{"id":"wri-pm-release-delay-stakeholder-email","audience":"product-managers","category":"writing-emails","technique":"audience","title":"Tell sales and support about a delay without leaking details","free":false,"task":"Your release slipped and the sales and support leads need to know today. Write an email under 100 words whose first line is the new date. Include the approved customer-facing sentence word for word in quotation marks, and tell them what not to promise. Leave out the vendor's name and the bug details, since sales tends to repeat everything to customers. Write a prompt that gets that email.","materialLabel":"Engineering thread (attached to your prompt automatically)","material":"ENGINEERING THREAD - Invoices 2.0 release\n\nRaj (Eng lead), Mon: Heads up, Paymetric's tax API is returning wrong totals for multi-state invoices. We can't ship until they fix it. Feb 10 is at risk.\nRaj, Tue: Paymetric says fix lands Feb 14. We need a week of testing after. New target Feb 24.\nLena (QA), Tue: Agreed, Feb 24 if their fix is on time. I'd still hold off on any customer emails until Thursday.\nRaj, Wed: Paymetric confirmed the fix is deployed in their sandbox early. Feb 24 is firm.\nMo (Support), Wed: We have 14 customers waiting on this, including Greenleaf Farms who is threatening to churn.\nLena, Wed: Testing plan locked. Also we found a small date-format bug on our side, already fixed.\n\nLegal (Priya), Wed: Approved customer line: \"Invoices 2.0 will be available on February 24. We'll email you the day it's live.\" Don't share the reason for the delay with customers.\n\nMe (PM) to-do:\n- Old date was Feb 10. Some reps already told customers \"early February\".\n- Beta access is not available to customers, even big ones.\n- Greenleaf's CSM wants to offer them a discount. Not my call; that's Finance.","rules":[{"type":"maxWords","max":100},{"type":"plainText"}],"mistakes":[{"title":"Trusting the AI to count words","why":"AI is bad at counting. Ask for \"under 100 words\" and it often lands well over.","fix":"Cap each part: \"First line under 12 words, then 3 short bullets of under 15 words.\"","checks":["maxWords"]},{"title":"Telling the story first","why":"The AI walks through the engineering history before getting to the new date.","fix":"Say it: \"First line: the new date, February 24.\"","checks":["r0"]},{"title":"Paraphrasing the approved line","why":"The AI rewrites legal's sentence in its own words, which defeats the approval.","fix":"Add: \"Include legal's customer line word for word in quotes.\"","checks":["r1"]},{"title":"Leaking the details","why":"Trying to be helpful, the AI names the vendor and the bug, which sales will repeat to customers.","fix":"Add: \"Don't name the vendor or bugs. Tell reps: no beta access, no reasons.\"","checks":["r2"]},{"title":"Forgetting where it gets pasted","why":"AI adds bold and headings by default, which show up as ** and # clutter in most email clients when pasted.","fix":"Add: \"Plain text, no bold, no headings.\"","checks":["plainText"]}],"promptHints":[{"label":"Sets a word limit","patterns":["\\d+\\s*words","word (limit|count)"]},{"label":"Puts the date first","patterns":["first line","lead with","start with","feb(ruary)?\\s*24"]},{"label":"Keeps the approved line exact","patterns":["word for word","verbatim","exact","quot"]},{"label":"Keeps out the vendor","patterns":["vendor","paymetric","don'?t (name|mention)","no (details|reason)"]},{"label":"Asks for plain text","patterns":["plain","no bold","no markdown","no formatting","no headings"]}],"hint":"Sales and support need the date, the exact words to use, and what not to promise. Tell the AI all three, and what to leave out.","rubricLabels":["The first line gives the new release date, February 24 (not February 10 or 14)","Includes the approved customer line word for word in quotation marks: \"Invoices 2.0 will be available on February 24. We'll email you the day it's live.\"","Tells reps not to offer beta access or give the reason for the delay, and never names Paymetric, the tax API or the date-format bug"]}