{"id":"pro-mgr-quarter-milestones-freeze","audience":"managers","category":"planning","technique":"constraints","title":"Map a team's quarterly goals to months after a hiring freeze","free":false,"task":"You lead a 6-person billing team and need Q1 milestones for your director's planning doc. You want exactly 3 numbered lines, one per month (January, February, March), each listing that month's milestones, under 60 words, plain text. Respect the dependency in your notes and the director's hiring freeze, which pushes one goal out of Q1 entirely. Write a prompt that gets you exactly that.","materialLabel":"Your planning notes (attached to your prompt automatically)","material":"Billing team - Q1 goals draft\n\nGoals + timing:\n- A. Clean up aged receivables over 120 days - 2 months of work, can start Jan\n- B. Move invoice approvals into the new billing portal - 1 month, but can only start AFTER goal C is done\n- C. Write the billing SOP handbook - 1 month, start Jan\n- D. Hire and train a new billing specialist - posting in Jan, hire by Feb, train in March\n- E. Launch monthly billing accuracy report - 1 month, any time\n\nDirector's email (Dec 3):\n\"Heads up: hiring freeze through June. No new headcount in Q1. Please plan around it.\"\n\nMy notes:\n- Team prefers not to stack more than 2 milestones in one month.\n- Team offsite in February (just a day, doesn't block anything).","rules":[{"type":"numberedItems","count":3},{"type":"maxWords","max":60},{"type":"plainText"}],"mistakes":[{"title":"Missing the freeze","why":"Hiring is in your goal list, so the AI schedules it.","fix":"Add: \"Hiring freeze: drop goal D from Q1.\"","checks":["r2"]},{"title":"Ignoring the dependency","why":"The AI starts portal approvals in January alongside the handbook.","fix":"Add: \"Portal approvals can only start after the SOP handbook is done.\"","checks":["r1"]},{"title":"Overloading months","why":"The AI stacks 3-4 milestones into January.","fix":"Add: \"At most 2 milestones per month.\"","checks":["r0"]},{"title":"Letting the AI pick the layout","why":"The AI builds a Gantt-style table.","fix":"Be exact: \"Exactly 3 numbered lines, Jan, Feb, Mar. Plain text.\"","checks":["numberedItems","plainText"]},{"title":"Trusting the AI to count words","why":"AI is bad at counting. Ask for \"under 60 words\" and it often lands well over.","fix":"Cap each part instead: \"each line under 14 words.\"","checks":["maxWords"]}],"promptHints":[{"label":"Says how many lines","patterns":["\\b(3|three)\\b"]},{"label":"Mentions the freeze","patterns":["freeze","no (new )?headcount","drop.{0,20}hir"]},{"label":"States the dependency","patterns":["after","depend","before (the )?portal","handbook first"]},{"label":"Limits per month","patterns":["2 (milestones|goals|items)","two (milestones|goals|items)","per month"]},{"label":"Sets a word limit","patterns":["\\d+\\s*words","word (limit|count)"]}],"hint":"A plan has to respect what blocks what, and what leadership just ruled out. Spell out both, plus the per-month limit.","rubricLabels":["Has one line each for January, February and March, in that order, with no more than 2 milestones per month","Goal C (SOP handbook) is completed before goal B (portal approvals) starts, and goal A finishes by the end of February or March","The hiring goal (D) does not appear in any month because of the freeze, and the offsite is not listed as a milestone"]}