Every Title, One Line, and the Problem It Answers.
Every document on these shelves comes two ways. The Full Guide explains each part, with a worked example under each. The Worksheet is the same document with only the titles and the boxes, fillable on screen, with your answers saved to your membership. Ten of the second copies carry no boxes at all (a letter, a protocol, a manual) and come as the Clean Copy: the version you hand over. Excel workbooks ship with the formulas protected and the entry cells open. The interactive tools run in the browser and give you a document to take away. Every page carries the member’s name, because we license the library to one person.
The Full-Time Vault and The Fractional Vault are $495 a year each, both for $895. Two of the documents are free, no membership needed: The Weekly CEO Update and The Executive’s User Manual.
Ten Shelves, Forty-Four Items.
For the Chief of Staff in a full-time seat. The first seven shelves follow the first year in the role, one speaks to your executive directly, and two are for the job once you have it. The Full-Time Vault is $495 a year.
The Seat
The terms of the job: the first year, and the scorecard that says what the role actually is.
The New CoS First Year Document
Not a listening tour with a logo. Month by month through year one: the mandate conversation, the stakeholder map, the first visible win, and the traps.
When: I’m a new Chief of Staff and don’t know what to do first.
The CoS Role Scorecard Document
The role definition and review instrument for the CoS seat itself. Pairs with the KPI Builder and the free JD Architect tool.
When: My job was never written down, and my executive and I disagree about what it is.
The Standing One-on-One Document
The forty-five-minute weekly meeting every other Vault page routes through: the agenda with minutes, what each of you brings, and the one rule for canceling.
When: My one-on-one with my executive keeps getting canceled.
The EA and Chief of Staff Division of Labor Document
The one-page working agreement between a full-time Chief of Staff and the executive assistant: who owns what, what each owes the other, and the two traps.
When: The EA and I keep stepping on each other’s calendar changes.
Meeting Operations
The room, run properly: agendas that are questions, a decision log that ends relitigation, and a pre-read people read.
The Agenda Bank Document
Six agenda skeletons by meeting type, each with time budgets, decision slots, and the question that tells you the meeting should be an email.
When: Our meetings run long and end without a decision.
The Decision Log Excel workbook
The single register that ends relitigation. What was decided, who decided it, why, and what would legitimately reopen it.
When: Decisions get relitigated. Something we settled in April is back on the table in June.
Also on The Fractional Vault’s Shared shelf.
The Meeting Audit Worksheet Document
A quarterly review of the executive calendar: which recurring meetings produce decisions, which produce theater, and what to kill.
When: My executive’s calendar is full of recurring meetings and I can’t tell which ones earn their time.
The Pre-Read Template Document
One page, sent 48 hours out, that gets read. Structure, framing, and the send ritual that trains a leadership team.
When: People arrive at meetings without having read anything.
Also on The Fractional Vault’s Shared shelf.
KPIs & Measurement
Numbers for a job that does not come with any, and the tool that builds them.
The KPI Builder Interactive tool
Interactive. Four questions produce a three-layer scorecard with definitions, instruments, cadences, target bands, and gaming warnings.
When: The Chief of Staff job doesn’t come with numbers and I’ve been asked to measure it.
Also on The Fractional Vault’s Shared shelf.
The Decision Velocity Tracker Interactive tool
Interactive. Enter the decisions from your log and the tracker reads velocity and durability: how fast decisions get made and how many are still standing at ninety days, with the reasoning under the read. The workbook is still here for the log itself.
When: Decisions take forever and I want to show it in numbers.
The Executive Time Portfolio Audit Interactive tool
Interactive. Categorize four weeks of the executive’s calendar, price it, and read the portfolio the way a CFO would: what the time is buying and what to reallocate. The workbook is still here for the raw audit.
When: I want to show my executive where their time goes, in dollars.
Also on The Fractional Vault’s Shared shelf.
The Surprise News Log Excel workbook
Every time your executive is blindsided, log it: what, when known downstream, why it traveled slowly. The escalation X-ray.
When: My executive keeps getting blindsided by things the team knew a week ago.
