bradfeld/ceos/ceos-accountability

ceos-accountability

Manage the Accountability Chart — the organizational structure that defines who owns what seat, what each seat's 5 key responsibilities are, and the reporting hierarchy. Every function of the business has one clear owner. A person can own multiple seats, but every seat needs exactly one owner.

When to Use

• "Show the accountability chart" or "who owns what?"
• "Update the org chart" or "change seat ownership"
• "Add a new seat" or "we need a VP of Product"
• "Remove a seat" or "consolidate these roles"
• "Audit the accountability chart" or "check for gaps"
• "Who reports to whom?" or "show the structure"
• "How many seats does [person] own?"
• "Are there any empty seats?" or "what roles are unfilled?"
• "Update roles for [seat]" or "change responsibilities"
• Any discussion about organizational structure, seat ownership, or role definition

Context

Finding the CEOS Repository

Search upward from the current directory for the .ceos marker file. This file marks the root of the CEOS repository.

If .ceos is not found, stop and tell the user: "Not in a CEOS repository. Clone your CEOS repo and run setup.sh first."

Sync before use: Once you find the CEOS root, run git -C <ceos_root> pull --ff-only --quiet 2>/dev/null to get the latest data from teammates. If it fails (conflict or offline), continue silently with local data.

Key Files

Accountability Chart Structure

The chart is a single markdown file (data/accountability.md) with this structure:

• Company heading: ## CompanyName at the top with a *Last updated: YYYY-MM-DD* line
• How to Use section: Instructions block (preserved during edits)
• Seats: Each seat is a ## SeatName heading followed by:
• **Owner:** PersonName (or [Name] if unfilled)
• A roles table with exactly 5 numbered rows

Example seat:

## VP of Sales
 
**Owner:** Mike Torres
 
| # | Role |
|---|------|
| 1 | Revenue — hit quarterly sales targets |
| 2 | Pipeline — maintain 3x pipeline coverage |
| 3 | Team — recruit, coach, and retain sales reps |
| 4 | Process — define and enforce the sales playbook |
| 5 | Reporting — weekly forecast and funnel metrics |

Hierarchy is implicit from the order of seats in the file. The Visionary and Integrator appear first (top of org), followed by functional seats (Sales, Ops, Finance, etc.).

Template placeholders: [Name] for empty owner, [Key responsibility] for undefined roles.

Process

Mode: View

When the user asks to see the accountability chart or check seat ownership.

Step 1: Read the Chart

Read data/accountability.md. If the file doesn't exist: "No accountability chart found. Run ./setup.sh init to create one from the template, or create data/accountability.md manually."

Step 2: Parse Seats

Walk through the file and extract each seat:

• Title: The ## SeatName heading text
• Owner: The name after **Owner:** (or "empty" if [Name])
• Roles: The numbered entries in the roles table
• Role count: How many non-placeholder roles are defined

Step 3: Display the Chart

Show the chart in a clear hierarchical format:

Accountability Chart — Acme Corp
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Last updated: 2026-02-01
 
  Visionary                Brad Feld         5/5 roles
  Integrator               Sarah Chen        5/5 roles
  ├── VP of Sales          Mike Torres       5/5 roles
  ├── VP of Operations     Daniel Kim        5/5 roles
  └── VP of Finance        (empty)           0/5 roles

If the user asks for detail, show each seat with its full role table.

Step 4: Summary Stats

Summary: 5 seats | 4 filled | 1 empty | avg 4.0 roles per seat

Mode: Update

When the user wants to modify the accountability chart — add, change, or remove seats.

Sub-mode: Add Seat

Step 1: Collect Seat Information

Ask for:

1. Title — "What's the seat title?" (e.g., "VP of Product")
2. Owner — "Who owns this seat?" (one person, or leave empty for a gap to fill)
3. Five roles — "What are the 5 key responsibilities for this seat?"
4. Position — "Where in the hierarchy? Under which seat, or at the leadership level?"

Step 2: Validate

• Title required. If empty, ask again.
• 5 roles recommended. If fewer than 5, warn: "EOS recommends exactly 5 roles per seat. You have [N]. Want to add more, or save as-is?"
• Check for duplicate title. If a seat with the same title already exists: "A seat called '[Title]' already exists. Did you mean to modify it instead?"

Step 3: Show the Addition

Display the new seat in the correct format:

## VP of Product
 
**Owner:** [Collected name or [Name]]
 
| # | Role |
|---|------|
| 1 | [Role 1] |
| 2 | [Role 2] |
| 3 | [Role 3] |
| 4 | [Role 4] |
| 5 | [Role 5] |

Ask: "Add this seat to the accountability chart?"

Step 4: Write

Insert the new seat at the correct position in data/accountability.md. Add a --- separator before the new seat. Update the *Last updated:* date to today.

Sub-mode: Modify Seat

Step 1: Select the Seat

Show the current chart (list seats with owners). Ask: "Which seat do you want to modify?"

Accept by title or owner name.

Step 2: Show Current State

Display the seat's current title, owner, and all 5 roles.

Step 3: Collect Changes

Ask what to change:

• Owner — "Change the owner?"
• Roles — "Update any roles?" (show numbered list, let user update by number)
• Title — "Rename the seat?"

