Problem Statement

Write a user-centered problem statement with who is blocked, what they are trying to do, why it matters, and how it feels. Use when framing discovery, prioritization, or a PRD.

7,800 stars 940 forksWriting & Content

Install

skills CLI (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and more)
npx skills add deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills --skill problem-statement
Manual install
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills.git /tmp/Product-Manager-Skills
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r /tmp/Product-Manager-Skills/skills/problem-statement ~/.claude/skills/problem-statement

Personal skills live in ~/.claude/skills. Use .claude/skills in a project folder to share a skill with your team.

From the SKILL.md

## Purpose
Articulate a problem from the user's perspective using an empathy-driven framework that captures who they are, what they're trying to do, what's blocking them, why, and how it makes them feel. Use this to align stakeholders on the problem before jumping to solutions, and to frame product work around user outcomes rather than feature requests.

This is not a requirements doc—it's a human-centered problem narrative that ensures you're solving a problem worth solving.

## Input

**Works best with:** Who the user is and what they're struggling to do.
**Also useful:** What's blocking them, why it matters, how it feels, and supporting evidence.

Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended `ARGUMENTS:` line — counts as answers already given. Use it and skip whatever it covers; don't re-ask.

**Arriving empty-handed? That works too.** The skill asks for the user and their goal first — a problem statement without a specific 'who' is a solution looking for cover.

**Example invocation:** `Problem statement: clinic schedulers double-book exam rooms because the calendar doesn't show equipment availability.`

## Key Concepts

### The Problem Framing Framework
Based on Jobs-to-be-Done and empathy mapping, the framework structures problems as:

**Problem Framing Narrative:**
- **I am:** [Describe the persona experiencing the problem]
- **Trying to:** [Desired outcomes the persona cares about]
Read the full skill on GitHub

Details

Skill name
problem-statement
Path
skills/problem-statement/SKILL.md
Repo updated
16 October 2026

FAQ

What does the Problem Statement skill do?

Write a user-centered problem statement with who is blocked, what they are trying to do, why it matters, and how it feels. Use when framing discovery, prioritization, or a PRD.

How do I install the Problem Statement skill?

skills CLI (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and more): npx skills add deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills --skill problem-statement. Skills go in ~/.claude/skills (personal) or .claude/skills (project), and Claude loads them automatically when a task matches the description.

Is Problem Statement popular?

It lives in deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills, which has 7,800 GitHub stars and 940 forks, and is included in 3 curated skill lists.

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