Nineteen skills that draw your document's case for you

Use it when a document explains how a product, service or pipeline is put together. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: only a diagram of the parts and their flows.

The note-taking app keeps every note in a local database on the laptop. When a person asks for a summary, the app sends the selected note to a hosted model and writes the summary back into the note. Sync sends encrypted copies of the database to the company’s storage bucket in its own cloud account.

Use it when a document is working towards a decision. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: a short written brief with an options table and a decision tree.

Our support desk contract renews on 1 December. Deskly has been fine, but the price goes up 20%. Helpline would connect to billing as well as the CRM, which the support lead says would save an hour a day, but moving takes a month and the team is short-handed until January. Finance’s quote puts Deskly at $30 a seat after the rise and Helpline at $40.

Use it when a document describes a process that several people or teams share. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: only a flowchart of who does each step.

A new customer’s contract is signed by sales, who send it to finance to set up billing. Finance tells support once the account exists, and support runs the kickoff call. After the call, support hands the customer back to sales for the quarterly check-in. Finance says the hand-off from sales often arrives without the billing contact.

Use it when a passage explains a technical concept through measurements, sizes, costs, timings or counts, and a reader should see their proportions. Needs: at least 2 numbers. One run returns: an animated infographic you step through.

A product page takes 2.4 seconds to load. Looking up the address takes 0.1 s, opening the connection and its encryption 0.3 s, and the server takes 1.2 s to answer. Downloading the images and scripts then takes 0.5 s, and drawing the page 0.3 s. The server’s answer is half of the wait, and it is the part worth fixing first.

Use it when a document teaches something a reader should try for themselves. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: only a form a learner works through and signs.

A good problem statement names who has the problem, what they are trying to do, and what gets in the way — before it mentions any solution. Write it in one sentence, then test it by asking whether a customer would recognise it.

Use it when a document describes something built in layers — a technology stack, an organisation’s tiers, a product’s levels. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: an interactive visual. Press a layer to lift it and read what it does.

Our product rests on three layers. At the bottom, the data platform stores every customer event and keeps it for two years. On top of it, the model layer turns those events into forecasts each night. The app layer, on top, shows each team its forecast and lets them adjust it.

Use it when a document surveys a market, a field or a set of alternatives. Needs: at least 3 separate points. One run returns: a mind map and a table.

Meeting assistants split three ways. Recorder bots such as Otterly and Firefly join the call as a participant (per each vendor’s site). Built-in assistants come with the meeting tool itself: Zoom’s and Teams’ own (their 2026 release notes). Desktop capture tools such as Granola record from the laptop without joining the call.

Use it when a document lists options to prioritise. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: a chart of value against effort and a table.

This quarter we could ship self-serve intake, which support says would remove a third of their tickets and takes one engineer two weeks. A billing rewrite would fix the invoicing errors finance complains about but needs three engineers for a quarter and a migration. A dark-mode theme is a common request with little revenue behind it; a designer estimates a week. Replatforming search onto a new engine would cut hosting cost slightly and take two months of the platform team.

Use it when a document is choosing between a few ways forward. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: a table, and a chart when the options share one measure in one unit; otherwise it says why there is none.

For the new analytics stack we can build on our warehouse, which the data team prices at $120k in the first year and four months of work; rent a hosted product at $40k a year, live in three weeks, though our data then leaves our cloud; or keep the spreadsheets we have, which costs nothing new but cannot handle next year’s volume.

Use it when a document introduces a feature, a service or an offer, and a reader should grasp it at a glance. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: an animated card you step through.

Tally’s reminders are for freelancers whose invoices are paid late. Import your invoices from a spreadsheet, Tally flags the overdue ones, and one press sends each client a reminder with the invoice attached as a PDF. In a pilot with 40 invoices, freelancers were paid 9 days sooner on average.

Use it when a document describes how someone uses a product, a feature or a prototype, and a reader should see it happen. Needs: at least 3 separate points. One run returns: an animated mock you step through.

In Tally, a freelancer’s invoicing app, Maya opens her list of clients and picks Northwind. The client’s page shows three unpaid invoices. She presses Send reminder on the oldest one, $1,200, due 14 days ago. Tally marks the invoice Reminder sent and adds the reminder to the client’s timeline.

Use it when a document raises things someone must keep an eye on. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: only a table.

The migration depends on the vendor’s export tool, which failed twice in testing; the platform lead is chasing them and wants it working by the 14 November dry run. Legal has not yet confirmed the new data residency terms. If the dry run slips, the January launch slips with it, which marketing says would be costly.

Use it when a document plans work with dates, durations or a sequence. Needs: at least 2 separate points and a date. One run returns: only a timeline chart.

Design for the new billing flow wraps on 3 November 2026. Engineering starts the same day and needs six weeks, then two weeks of hardening. Finance wants a pricing review once hardening is done, and the launch is set for 12 January 2027. Marketing will start the launch page in December.

Use it when a document plans against an uncertain number. Needs: at least 2 numbers. One run returns: a chart and a form.

We expect 40 new customers next quarter, though sales says it could be anywhere from 25 to 60. Each brings about $3,000 in the quarter. The support hire we are weighing costs $60,000 a quarter.

Use it when a document compares a few candidates against stated criteria. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: a table and a sign-off form.

We shortlisted two support desks. Price matters most, then the integrations, then setup time. Helpline is $40 a seat and needs a month to set up, but connects to our CRM and billing. Deskly is $25 a seat and sets up in a week, though it only connects to the CRM.

Use it when a document describes how components, teams or stages pass work to each other. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: an animated visual you step through, with parts you can press.

Customers place orders on the storefront, which writes each order to the order queue. The fulfilment service takes orders from the queue, asks the inventory service to reserve the stock, then sends a pick request to the warehouse. The queue is the single point of failure: if it goes down, the storefront keeps taking orders but cannot hand them on, so they wait in its retry buffer and nothing reaches the warehouse until the queue recovers.

Use it when a document argues that something is worth doing and gives numbers for it. Needs: at least 2 numbers. One run returns: a table of its assumptions and a chart.

Support handles about 1,200 tickets a month. Their lead estimates self-serve intake would remove a third of them. Finance puts the loaded cost of a ticket at $18.

Use it when a passage explains how something works and a reader would follow it faster as a picture. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: an animated visual you step through.

When the app needs a product page it first asks the cache. If the cache has the page, it comes back in a few milliseconds. If not, that is a miss: the app reads the page from the database, which takes about 200 ms, stores it in the cache with a ten-minute expiry, and returns it. The next request for the same page is a hit.

Use it when a document describes a recurring piece of work and a reader should see its shape at a glance. Needs: at least 2 separate points. One run returns: an animated path you step through.

At the start of each month I export the client’s bank statement as a CSV and gather the receipts they emailed as PDFs. I reconcile both against the client’s ledger and flag anything that does not match. Then I send the client a one-page summary as a PDF and the updated ledger as a spreadsheet.