed support.

Schedule a monthly thirty-minute review spotting cross-project performance patterns and risks early.

Define red, yellow, green thresholds per KPI; publish and review weekly consistently.

Market Analysis

Interview three target users; ask considered alternatives, decision triggers, and switching risks.

Secret shop a competitor’s funnel; document strengths, friction points, and persuasive elements.

Analyze ten lost opportunities; identify repeating objections and root causes to address.

Collect ten customer data points this week to inform one strategic decision.

Run five discovery calls; validate problems, willingness to pay, and current alternatives.

Branding and Positioning

Deliver your pitch to a stranger; capture exactly what they remember afterward.

Rewrite your brand promise in one sentence addressing your ideal customer’s core need.

Lead a clarity session defining desired reputation, proof points, and audiences explicitly.

Create a 'not-us' list to sharpen positioning; share it with collaborators today.

Write a short customer story demonstrating outcomes; share in one conversation soon.

Test a new narrative hook with prospects; track recall and emotional resonance.

Digital Marketing Strategy

Map your acquisition funnel end-to-end; identify largest drop-off and design next test.

A/B test two landing headlines; track conversions and iterate based on evidence.

Build a lightweight lead magnet to capture emails and validate interest quickly.

Launch a micro-campaign tied to a trend; measure lift against baseline metrics.

Audit one campaign end-to-end; identify realistic levers to improve ROI meaningfully.

Spin up a seven-day drip sequence; measure activation and reply rates carefully.

Negotiation Skills

Role-play investor negotiation; practice objections, strategic pauses, and confident closing language.

Develop a concrete BATNA for a live deal; negotiate from stronger footing.

Record your next negotiation; review tone, pacing, framing, and emotional control afterward.

Run a mock negotiation creating value without discounts; practice framing trades confidently.

Practice anchoring in your next discussion; set first terms with confident framing.

Practice saying your price silently, then aloud, without discounting or apologizing first.

Customer Relationship Management

Create quarterly relationship plans for five early adopters—value touches, outcomes, documented commitments.

Schedule a non-sales call with one key prospect; explore goals and upcoming needs.

Request a warm introduction from one happy tester or early user to another relevant prospect.

Publish a customer spotlight case; make them hero and emphasize outcomes clearly.

Create an early-user health score across engagement, value, and responsiveness; monitor monthly.

Implement a simple success plan template for early users; review progress together regularly.

Sales Strategy and Planning

Build a one-page sales plan: segments, goals, messages, experiments, cadence, targets.

Run a win–loss review across ten recent conversations; extract patterns to refine strategy.

Test a new outbound channel for one week; track replies and meetings.

Study successful founders’ pipeline mix; replicate repeatable behaviors in your own system.

Decompose annual revenue target into weekly actions; track diligently for one month.

Create objection handling cheat-sheets; rehearse answers and stories with a peer or mentor weekly.

Talent Acquisition and Recruitment

Review your collaborator pipeline; identify drop-offs and remove one friction point.

Conduct a blind profile screen for potential collaborators; compare results and note biases.

Debrief after collaborator interviews; capture successes and process improvements immediately.

Test a new sourcing channel—niche boards or communities—for your next collaborator search.

Schedule a thirty-minute conversation with a potential collaborator; learn pull and push factors.

Define bar-raiser criteria for collaborators; ensure each conversation tests them with structured questions consistently.

Performance Management

Run a mini 360 with peers; surface strengths, gaps, and concrete improvement commitments.

Lead a calibration session with peers; align expectations, examples, and rating standards.

Rewrite one vague goal into specific, measurable, motivating language with milestones attached.

Shadow a peer’s performance conversation; capture clarity moments and improvement opportunities diligently.

Invite a collaborator—or do a self-assessment—on outcomes; compare and discuss differences.

Institute personal or role scorecards; review on your own or with a mentor and reset priorities today.

Learning and Development

Design a three-step learning path for yourself or a future role; set timelines and practice expectations.

Ask a peer to teach-back a topic; reinforce learning through peer instruction.

Pilot a weekly fifteen-minute learning huddle with a peer group; rotate who brings one insight.

Co-design a development initiative with peers or mentors; integrate their preferred learning formats.

Measure your training or workshop participation and impact; capture what changed afterward.

Run monthly lightning talks in a founder or peer group; share experiments, mistakes, and practical takeaways.

Financial Analysis and Budgeting

Draft a lean quarterly budget; rank items by outcomes over incremental line details.

Identify one recurring cost and propose a higher-return alternative use immediately today.

Partner with a mentor or operator to review spend patterns; add on-the-ground context now.

Create a rolling forecast; review monthly and adjust based on real signals.

Benchmark spend allocation against comparables; note variances and underlying reasons carefully.

Hold a cash runway drill; model scenarios and decide triggers for action.

Risk Management

Create a simple risk matrix; rank likelihood, impact, and planned mitigations visibly.

Draft mitigation steps for one likely, high-impact venture risk this quarter proactively.

Build a business case investing in prevention rather than reactive firefighting funding.

Present a recent risk decision to a peer; request critique and alternatives.

