October 2026 · 10 min read · 32 skills, free

Claude for Design Leaders: 32 Claude Skills

The skills follow the work a design leader does between the screens. Frame the problem with whoever holds the decision, explain it so it stops being re-argued, run critique against a written bar, prove impact from real data, then lead the team and grow yourself.

01What these skills are

A design decision, from who holds it to the write-up that proves it, as installable Claude skills

This is Claude for the part of design leadership that is not drawing screens: working out who actually decides, writing down why the design is the way it is, getting a room to decide instead of redesign, running critique against a bar somebody wrote down, showing what design changed — and then leading a team and making your own case for the next level.

The skills follow the work in order, in seven steps, and each step hands a named artifact to the next.

The red line: Claude drafts the rationale, the deck and the write-up from your real work and real data. It never invents a metric, a user quote or a stakeholder's view, and it never rates a designer or a candidate.

Stakeholder views, user quotes and metrics come only from what you paste. Anything missing stays a bracketed placeholder or a visible gap, and impact is written as contribution, not attribution.

Work is scored; people are not. Claude never scores, ranks or compares a designer or a candidate. Employment, legal and regulatory points come back as questions ending in “check with a qualified adviser”.

Each skill is one named method or one artifact, with a fixed output template and the next skill to run. Where a skill fits a Claude surface it says so. Connectors read; you send every message yourself.

The 32 are grouped into the seven steps, and each one gives full value on its own.

Download all 32 skills

One zip: ready-to-install skill zips, readable SKILL.md files, and the sources behind every method. Free, no signup. The same 32 skills live in our open repo, if you would rather read them before you install them.

Download the zip Browse on GitHub

Install in Claude Code

Two lines, and every skill in the pack loads at once.

/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills
/plugin install design-leaders-pack@polar-bear-skills

Using Claude on the web instead? Download the zip above and upload each skill from its install folder under Customize → Skills.

02The catalog

The 32 skills you get

The set follows the work in seven steps: framing the problem with whoever holds the decision, explaining the decision so it stops being re-argued, persuading the room, running critique against a written bar, proving impact from real data — then leading the team and growing yourself.

1 · Frame the problem

Stakeholder Map

Use when: You spend your days aligning and still do not know who actually decides
Output: Power and interest grid, goals, constraints and decision rights, facts apart from guesses, engagement plan, first conversation

Stakeholder Interview Guide

Use when: A project starts and you are guessing what the VP means by “make it simpler”
Output: Interview goals, semi-structured guide, probes, note template, summary in each person's own words, gaps to verify

Problem Framing Brief

Use when: The team was handed a feature and nobody has said what problem it solves
Output: Problem statement, outcome, evidence on hand and missing, constraints, out of scope, “we believe” hypothesis

2 · Explain the decision

Design Principles

Use when: Every review becomes a taste argument because the team has no shared criteria
Output: Four to seven principles that take a stand, the trade-off each settles, “this, not that” examples, conflict check

Design Options Trade-off Table

Use when: Stakeholders saw one design and think it is the only one
Output: Two to four real options, criteria from the brief, consequences in words, what each gives up, evidence or gap

DACI Decision Framework

Use when: You are responsible for the design but nobody agreed who signs it off
Output: Decision statement, Driver, one Approver, Contributors, Informed, due date, how the outcome is shared

Design Rationale Doc

Use when: You keep re-explaining why the design is the way it is
Output: The decision, options and why not, principles applied, evidence or a visible gap, trade-offs, risks, owner

Design Decision Log

Use when: A decision from six months ago is re-opened and nobody remembers why
Output: Dated records with context, decision, status and consequences, revisit triggers, a running file

3 · Persuade the room

Pre-Wire Plan

Use when: The big review is next week and you do not want the first reaction in the room
Output: Who to see one to one, what each needs and might object to, objections answered in the deck, what changes on a no

Design Review Deck

Use when: You present to leadership and the room argues about colours, not the decision
Output: Decision asked on slide one, options and recommendation, real evidence, risks, feedback in scope, next steps

Stakeholder Feedback Log

Use when: Three stakeholders gave three opposite notes and the next round undoes the last
Output: Every comment in one table, duplicates merged, conflicts sent to the approver, accept, decline or park, the reply

Design Pushback Brief

Use when: You are asked to ship a dark pattern or a change you think will hurt users
Output: The request, user and business risk with evidence, two alternatives, escalation route, how dissent is recorded

4 · Run critique

Design Quality Bar

Use when: “Raise the bar” is said every quarter and nobody has written the bar
Output: Review criteria by stage from usability heuristics and WCAG 2.2, what good enough to ship means

Design Critique Ritual

Use when: Crit is a calendar slot where the loudest person redesigns the work
Output: Purpose, who comes, critique split from review, format, roles, rules with consequences, failure modes

