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Summarize an incident for the CEO without jargon

Practice: Saying who it's for. About 5 minutes.

About this exercise

The CEO wants a quick summary of last night's incident on her phone. Write exactly 4 lines starting 'What happened:', 'Business impact:', 'What we did:' and 'Decision needed:', in that order. Use only the final confirmed facts, and no security jargon (no phishing kit, lateral movement, IOC, EDR, C2 or exfiltration). Plain text, under 90 words.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

  • Using the first estimate. The AI grabs the scary 40,000 figure from early in the timeline and misses the correction. Try: Say: "Use only the final confirmed facts; the 40,000 estimate was corrected."
  • Writing for engineers. The AI copies terms like EDR and lateral movement that a CEO can't act on. Try: Add: "No security jargon. Write for a CEO who isn't technical."
  • No fixed shape. The AI writes a timeline recap with headings and the ask buried at the end. Try: Give the 4 line starts: "What happened:, Business impact:, What we did:, Decision needed:"
  • Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting. Ask for "under 90 words" and it often lands well over. Try: Ask for less than the limit and cap each line: "each line under 15 words, under 70 words total."
  • Letting markdown in. AI adds bold and headings by default, and in a phone text they show up as stray symbols. Try: Add: "Plain text only, no bold, no headings."

What a strong prompt includes

  • Says who it's for
  • Gives the 4 line labels
  • Bans jargon
  • Uses the corrected facts
  • Sets a word limit

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