Also on The Fractional Vault’s Shared shelf.
Executive Communication
What reaches the executive, the board, and the company, and in what order.
The Weekly CEO Update Document · free
The one-page instrument of trust. Five blocks, an escalation grammar, and the discipline that makes your executive actually read it.
When: My executive is surprised by things I already knew.
Also on The Fractional Vault’s Shared shelf.
The Board Pre-Read Pack Document
The pack that ships five days early and answers the questions before they’re asked. Skeleton, narrative order, and appendix rules.
When: The board pack goes out late, or the meeting gets spent catching directors up.
All-Hands Script + Slide Skeleton Document
The run of show, the speaker notes, and the Q&A triage system. Built for the months when there is real news and the months when there is not.
When: I have to run the all-hands and there’s nothing to announce this month.
The Comms Cascade Planner Document
Who hears what, in what order, from whom, and how many hours apart. The sequencing tool for anything that lands differently by audience.
When: We have news that will land differently for different groups (a leadership change, a strategy shift, a cut) and I need the order people hear it in.
Also on The Fractional Vault’s Shared shelf.
The Investor Update Document
The monthly or quarterly investor letter: five blocks, the same six metrics every time, the miss said first, and an archive that’s ready for the next round.
When: My CEO asked me to take over the monthly investor update and I don’t know what goes in it.
The Annotated Weekly Update Document
A real weekly CEO update, with names and details changed and our notes on every section: what earned trust, what nearly didn’t, and the line that saved a quarter.
When: I want to see a real weekly update, with notes on what worked.
Planning & Execution
The year, the quarter, and the two days offsite that have to produce decisions.
The Annual Planning Runbook Document
A twelve-week backward plan from board approval to kickoff, with the meeting sequence, the templates, and the political pre-work.
When: Annual planning is coming and there’s no process, just a deadline.
The Quarterly OKR Reset Document
The two-week reset cycle: scoring without flinching, killing zombie objectives, and the calibration meeting that stops sandbagging.
When: Our OKRs roll over every quarter because nobody wants to admit they died.
Offsite Agenda + Logistics Checklist Document
The agenda architecture that earns two days of leadership time, plus the 40-line logistics checklist nobody thanks you for.
When: I’m running the leadership offsite and need an agenda that earns two days.
People & Stakeholders
Onboarding an executive, and hiring the person who comes after you.
The Executive Onboarding Runbook Document
The plan that protects a new leader from the org and the org from a new leader. Stakeholder sequencing, listening tour, first decisions.
When: A new executive is joining and I’ve been asked to onboard them.
The CoS Interview Loop Kit Document
Loop design, question banks by competency, scorecards, and the debrief protocol that stops the loudest voice from hiring.
When: Our interview loop asks the same two things five times and decides in a hallway.
Also on The Fractional Vault’s Shared shelf.
Special Situations
The reorg and the crisis: the two weeks you get no warning about.
The Reorg Comms Plan Document
Sequence, scripts, leak math, and manager enablement. The difference between a reorg and a rumor with an org chart.
When: We’re doing a reorg and I own the communication.
The Crisis Comms One-Pager Document
The single page you fill in during the first 60 minutes: facts, owner, holding statement, channel plan, and the update clock.
When: Something just happened and I have sixty minutes to get a page together.
Also on The Fractional Vault’s Shared shelf.
The Executive's Side
Three documents that speak to the executive directly, in the practice's voice. Send them the first one on Day One of membership.
How to Leverage Your Chief of Staff Document
For the executive who has never had one. What to hand over and what never to, how to read the weekly page, the three things to say at the announcement, month two.
When: My executive has never had a Chief of Staff and doesn’t know how to leverage one.
The First-Time CEO & the Chief of Staff Document
For the 84 percent in their first enterprise seat: the three mistakes, what to commission in what order, and who prepares whom for the board.
When: My executive is a first-time CEO.
The Executive’s Side, Signed Document
The one page a job description never has: the feeds, rooms, noes, and clocks the executive commits to, signed at the announcement, read at every renewal.
When: My executive expects things of me but has never said what I can expect of them.