Critique Session Brief

Use when: You present at crit on Thursday and want feedback, not opinions
Output: Objectives, stage, the one question, out of scope, timebox, prompts that turn reactions into questions

Critique Notes to Actions

Use when: You left crit with twenty comments and no idea which ones matter
Output: Notes sorted by objective, preference, out of scope or question, what changes and why, the reply to the room

5 · Prove impact

HEART Metrics Plan

Use when: The project starts and nobody agreed what design success looks like
Output: Goals, signals and metrics per HEART dimension, baseline or gap flag, data owner, what PM and design watch

Design Impact Write-Up

Use when: Leadership asks what design delivered and you have screens, not outcomes
Output: Problem, what design changed, before and after from real data, contribution not attribution, what we learned

UX Debt Register

Use when: UX debt piles up because no single fix is ever “important enough”
Output: Each issue with impact, journey stage, frequency, evidence and effort, value against effort plot, short list

Design Investment Case

Use when: You need time or budget for design work that never wins against features
Output: The ask, cost of delay from your own figures, cost of delay divided by duration, what stops, decision owner

6 · Lead the team

UX Maturity Assessment

Use when: You step into a lead or head role and need to see how design works here
Output: Six levels across strategy, culture, process and outcomes, the evidence for each, the one move to the next level

Design Team Operating Rhythm

Use when: The team's week is all meetings and nobody can say which ones decide anything
Output: Every recurring meeting with purpose and output, keep, change or replace, the week and month on one page

Delegation Board

Use when: You are a new lead and keep redesigning other people's work
Output: Decision areas, the delegation level agreed for each from tell to delegate, when you step in, review date

Design Hiring Loop

Use when: You open a design role and the loop is “chat with the team and see”
Output: Competencies, stages, portfolio prompts, exercise brief, same questions, a blank form each interviewer fills alone

Designer 30-60-90 Day Plan

Use when: A designer starts in two weeks and onboarding is a list of tool logins
Output: Before day one, first week, 30, 60 and 90 day goals, buddy, first critique, first real work, check-in questions

SBI Feedback Prep

Use when: You must give hard feedback and it keeps coming out as “it felt off”
Output: Situation, behaviour and impact from your notes, labels turned into observations, the intent question, next step

7 · Grow yourself

New Design Lead 90-Day Plan

Use when: You just moved from IC to lead, or into a new head of design role
Output: Weeks 1 to 4 listen, 5 to 8 one visible win, 9 to 12 set the rhythm, what you stop doing as an IC

Staff Designer Path Map

Use when: You are senior, do not want to manage, and cannot see what staff means here
Output: IC and manager paths side by side, four staff archetypes adapted to design, the gap to your ladder

Brag Document

Use when: Review season comes and you cannot remember what you did in March
Output: Running log of projects and effect, decisions led, mentoring, system work, learning, each entry dated with evidence

Promotion Case

Use when: You are going for staff or lead and need to show you already work at that level
Output: Your ladder's criteria, evidence mapped to each, scope, impact and influence stories, gaps, who can speak to it

Leadership Case Study

Use when: You stopped designing every screen and your portfolio no longer shows your work
Output: Situation, your role, decisions and trade-offs, how you brought people along, outcomes from real data

03How to use it

Pick the workflow that matches your week

Start with the stakeholder map: almost everything downstream reads it. After that, bring the thing that is in front of you.

Frame the problem

New in the role, or starting a project.

Stakeholder Map
Stakeholder Interview Guide
Problem Framing Brief
Design Strategy One-Pager

Explain the decision

The answer has to survive the next six months.

Design Principles
Design Options Trade-off Table
DACI Decision Framework
Design Rationale Doc
Design Decision Log

Get the room to decide

Review on Tuesday.

Pre-Wire Plan
Design Review Deck
Stakeholder Feedback Log
Design Pushback Brief

Run critique

Crit this morning, and twenty comments to turn into actions.

Design Quality Bar
Design Critique Ritual
Critique Session Brief
Critique Notes to Actions

Prove impact

Leadership wants numbers for the quarter.

HEART Metrics Plan
Design Impact Write-Up
UX Debt Register
Design Investment Case

Lead the team

You run the team as well as the work.

UX Maturity Assessment
Design Team Operating Rhythm
Delegation Board
Design Hiring Loop
Designer 30-60-90 Day Plan
SBI Feedback Prep

Make your own case

Review season in three weeks.

