Library › Productivity AI › Managers and team leads
Recap a customer incident for your VP, facts only
Practice: Catching mistakes and made-up facts. About 5 minutes.
About this exercise
Your VP wants a recap of yesterday's shipping incident before talking to the customer's executive. Write exactly 4 lines labeled What happened:, Customer impact:, Fix:, and Prevent:, plain text, under 80 words. Use only confirmed facts with the corrected number, and leave out the unconfirmed cause that's still being investigated.
Common mistakes when you ask AI for this
- Asking for 'an incident summary'. The AI writes a full report with a timeline, headings and root-cause speculation. Try: Be exact: "4 lines labeled What happened:, Customer impact:, Fix:, Prevent:. 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 line instead: "each line under 18 words."
- Using the first count. 38 pallets appears first, and the correction is easy to miss. Try: Add: "Use the corrected 31 pallets."
- Repeating unconfirmed causes. The AI likes to explain why, so it shares the new-hire theory. Try: Add: "Only confirmed facts. No possible causes."
What a strong prompt includes
- Shows the labels
- Uses the correction
- Facts only
- Says who reads it
- Sets a word limit
Related exercises
- Alert sales to a competitor's price change, facts only (Research AI · Product managers)
- Announce a new weekend rotation in three clear rules (Productivity AI · Managers and team leads)
- Approve or deny shift swaps using the warehouse rules (Productivity AI · Managers and team leads)
- Approve or return expense claims against the policy (Productivity AI · Finance and accounting)
- Approve part of an overtime request with the math (Writing AI · Managers and team leads)