The Hard Parts
The four functions the first-year shelves never served: Truth-Telling, Political Intelligence, Sounding Board, Incubation, and the Guardian rulebook.
The Truth-Telling Protocol Document
The first unwelcome truth, the gift-wrapped walk-back, and the long answer: what the executive does over twelve months, read with three instruments.
When: I have to tell my executive something they don’t want to hear.
The Leadership Team Relationship Map Document
One page per leader on what they lose when you arrive, the two who decide whether you stay, the pre-wire method, and the quarterly refresh.
When: The leadership team sees me as a threat, or as the executive’s spy.
The Side-Door Ledger Excel workbook
Every time a leader reaches the executive around you, counted. By leader, by month; the trend beside the truth register is the mandate’s health in a number.
When: Leaders go around me to the executive.
The Decision Rehearsal Document
The Sounding Board function as a method: four questions before any consequential call, a record of the reversal condition, a thirty-day look-back.
When: My executive is about to make a big call and I want to test it first.
The Incubation Charter Document
For the workstream nobody owns yet: what the chief decides, the owner-or-die date, the handoff, the kill criteria. AI adoption is the worked example.
When: I’m running a workstream nobody owns (AI adoption, a new process, a pilot) and it’s becoming my job by accident.
The Gatekeeping Rules Document
The Guardian function written down: what reaches the executive unfiltered, what comes through you, what never arrives, and the sentence for saying no in their name.
When: I’m expected to protect my executive’s time and attention, but the rules were never written.
The Second Year
For the chief who has been in the role long enough to be taken for granted: the renewal, the drift, the brief, the case file, the exit.
The Second Year in the Seat Document
The spine for The Hard Parts and The Second Year. Months thirteen through thirty-six, every document hung on the quarter you use it. Read this first.
When: I’ve been in the seat over a year and the job has changed without anyone saying so.
The Mandate Renewal Document
The annual re-commissioning: mandate as written against role as lived, four layers of numbers, the four bad mandates, and a rewrite signed by both.
When: A year in, the job I do and the job that was written down have drifted apart.
The Mandate Drift Log Interactive tool
Interactive. Enter the requests that arrived outside the mandate and the log reads them as a pattern: absorbed, deferred, or declined, by kind and by function touched, ready for the renewal’s third column. The workbook is still here for the running log.
When: Requests keep arriving that aren’t my job, and I absorb them.
The Compensation & Title Brief Document
Four numbers from your instruments, the market band with links, title as a term to trade, and the three answers decoded. After the renewal, never before.
When: I want a raise, a title change, or both, and need the case.
The Chief’s Case File Document
The evidence you carry out of the seat, built one quarter at a time: numbers against baseline, decisions influenced at pattern level, the machine installed, three references.
When: I need to be able to prove what I did in this seat when I leave it.
The Exit Readiness Reading Interactive tool
Interactive. List everything you run and its owner, score whether it survives a Friday without you, and read one percentage and one break list. Quarterly; into the Case File and the Brief. The workbook is still here for the running list.
When: If I disappeared on Friday, what would break?
The Transition Runbook Document
The last six months: the successor brief, the executive’s re-onboarding, the machine changing hands, the overlap, the exit that leaves the seat stronger.
When: I’m leaving the seat in the next six months and want to leave it stronger.
The Board Relationship Map & Annual Board Calendar Document
The board as your second audience: a page per director, the year planned backward from every meeting, pre-calls, and the debrief that closes the loop.
When: I want a page on each director: what they care about, how they read, what they’ve asked before.
The Executive Transition Runbook Document
When the executive leaves, is replaced, or is removed and you’re still in the seat: the departing, the interval, the incoming, and whether to stay.
When: My executive is leaving, being replaced, or being removed, and I’m still here.
The Mandate Architect Interactive tool
Interactive. Fourteen questions from your own instruments produce a drift score, the diagnosis of which of the four bad mandates you’re living in, the flags, and a drafted Mandate Renewal with Part One filled.
When: I think my mandate has drifted and want a score, not a feeling.
Seven Phases, Thirty-Three Items of Its Own.