Step 4: Show Diff

Display the before and after:

Modifying: VP of Sales
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 
Owner: Mike Torres → Sarah Chen
 
Roles changed:
  3. (was) Team — recruit, coach, and retain sales reps
  3. (now) Team — recruit and develop account executives

Ask: "Apply these changes?"

Step 5: Write

Update the seat in data/accountability.md. Update the *Last updated:* date to today.

Sub-mode: Remove Seat

Step 1: Select the Seat

Show the current chart. Ask: "Which seat do you want to remove?"

Step 2: Confirm

Show the seat being removed with all its details. Warn:

"Removing a seat means this function will no longer have a dedicated owner. Are you sure?"

If the seat has an owner: "The owner ([person]) will no longer be assigned to this seat. They may need to be assigned to another seat or evaluated."

Step 3: Write

Remove the seat section from data/accountability.md. Update the *Last updated:* date to today.

Always show the complete diff before writing any changes in Update mode.

Mode: Audit

When the user wants to check the chart for structural issues, stale data, or mismatches with People Analyzer data.

Step 1: Structural Checks

Read data/accountability.md and check each seat for:

Step 2: Cross-Reference with People Directory

Read all files in data/people/ and compare:

• Owner in chart but no person file: Flag: "[Owner] is listed in accountability.md but has no evaluation file in data/people/. Create one?"
• Person file references a seat not in the chart: Flag: "[Person]'s file says seat: '[Seat]' but no such seat exists in accountability.md."
• Name mismatch (fuzzy): Flag: "Owner 'Mike' in accountability.md may be 'Mike Torres' in data/people/mike-torres.md. Confirm match?"

Name matching should be case-insensitive and match on first name if the full name matches a person file.

Step 3: Multi-Seat and Empty Seat Detection

• Person owns multiple seats: Note (not an error — common in small companies): "[Person] owns [N] seats: [list]. Ensure they have capacity."
• Empty seats: Flag: "[Seat Name] has no owner. This is a gap — hire or reassign."

Step 4: Display Audit Report

Accountability Chart Audit
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 
Seat Checks:
| Seat           | Owner         | Roles | Placeholders | Status |
|----------------|---------------|-------|-------------|--------|
| Visionary      | Brad Feld     | 5/5   | None        | ✅     |
| Integrator     | Sarah Chen    | 5/5   | None        | ✅     |
| VP Sales       | Mike Torres   | 5/5   | None        | ✅     |
| Operations     | (empty)       | 3/5   | 2 remaining | 🔴     |
| Finance        | (empty)       | 0/5   | 5 remaining | 🔴     |
 
Cross-Reference:
  ⚠️  Mike Torres has no person file — create data/people/mike-torres.md?
  ⚠️  Operations seat is empty — hiring gap or reassignment needed
 
Multi-Seat Check:
  Brad Feld owns 1 seat (Visionary)
  Sarah Chen owns 1 seat (Integrator)
  Mike Torres owns 1 seat (VP Sales)
 
Chart Freshness:
  ✅ Last updated 14 days ago (within 180-day threshold)
 
Overall: 3/5 seats fully defined | 2 empty seats | 1 person missing evaluation

Step 5: Suggest Fixes

For each issue found, suggest an action:

• Empty seat: "Run Update mode to assign an owner or remove the seat."
• Missing roles: "Run Update mode to define all 5 roles for [Seat]."
• Missing person file: "Run ceos-people Evaluate mode for [Person]."
• Stale chart: "Run Update mode to refresh. Last updated [N] days ago."
• Name mismatch: "Update accountability.md to use the full name, or update the person file."

Output Format

View: Hierarchical chart display with seat titles, owners, and role counts. Summary stats at the bottom.

Update: Before/after diff for modifications. Complete seat preview for additions. Confirmation prompt before every write.

Audit: Table with per-seat status flags. Cross-reference results. Multi-seat ownership summary. Suggested fixes for each issue found.

Guardrails

• Always show diff before writing. Never modify data/accountability.md without showing the complete change and getting approval. This is the most important rule — the accountability chart affects everyone in the company.
• 5 roles per seat (recommended, not enforced). EOS methodology says exactly 5 roles per seat. Warn if fewer or more than 5, but allow the user to proceed after acknowledging. Some companies are still defining roles.
• One owner per seat. Every seat has exactly one person's name — not "the team", not two names. If multiple people share a function, split it into separate seats.
• Don't modify other files. This skill writes to data/accountability.md only. It reads from data/people/ for Audit, but never writes to people files. Suggest running ceos-people instead.
• Update the last-updated date. Every time data/accountability.md is modified, update the *Last updated: YYYY-MM-DD* line at the top of the file to today's date.
• Don't auto-invoke other skills. Mention ceos-people, ceos-quarterly, and ceos-annual when relevant, but let the user decide when to switch workflows.
• Sensitive data warning. On first use, remind the user: "The Accountability Chart may contain sensitive organizational data. Use a private repo."
• Preserve file structure. When editing, keep the ## How to Use This Chart section and all --- separators intact. Only modify seat sections.

Integration Notes

People Analyzer (ceos-people)