What we are told repeatedly in the sutra is not that these acts are skillful, though they may be, but that they are appropriate, appropriate to the condition of the hearers. It is because people are different and their situations are different that the buddhas, as the rain nourishes the great variety of plants according to their different needs, feed the Dharma according to what is needed. One could argue, of course, that knowing that an appropriate thing is needed and being able to perceive the situation well enough to figure out an appropriate action is itself skillful. And so it is. But it is nevertheless the case that what is emphasized is not so much the skill as it is the appropriateness. This is why I think “appropriate means” is the best translation for hōben in the Lotus Sutra.

What is it that makes something appropriate? At the end of the story of the burning house, the Buddha asks Śāriputra whether the father has lied or not, and Śāriputra responds that the father had not lied, and would not have lied had he given the children even very tiny carriages. Why? Simply because the device worked. The children got out of the house in time to save their lives.
A Buddhist Kaleidoscope; Gene Reeves, Appropriate Means as the Ethics of the Lotus Sutra, Page 382