Track one leading risk indicator monthly; correlate with actual outcomes over time.

Establish decision logs capturing assumptions, risks, and checks for future learning reviews.

Capital Allocation

Shift small budget toward an underfunded high-upside experiment; define checkpoint and kill-criteria beforehand.

Perform zero-based review; decide what you’d fund starting clean from scratch now.

Prepare a mini case shifting resources from low-yield to higher-impact initiatives immediately.

Propose a resource reallocation plan; gather feedback on timing and trade-offs openly.

Track one project’s ROI three months; compare actuals to expectations and adjust.

Cap pilot budgets; require evidence milestones before unlocking additional investment.

Supply Chain Management

Review supplier performance data thirty minutes; note recurring misses, patterns, and dependencies.

Invite a supplier to co-create improvements or contingency options for launch readiness.

Publish a live dashboard showing supply and demand metrics side by side.

Identify one bottleneck; propose a workaround or experiment to reduce it now.

Review shipping or fulfillment workflow; document one practical, testable fix idea now.

Create a dual-sourcing experiment for a critical input; compare reliability and cost tradeoffs.

Lean and Agile Methodologies

Lead a five-minute retro after delivery; capture one actionable improvement immediately today.

Remove one low-risk approval step; measure cycle time and outcome changes afterward.

Split one large deliverable; ship a thin slice early and request feedback.

Host a cross-discipline peer session surfacing workflow waste; capture and prioritize fixes together.

Replace one weekly meeting with async updates; compare clarity and throughput afterward.

Adopt working agreements for sprints; limit work-in-progress and enforce daily reviews.

Quality Assurance

Examine a failed project; map missing QA checks that would prevent similar mistakes.

Draft a shared definition of done; align criteria with contributors or advisors.

Add a peer review checkpoint; accept slower pace for improved reliability initially.

Write a one-page process guide; observe outcomes and adjust for clarity later.

Tag a recurring defect; trace origin, propose fix, and monitor effectiveness closely.

Introduce checklists for releases; require a brief review before marking tasks as done publicly.

IT Systems Management

Plan a system upgrade for your prototype with downtime minimized and clear rollback steps.

Create a 30-day plan to reduce tech debt—fix outdated tools or configs.

Write a how-to guide for one process new collaborators would need early.

Track tickets on a system bug—fix its main recurring cause.

Run a system audit—list three urgent fixes.

Define one early-warning risk metric and set alerts.

Cybersecurity

Review a real startup breach case and note lessons for your venture.

Run a mini audit of logins—remove unused accounts and excess permissions.

Draft a mock phishing test email for yourself—check if you’d notice it.

Write down your own incident response process—review it for clarity.

Add a firewall or tool to protect founder devices.

Set login alerts for failed or suspicious attempts.

Software Development and Integration

Pair with a peer developer to integrate one feature into your MVP this week.

Write a short review of a failed integration—document lessons for yourself.

Automate a manual integration step—save effort and reduce risk.

Set up a CI/CD pipeline or boost test coverage in your repo.

Propose a simpler system architecture for clarity.

Write down process impacts if one tool fails.

Customer Experience Management

Walk through your onboarding flow like a new user—note friction or confusion.

Interview one early adopter about their full journey—record expectations and gaps.

Rewrite one product flow to feel clearer, faster, and friendlier.

Write down top customer pain points—prioritize them.

Build a clear onboarding checklist for new users.

Propose one change to remove customer friction.

Service Recovery and Resolution

Take ownership of a customer issue—even if caused by partners—and resolve it fully.

Call a dissatisfied user one week after resolution—ask if trust is rebuilt.

Offer a goodwill gesture before a complaint escalates.

Draft a playbook of alternative fixes for recurring issues.

Reply to one issue personally without templates.

Run a root cause review of a recurring service issue.

CRM Systems

Add a meaningful note after each CRM entry this week—capture insights, not just facts.

Tag CRM contacts by stage and priority—review pipeline health.

Trigger three personalized follow-ups for inactive leads in your CRM.

Create a dashboard tracking customer health or churn risk.

Add a clear “next step” after every CRM entry.

Link CRM with marketing data for a better view.

Regulatory Compliance

Spot-check a draft process against regulations—highlight unclear or risky areas.

Identify one recurring compliance gap—propose a lightweight fix.

Join a webinar on startup-related regulations—note takeaways.

Draft a compliance SOP for one founder-owned task.

Audit three documents for GDPR or licensing gaps.

Translate one rule into a founder checklist.

Contract Management

Draft or revise a simple founder-friendly contract—compare with a legal template.

Highlight three critical clauses (termination, liability, IP)—explain in plain words.

Create a one-page contract checklist for founder use.

Read through a sample contract—note what a lawyer might flag.

Review a contract’s KPIs—suggest improvements.

Review one vendor contract for risk and upside.

Corporate Governance

Review an investor or advisor governance call recording—observe structure and responsibilities.

Draft a one-page governance outline—roles, approvals, and decision rights.

Draft a compliance checklist—spot gaps in one function.

