Strategic Thinking Weekly #4: Framework Archaeology

Field Note

The Video Pipeline I Built By Accident

I was building an online course and hit the classic wall. Four videos recorded with my own voice, each one taking forever, quality wasn't there, edits stacking up. Execution friction killing momentum.

First breakthrough: instead of recording myself teaching from scripts, what if Claude taught directly from the course materials? I gave it the framework plus the syllabus structure, and it just taught. No script memorization, no takes, no editing loops.

But I still had to manually record the audio through Audacity. Better, but still friction. Then the next day I asked: "Wait, can the operating system press the record button itself?"

Answer: Yes.

I kicked off a batch of videos and waited. Silence. No audio playing. A few minutes later: "They're done."

"How are they done? I didn't hear anything."

"You don't need to hear it. It's digital."

That was the moment. I'd been thinking about production wrong. Digital doesn't need human monitoring. The system can produce while you do other things. Once that clicked, the obvious next question: "Can we do this with video too?"

Now the whole pipeline runs in about thirty seconds. Voice input, finished video out. Kinetic typography, AI backgrounds, FFmpeg assembly. Batch folder delivery while I work on something else. I didn't systematize video production. I systematized each component, then assembled them into an autonomous workflow.

Deep Dive

Why Your Best Work Already Contains Frameworks

Here's what most people miss: if you're consistently good at something, you're already using a framework. You're just not conscious of it.

Psychologists call this "unconscious competence." You've internalized a pattern so deeply that you execute it automatically. Great for efficiency. Terrible for improvement and transfer.

Framework archaeology reverses this. You dig into what you're already doing well and extract the underlying structure. The benefits compound:

You can teach it. Tacit knowledge stays locked in one person's head. Explicit frameworks spread across teams. Once my video pipeline was documented, anyone could follow the same process and get similar results.

You can improve it. You can't optimize what you can't see. Once the framework is visible, you can test variations, identify weak spots, and strengthen specific components.

You can transfer it. The audio breakthrough transferred directly to video. A pattern from one component might solve problems across your entire workflow. The structure travels even when the context changes.

You can automate it. AI needs explicit instructions. Tacit knowledge produces vague prompts and generic outputs. Documented frameworks become precise inputs that generate consistent results.

Case Slice Teardown

Extracting a Blog Production Framework

Role: Marketing team at a professional services firm

Situation: One team member consistently produced high-quality blog posts in half the time of others. When asked how, she said "I just write." The team wanted to capture her approach.

Constraint: She couldn't articulate her process because it had become automatic. We had to observe and extract rather than interview.

Intervention: Recorded her screen during three blog sessions. Documented every action, including pauses, research moments, and revision patterns. Mapped the sequence into a repeatable framework.

Outcome: Blog production time dropped 60% across the team (from 45 minutes average to 18 minutes). New hires reached quality standards in their first week instead of their first month.

What's notable here: The framework was already there, producing results every time she wrote. The archaeology didn't create something new. It made the invisible visible. Once visible, it became transferable, improvable, and scalable. The constraint (she couldn't explain it) forced observation-based extraction, which actually produced a more accurate framework than self-reporting would have.

Judgment Gate

Signs You Have a Hidden Framework Worth Excavating

1. Consistent results in a specific domain
If you're reliably good at something, there's a pattern. Even if you think you're "just doing it naturally," nature has structure.

2. Others ask how you do it
When people notice your results and want to understand your approach, they're seeing a framework you can't see yourself.

3. You say "I just..." when explaining
"I just make videos." "I just write." "I just figure it out." These phrases signal unconscious competence. Something systematic is happening beneath the surface.

4. You can do it tired or distracted
If you can execute well even when your conscious mind is elsewhere, you've automated a pattern. That pattern is a framework waiting to be documented.

5. New people struggle where you succeed easily
If others find difficult what you find effortless, you've internalized something they haven't. That something has structure worth capturing.

3-Minute Micro-Win

Excavate one framework from your own work

Pick something you do well consistently
Not your most impressive skill. Something you do regularly where others sometimes struggle but you don't. Running meetings. Writing emails. Handling a specific type of request.

List your actual steps
Not what you think you should do. What you actually do. Start from the trigger ("When I need to...") and walk through the sequence. Include the small things you might dismiss as obvious.

Look for the decision points
Where do you make choices? What information do you check? What determines which path you take? These decision points are the skeleton of your framework.

Name it
Give your excavated framework a name. "My email triage system." "The meeting opener sequence." Naming makes it real, memorable, and teachable.

You've just done framework archaeology. That pattern was always there. Now you can see it, improve it, and share it.

STRATEGIC THINKING WEEKLY

Framework Builder Edition

The Video Pipeline I Built By Accident

Why Your Best Work Already Contains Frameworks

Extracting a Blog Production Framework

Signs You Have a Hidden Framework Worth Excavating

3-Minute Micro-Win

Learn to Excavate and Build Frameworks Systematically