--- name: qualification-standard-work description: "The work instruction shape pointed at qualifying a lead against the ideal customer profile (ICP): major steps — firmographic fit, a real trigger, anti-ICP disqualifiers, budget-authority path — each with a key point for the technique and the reason it matters, so qualification depends on the same checks regardless of which rep is running them. Use when: Lead volume is high enough that qualification quality varies visibly by rep or by day, not because anyone is careless but because there's no shared technique to fall back on. Not for: You don't have a defined ICP or anti-ICP yet — build those first; a qualification checklist with nothing real to check against just adds process without adding signal. Lead volume is low enough that every lead already gets a real, consistent conversation from an experienced rep — the standard work earns its keep at volume, not as ceremony." --- # Qualification standard work The work instruction shape pointed at qualifying a lead against the ideal customer profile (ICP): major steps — firmographic fit, a real trigger, anti-ICP disqualifiers, budget-authority path — each with a key point for the technique and the reason it matters, so qualification depends on the same checks regardless of which rep is running them. Family: Standard work · Format: .xlsx · Domain: commercial ## What it is Qualification standard work is the same three-column job instruction as the canonical version — major steps, key points (a specific technique, not a generic prompt), and the reason each one matters — pointed at deciding whether a lead genuinely fits the ideal customer profile (ICP) before it consumes a discovery call's worth of time. The lean connection is ICP as "specify value — lean's step one," with qualification as its standard work: without a repeatable technique, a rep either advances everyone (burning downstream time on deals that were never going to close) or advances inconsistently (losing real fits to a bad day's judgement call) — the same failure any work instruction exists to prevent. ## When to use it Use it when: - Lead volume is high enough that qualification quality varies visibly by rep or by day, not because anyone is careless but because there's no shared technique to fall back on. - You have a real ICP canvas and anti-ICP already defined — this standard work is what turns those definitions into a repeatable check, not a substitute for having them. - You want to see honestly which qualification steps still rely on individual judgement rather than a real technique, not a checklist that looks complete but isn't. Not when: - You don't have a defined ICP or anti-ICP yet — build those first; a qualification checklist with nothing real to check against just adds process without adding signal. - Lead volume is low enough that every lead already gets a real, consistent conversation from an experienced rep — the standard work earns its keep at volume, not as ceremony. - The 'key point' would just restate the step ('check if they're a good fit') — a real key point adds a specific technique a step alone doesn't convey. ## How to fill it in - **purpose** — What does qualification need to establish before a lead advances, and what does advancing an unqualified lead actually cost downstream? - **steps** — Drafted from your description of the qualification process — major steps, each with zero or more key points and, for every key point, the reason it matters. A step with no real technique yet is flagged, not hidden. - **narrative** — Drafted from the steps actually built. ## What good looks like The example below is a mid-market inbound qualification process — four of five steps carry a real technique and reason, and the final routing step is honestly left flagged rather than padded with a generic 'route appropriately' instruction. Full worked example, on-screen and as a downloadable .xlsx: https://www.katafacts.com/katas/qualification-standard-work ## Common mistakes - **Checking firmographic fit last, after a full discovery call has already happened.** — Firmographic fit is the cheapest check to run and the one most likely to disqualify outright — running it last means the expensive parts of the process happen before the one check that could have ended it early. - **Treating 'they filled out a form' as evidence of a real trigger.** — Form fills are interest, not urgency — advancing on interest alone is how a pipeline fills with deals that stall at 'no decision' three months later, the same failure a deal A3 usually traces back to a discovery-stage gap. - **Running the anti-ICP check from memory instead of the actual defined disqualifiers.** — Anti-ICP patterns exist because specific past deals already failed this way — a rep's general sense of 'red flags' isn't the same as the disqualifiers that were actually derived from churn data. ## What it connects to Upstream: - **Ideal customer profile (ICP) canvas** (`icp-canvas`) — This standard work only works if the firmographic ranges and trigger signals it checks against are the real, current ICP definition — not a rep's mental model of it. - **Anti-ideal customer profile (anti-ICP)** (`anti-icp`) — The disqualifier check is only as good as the anti-ICP list it's checking against — a stale or missing anti-ICP means this step has nothing real to run. Downstream: - **Discovery call standard work** (`discovery-standard-work`) — A lead that passes qualification is exactly what advances into a discovery call — qualification decides who gets there, discovery decides what happens once they do. ## Where AI helps Judgement — stays with you: - Deciding whether a step genuinely needs a technique or is simple enough not to - Deciding whether a drafted key point reflects a real, usable technique or is worth sharpening Analysis — AI helps: - Drafting major steps, key points, and reasons from a rough description of the qualification process - Drafting the narrative from the steps actually built Drudgery — automated: - Counting steps and key points - Identifying which steps still have no technique - Exporting to xlsx in the house format --- Qualification standard work is licensed [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Attribution: Katafacts (katafacts.com). ## Using this skill Apply this method as part of whatever broader task, instructions, or deliverable you're already working on -- it's a method to use, not a standalone conversation to start. There is no generation tool for this catalogue yet, so draft the artifact's actual content yourself, following the fields above, the same way a person filling this out by hand would. The canonical guide page and a downloadable worked example (.xlsx) are at https://www.katafacts.com/katas/qualification-standard-work.