KPI Tree From One Goal

When to use it

The user has been handed a target (revenue, margin, sign-ups, retention, output, cost) and must show how it will be hit. They need the number broken into the things people actually do, with a name on each and a clear view of which two matter most. The target and the current figures in, a reconciled tree out.

Not for setting the target, for forecasting, or for building the full plan under each lever. This is the structure the plan hangs on.

What it asks you

One message, numbered.

1. The goal: the metric, the target number, and the date it is due.
2. The current value of that metric, and the period it covers.
3. The current values of the things you already know feed it. For revenue: customers, orders, average order value, prices, volumes. For a conversion goal: visitors, leads, conversion rates by stage. Paste what you have, with the period.
4. The people or roles who could own a branch.
5. Anything fixed: a price you cannot change, a headcount you cannot add, a channel you cannot use.

Work from what is given. Where a driver is needed to make the arithmetic reconcile but no value is given, the tree shows it as "not given" and the output names it as the first number to get. Never estimate a current value, a rate or a market figure. If the user gives only the goal and nothing else, build the tree's structure with every leaf marked "not given" and say that the sizing cannot run until the numbers arrive.

What comes back

Plain text, indented tree.

GOAL: metric, target, due date. Current: value, period. Gap: target minus current, shown.

TREE Goal node: current value Child A: value = (how it is computed), reconciles / partly / not given Leaf A1: value, owner, movable or fixed Leaf A2: value, owner, movable or fixed Child B: value = (...) ...

RECONCILIATION Node: children arithmetic = result against the node's value, with difference

LEAF SIZING (plus ten percent on one leaf, all else constant; a test size, not a forecast) Leaf | Current | Effect on goal (units) | Share of gap ...

TWO LEVERS 1. Leaf, owner, what a ten percent move does, what move alone would close the gap (arithmetic) 2. ...

EXCLUDED: fixed leaves and conditions, one line each

NOT GIVEN: the figures that would complete the tree, in the order they matter

Next: one line naming the single most useful next step.

• 00_START_HERE.pdf: the two-minute set-up for each AI.
• 1 - Skill: kpi-tree-from-one-goal.zip, one upload to Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok or Microsoft 365 Copilot. It switches on by itself when this job comes up.
• 2 - Text file for any AI: the same Move as one .txt. Attach it to any chat, on any plan, and type "Follow this file".

It drafts, you read and send. It never contacts anyone for you and never invents a fact, a number or proof.

A Move is a single play. The whole function in a box is an agent pack.