For the Chief of Staff on retainer, set on an eighteen-month clock from the discovery call to the letter you write yourself on the way out, plus the ten full-time documents the engagement cannot run without. The Fractional Vault is $495 a year.
Eighteen Months in the Seat
Read first. Every document, placed at the moment you use it.
The Eighteen Months in the Seat Document
The spine. Before the contract, week one, the weekly machine, every quarter, the three readings, when it ends, and every document in one index.
When: I’m starting a fractional engagement and want the whole arc before I begin.
Executive-Facing
Sent to the executive before the discovery call, and again at conversion.
The Commissioning Guide Document
For the executive considering one. What the role is and is not, what it will cost beyond the fee, and how to read the first eighteen months.
When: An executive is considering hiring me fractionally and needs to understand the role before the discovery call.
Qualify
Before the contract: the screen, the check, the verdict, the commission, the lawyer.
The Engagement Fit Screen Document
Run before the proposal, never after. The three questions before the nine, minimum viable engagement floors, and the verdict.
When: A prospective client is on the call and I don’t know whether to take them.
The Conflict Check & Disclosure Letter Document
Whether the second client can sit beside the first. Five conflict types, the six-source check, what a wall means for a one-person firm, the letter.
When: A second client is in the same market as my first. Can I take them?
The Commission Architect Interactive tool
Twenty-five questions, asked once. The six-commission diagnosis, the verdict and flags, the scored Client Viability Matrix, and the drafted commission.
When: I just had the discovery call and want to turn it into a diagnosis and a drafted commission tonight.
The Client Viability Matrix Interactive tool
Nine weighted client dimensions and six fractional ones, three gates, and a verdict sheet. Paste the Architect scores and it fills.
When: I want to score a client before I sign: their side and mine.
The Fractional Commission Document
The scope letter rebuilt as a commission: nine sections, decisions at the heart, the announcement, the first year’s hard moments, the instruments, the executive’s side priced.
When: I need the engagement written as a commission, not a scope letter: decisions at the center, the announcement, the first year’s hard moments, the executive’s side priced.
The Scope & Mandate Letter Document
The short form. The statement of work written like a job description, signed before hour one, versioned every quarter.
When: I need a short statement of work that reads like a job description, signed before hour one.
The Counsel Checklist Document
Twelve questions a fractional engagement raises that a consulting agreement doesn’t, each with the problem it prevents and the ask.
When: I’m about to sign an engagement and want to know what to ask my lawyer.
The Equity Offer Worksheet Document
"We can’t pay your full rate, but we can offer equity." Price the discount, nine grant questions, a four-signal decision table.
When: The client wants to pay me partly in equity.
Land
Days zero to ten: the keys, the EA, the announcement, the operating agreement, the map.
The Day Zero Access Pack Document
The keys, provisioned before the introductions. Thirteen systems, the contractor default for each, and the thirty-minute check the night before day one.
When: Day one is next week and I don’t have logins, calendar access, or a seat in the systems.
The Arrival Announcement Document
How the executive introduces you. Borrowed authority is granted in one memo and lost in one bad hallway explanation. This is the memo.
When: The executive needs to introduce me to the organization and I want to draft the memo.
The EA Alliance Protocol Document
The executive assistant controls the calendar, the inbox, and the truth about the week. The alliance to make by day five.
When: The executive assistant controls the calendar and the inbox and doesn’t trust me yet.
The Information Latency Protocol Document
Decisions happen Tuesday. You hear Thursday. Building eyes for the days you’re not there, and the re-entry ritual for the days you’re.
When: Decisions happen on the days I’m not there and I find out too late.
The Client Operating Agreement Document
How we work, as a two-way contract. Every line binds both sides; signed in week one so nobody has to wonder whose side you’re on.
When: The client and I need to agree how we work: response times, what I’m in, what I’m not.
The Executive’s User Manual Document · free
Half of fractional clients have never had a Chief of Staff. The two pages you hand them in week one, written for them, in their time.
When: My client has never had a Chief of Staff.
