Interview Critic Skill

When to Use

Primary triggers:

• "review this JTBD transcript", "check this interview", "interview quality"
• "is this job statement valid", "review the synthesis", "check the job statement"
• "Four Forces coverage", "did we get all four forces", "were the forces elicited"
• "can we use this for product decisions", "is this ready to use"
• "critique the interview", "assess the interview quality"
• "independent quality score", "check the interviewer's score"

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Use When

• A JTBD switching-story transcript is complete and needs verification before product team use
• You want an independent Quality Score to compare against the interviewer's self-assessment
• You need to know whether gaps require a targeted follow-up interview before downstream use
• You suspect the job statement may not be grounded in the transcript evidence
• You want to check for leading questions, affirmations, or premature closure before presenting findings to stakeholders

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Do Not Use When

• The interview is still in progress — use jtbd-interviewer to conduct the interview first
• You want to review published research or academic JTBD findings — use research-critic
• You want to review a formal study protocol — use study-design-planner
• You want to draft copy or messaging from the job statement — use copy-planner (after this critic approves the synthesis)

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What You Get

• VERDICT: REJECT / REVISE / ACCEPT-WITH-RESERVATIONS / ACCEPT
• Four Forces Coverage table: Status (ELICITED/PARTIAL/UNELICITED), confidence, key quote, and caveats per force
• Job Statement Validity: Ulwick syntax check, solution-agnosticism, evidence grounding, revised statement if needed
• Interviewer Technique Assessment: Affirmations, leading questions, specificity anchoring, contradiction probing, self-score accuracy
• Independent Quality Score (1–5) compared to the interviewer's self-reported score
• Actionable fix recommendations: Specific follow-up questions for each gap

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Resolution Paths

Situation	Route
Need to conduct the interview first	Use jtbd-interviewer
Transcript complete — verify before product decisions	This skill
Synthesis ACCEPTED — write product messaging	Route to copy-planner
Synthesis ACCEPTED — quantitative validation	Route to study-design-planner
Synthesis needs follow-up interview	Use jtbd-interviewer with targeted gap-fill questions from this critic's findings
Published JTBD research to review	Use research-critic

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Background

JTBD interviews produce synthesis artifacts (job statements, Four Forces summaries, struggling moments) that downstream product decisions depend on. A job statement that sounds compelling but isn't grounded in direct participant evidence can misdirect product work for months. This critic provides an independent check before that happens.

Key concerns this critic addresses:

• F3 Anxiety and F4 Habit are systematically underprobed — they are the most uncomfortable forces for participants to discuss and the most important for predicting adoption friction
• Interviewers self-report Quality Scores that are often inflated by 1–2 points — an independent score catches this before the synthesis reaches a product team
• Leading questions and affirmations are subtle — they do not always feel wrong in the moment, but they corrupt the data by steering participant responses toward the interviewer's expectations

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Companion Skills

• jtbd-interviewer: Conducts the interview this critic reviews
• copy-planner: Use after ACCEPT/ACCEPT-WITH-RESERVATIONS to brief messaging work from the validated job statement
• study-design-planner: Use after ACCEPT to design quantitative validation of job hypotheses
• research-critic: For formal JTBD research and published studies

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meta-router Registry Note

Listed under the Critics table (review intent, not discovery intent). Trigger signals: interview review, JTBD transcript, job statement valid, Four Forces coverage, interview quality, critique the interview, independent quality score