New Design Lead 90-Day Plan
Staff Designer Path Map
Brag Document
Promotion Case
Leadership Case Study

04Setup guide

Install it in five minutes

In Claude Code · two lines

/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills
/plugin install design-leaders-pack@polar-bear-skills

In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop · seven clicks

Download the pack, then open Settings
Unzip the pack: its skills folder holds all 32 skills. In Claude, click your name at the bottom left, then Settings.
Download the zip
Open Skills and click Add
Under Customize, choose Skills. Click Add, then Upload a skill.
Drop in a skill file
Drag the skill's file into the box, or click to browse. You can add several at once.
Pick the skill from the pack
In the pack folder, open skills, then the skill you want, and select its SKILL.md — dlead-stakeholder-map is a good first one.
Check the preview and upload
Claude shows the skill's name and what it does. Click Upload.
Make sure it is switched on
The skill opens on its own page. Its toggle should be on.
Try it in a new chat
Type / and the skill's name, then say what you need.

Then try one

Run dlead-stakeholder-map with my kickoff notes and the org chart: [paste them here]

Run dlead-critique-notes-to-actions on this morning's crit notes: [paste them here]

Run dlead-design-review-deck for the review on [date]. Options and rationale: [paste them here]

Keep anything about a named colleague or candidate out of Claude memory.

Lantern for design leaders

Turn your design reviews into posts your team shares

Lantern drafts a week of posts from your notes and call transcripts, in your voice. You review them and publish the ones you like.

100 free credits, about ten posts. No card needed.

Try for free

05Quick reference

Where to start

Your situation	Skill to run
You do not know who actually decides?	Stakeholder Map
You are guessing what a stakeholder really means?	Stakeholder Interview Guide
A feature arrived with no problem attached?	Problem Framing Brief
Every review becomes a taste argument?	Design Principles
Stakeholders think your design is the only option?	Design Options Trade-off Table
You keep re-explaining the same decision?	Design Rationale Doc
You want no surprises in next week's review?	Pre-Wire Plan
The room argues about colours, not the decision?	Design Review Deck
Nobody has written the bar you review against?	Design Quality Bar
You left crit with twenty comments?	Critique Notes to Actions
Nobody agreed what design success looks like?	HEART Metrics Plan
Leadership asks what design delivered?	Design Impact Write-Up
You keep redesigning your team's work?	Delegation Board
You just moved from IC to lead?	New Design Lead 90-Day Plan
You are going for staff or lead?	Promotion Case

06Standards

The quality bar

Every skill in the pack holds the same standard:

One method, applied properly: the power and interest quadrants, the DACI roles, the decision record statuses, the critique roles and formats, HEART goals to signals to metrics, the delegation levels — not a generic “gather, analyse, recommend”
Real voices, real numbers: stakeholder views, user quotes and metrics come only from what you paste. Anything missing stays a bracketed placeholder or a visible gap, and impact is written as contribution, not attribution
Work is scored, people are not: critique and quality skills judge work against stated objectives, feedback skills structure your own notes, and the hiring loop is a process plus a blank form each interviewer fills alone
Every output ends with a decision: each template closes with what a named person decides next, and by when
Adviser points stay with an adviser: employment, legal, accessibility law and regulatory points end with “check with a qualified adviser”
The red line: Claude drafts the rationale, the deck and the write-up from your real work and real data; it never invents a metric, a user quote or a stakeholder's view, and it never rates a designer or a candidate — you fill the forms and you make the call

07FAQ

Questions people ask

What is in the Claude for Design Leaders pack?

32 Claude skills that follow a design decision in seven steps: frame the problem, explain the decision, persuade the room, run critique, prove impact, lead the team, and grow yourself. Each skill is one named method or one artifact.

How do I install these Claude skills?

In Claude Code, two lines install all 32 at once. In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop, download the zip, open Settings, Skills, Add, and upload the skills you want. Either way it takes about five minutes.

Do I need Claude Code to use them?

No. The skills work in Claude.ai, Claude Desktop and Claude Code. In the app you upload them yourself; in Claude Code one command installs the whole pack.

Do the skills work with ChatGPT or other assistants?

They are built as Claude Skills, and installing them is a Claude feature. Each one is a plain Markdown file, so you can read it and reuse the method elsewhere, but it will not load and trigger by itself outside Claude.

Will Claude rate my designers or candidates?

No. Claude drafts the rationale, the deck and the write-up from your real work and real data. It never invents a metric, a user quote or a stakeholder's view, and it never rates a designer or a candidate.

Is the pack free?

Yes. It is free to use inside your company and in client work, and not for resale. There is no signup: the download and the install command are on this page.

08Who made this

Lantern, by Polar Bear

These skills were written by Polar Bear, a people ops consultancy that runs its own company on Claude. The pack is free, and the same skills are open on GitHub.

Lantern is Polar Bear's content workspace. It turns your notes, documents and call transcripts into drafts for LinkedIn and other networks. You review them and publish the ones you like.