The Leadership Team Relationship Map Document
The EA decides whether you can see. The COO and the CFO decide whether you stay. One page per leader on what they lose, what they gain, and the first conversation.
When: The leadership team sees me as a threat, or as the executive’s spy.
The Coverage & Escalation Protocol Document
The crisis one-pager assumes the owner is in the building. Yours is at another client. Who covers, what qualifies, how fast, agreed on in advance.
When: Something urgent will happen while I’m at another client. Who covers?
Operate
Every week and every quarter: the update, the signal, the log, the truth, the audit.
The Fractional Weekly Update Document
The Weekly CEO Update with a sixth block. Same hour every week; the five blocks build trust and the sixth keeps the invoice from being a surprise.
When: I need a weekly update for a fractional engagement, with hours and the invoice built in.
The Weekly Value Signal Interactive tool
Six leading indicators reported weekly and never gamed, and the one line that converts executive hours returned into dollars against the fee.
When: The client can’t see what they’re getting for the fee.
The Scope Change Log Excel workbook
Every request outside the letter, logged the day it arrives. Absorbed, deferred, or priced. The dashboard is layer four of the Value Ledger.
When: Requests keep arriving that aren’t in the letter, and I absorb them.
The Truth-Telling Protocol Document
Telling the executive what no one else will, when the executive can end your income on a Tuesday. The function is the same as in-house. The exposure changes the method.
When: I have to tell my executive something they don’t want to hear.
The Cross-Client Pattern Policy Document
You see inside three companies at once. What travels between clients and what never does, written before the first "I’ve seen this before."
When: I see inside three companies and one of them is about to make a mistake another one made.
The Cross-Client Calendar Excel workbook
Every client has board week the same week. Peak periods by month, the collision count, and the peak rules you negotiated in advance.
When: Every client has board week the same week.
The Build-to-Leave Tracker Excel workbook
Every cadence you install gets an internal owner the day you install it. A fractional who becomes the machine cannot be let go and cannot be afforded.
When: Everything I’ve installed at the client runs through me.
The Independence Audit Document
Six habits that turn a contractor into an employee. Hours, tools, direction, exclusivity, integration, economics. The client’s exposure first, yours second.
When: Am I starting to look like an employee? Hours, tools, direction, exclusivity.
Prove & Renew
Every quarter: the review of the terms, and the ask while the goodwill is warm.
The Quarterly Engagement Review & Value Ledger Document
Engagement hygiene, not a verdict on the role. Four layers of numbers, three saves the numbers cannot show, the success question asked again, one word on the terms.
When: It’s the end of the quarter and the client and I should review the engagement.
The Reference & Case Study Consent Letter Document
Asking while the goodwill is warm. Three tiers, the timing rule, three scripts, and the written consent that lets you use any of it.
When: The engagement went well and I want a reference or a case study while the goodwill is warm.
Exit
Planned or unplanned: the handoff, the forty-eight hours, the letter you write yourself.
The Handoff Pack Document
Every engagement ends: renewal, conversion, or exit. The pack is the same in all three, and it’s the last thing the client remembers about you.
When: The engagement is ending (renewal, conversion, or exit) and I need to hand it over.
The Sudden Termination Protocol Document
The forty-eight hours after the Tuesday call. Hours 0 to 48, the day-three question, silence as termination, and the letter when you’re the one ending it.
When: The client just ended the engagement on a call.
Practice
Your own numbers: capacity, price, collisions, and whether this is a job, a practice, or a firm.
The Practice Capacity & Pricing Model Interactive tool
One row per client and the arithmetic most fractionals skip: utilization, headroom, concentration, runway, and the salary comparison done with their numbers.
When: How many clients can I carry, and at what price?
The Fractional-to-Firm Decision Document
Somewhere in year two a third client appears and the question becomes "what am I building." One page a year on job, practice, or firm, and what each costs.
When: A third client appeared and I don’t know what I’m building.
The Practice Setup Checklist Document
The one-time setup that makes a fractional practice a practice: entity, insurance, invoicing, one workspace per client, the calendar, and the contracts folder.
When: I’m about to sign my first fractional client and I haven’t set up a company yet.