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Compute week-over-week changes in a KPI table without mistakes
- For Managers and team leads
- You practice Catching mistakes and made-up facts
- Time about 5 minutes
- Level Beginner
About this exercise
Build a markdown table with columns Metric, This week, Last week, Change, using the corrected numbers. Change is this week minus last week; for percentages show the change in percentage points (pp) and for counts show the difference. After the table add one line starting "Watch:" naming the one metric that moved in the wrong direction by the largest relative amount. Output only the table and that line.
Common mistakes when you ask AI for this
- Old backlog. The AI uses 55. Try: Say: "Backlog is 61 after the correction."
- Percent confusion. The AI shows percent change instead of pp. Try: Say: "Show percentage points for percentage metrics."
- Wrong Watch pick. The AI picks first reply. Try: Say: "Pick by largest relative move in the wrong direction."
- Wrong columns. The AI changes headers. Try: Say: "Columns: Metric, This week, Last week, Change."
- 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 it: "cells hold short values only."
- 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 12 words."
What a strong prompt includes
- Columns
- pp
- Corrected
- Watch
- Only table
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