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Decide which requests you handle and which you escalate

  • For Managers and team leads
  • You practice Setting limits and rules
  • Time about 5 minutes
  • Level Intermediate

About this exercise

Apply this rule to each request: you decide it yourself if the cost is $5,000 or less and it touches only your own team; anything else is escalated to your director. Build a table with the header Request | Route | Reason, one row per request, where Route is exactly Decide or Escalate and Reason is under 12 words citing the cost or the teams. Use the latest information. Then add the exact line: Escalations: followed by the number. Plain text, under 120 words.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

  • Using the old quote. The AI decides R3 at $4,800. Try: Say: "Use the latest information, including the corrected quote."
  • Using the director's loose comment. The AI decides everything small. Try: Say: "Apply the rule exactly: cost $5,000 or less AND own team only."
  • Ignoring team scope. The AI decides the shared screen because it is cheap. Try: Say: "Anything touching other teams is escalated."
  • Inventing labels. The AI uses Approve or Maybe. Try: Say: "Route is exactly Decide or Escalate."
  • Missing the count line. The AI adds commentary. Try: Say: "End with Escalations: and the number."
  • Markdown. The AI bolds routes. Try: Say: "Plain text."
  • Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting. Ask for a total word limit and it often lands over it. Try: Cap each part instead, for example: "each line under 15 words."

What a strong prompt includes

  • Gives the header
  • States the rule
  • Exact routes
  • Latest information
  • Count line

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