Role-play an ethical dilemma—decide how you would act.

Write down your own accountability map—spot unclear roles.

Simplify one governance policy into plain words.

Innovation and Product Development

Run a quick idea sprint with peers—focus on quantity before quality filters.

Build a low-fidelity prototype of one improvement using simple tools.

Interview a user for pain points that spark new ideas.

Join a mini innovation jam—prototype wild ideas quickly.

Map one idea’s lifecycle—assumptions, tests, milestones.

Redesign one feature for a different segment.

Research Methodologies

Draft three sharp research questions to reduce risk in your concept validation.

Launch a five-question survey with users—capture insights quickly.

Run a quick peer interview—practice listening and clarity.

Write a research plan with objectives, sample, and timeline.

Try a new research method—A/B test or fieldwork.

Pilot a quick survey or interview with test users.

Intellectual Property Management

List your venture’s most valuable assets—designs, code, brand, or know-how.

Add a copyright or confidentiality clause to a key doc or mockup.

Adapt a standard NDA template for startup collaborations.

List which assets you’d protect first—code, brand, or data.

Document one internal process as a trade secret.

Build an IP log to track startup-created assets.

Supplier Relationship Management

Call one supplier to discuss improvements beyond delivery status updates.

Co-create a small KPI with a supplier—review outcome in two weeks.

Share pipeline forecasts with suppliers so they can plan.

Build a supplier scorecard with three metrics and share it.

Invite a supplier to a co-creation session.

Renegotiate one contract to add incentives.

Logistics and Distribution

Run a root cause review of one delivery or shipping issue in the past month.

Map and fix one recurring bottleneck in your delivery process.

Ask a logistics partner how they’d improve your process.

Draft a backup plan for your key distribution channel.

Pilot just-in-time delivery on one item.

Document logistics steps and spot three improvements.

Cost Management

Track one category of expenses for 30 days—spot leaks or savings opportunities.

Build a cost–benefit case for one supplier decision.

Test a lower-cost vendor for one purchase—evaluate results.

Identify one cost-saving idea and pilot it.

Renegotiate one vendor deal—even a small win matters.

Reallocate 5% of spend from low to higher ROI.

Data Analysis and Visualization

Redesign a dashboard to show only actionable metrics—remove vanity indicators.

Pick one project and visualize results before and after intervention.

Collect missing data points to strengthen one analysis.

Annotate three charts in your deck with clear actions.

Run a mini root cause analysis using your data.

Summarize last quarter’s key data in charts.

Predictive Analytics

Build a simple time-series forecast of trial signups or early revenue.

Test a simple predictive model on your trial or waitlist data.

Test model changes—add or drop variables—note differences.

Document assumptions behind one predictive model.

Present predictive results visually to non-technical peers.

Compare one forecast against actual results.

Business Intelligence

Refresh a BI dashboard—delete unused charts and add context for decisions.

Add a report on an overlooked metric—track its influence on growth.

Review a BI tool you haven’t used fully—try one new feature.

Develop a BI report cadence tied to planning cycles.

Integrate external data into your BI tool.

Propose BI standards to ensure consistency.

Enterprise Risk Management

Draft a personal risk map—list hidden vulnerabilities and how you’d handle them.

Rate one project by risk vs. likelihood—share findings with advisors.

Draft a risk mitigation plan for one key uncertainty.

Run a scenario drill for a low-probability, high-impact risk.

Add risk checks at project milestones.

Document one risk event and the changes applied.

Crisis Management

Run a crisis drill on your own—simulate losing one channel or key partner.

Build a founder crisis checklist—include contacts, backups, and first steps.

Draft a crisis message in five lines—practice under time pressure.

Map one cascading impact of a crisis—draft countersteps.

Draft a crisis message in 5 lines—practice delivery.

Build a post-crisis review template for reuse.

Regulatory Compliance 2

Audit one compliance-sensitive process—spot outdated or missing elements.

Draft or update a short SOP to boost compliance clarity.

Join a compliance-focused startup workshop or training.

Draft a short compliance checklist for recurring tasks.

Review audit findings—highlight one action step.

Map compliance checkpoints into one process map.

Product Lifecycle Management

Conduct a lifecycle review of one feature idea—map risks, gaps, and opportunities.

Build a go/no-go checklist to move features between lifecycle stages.

Sketch a simple lifecycle map—clarify stages and risks.

Draft a communication plan for a product transition.

Benchmark your product lifecycle against rivals.

Set alerts for signals of product decline.

Market and User Research

Run three user interviews this week—observe real product behavior directly.

Test two product messages with users—compare responses.

Combine qual and quant data into one clear finding.

Write down three research insights—brainstorm next steps.

Draft a research roadmap—studies and key questions.

Present research findings and take questions.

Go-to-Market Strategy

Draft a GTM checklist for your launch—include channels and timelines.

Run a competitor SWOT with focus on their entry strategies.

Lead a GTM dry run—test timing and messaging.

Engage one influencer or partner for launch reach.

Publish a success story from an early user.

Launch a small GTM pilot for a niche segment.

MASTER Risk Hub