# Give AI a better brief. Get a better result.

Original 5HO practice material. Fictional example. Reviewed 5 October 2026.

## Useful result

You'll finish with a prompt that has enough context to produce a reviewable first draft.

Better briefs spare you three rounds of “that is not quite what I meant”. Start with the result and the reader. The AI cannot know your manager dislikes long introductions unless someone tells it.

## Set up

Set aside 15 minutes with any text-based AI assistant and a plain text editor. You will write a brief before asking for a draft.

## Practice input

Audience: operations manager. Purpose: decide whether to trial a shared handover sheet. Current issue: two missed callbacks last week. Proposal: test for five working days. Budget: no new software. Approval: not yet given.

## Do the task

1. Separate the task, context, audience, limits and desired format into five lines.
2. Paste the example and ask for a brief. Answer only questions that affect the decision.
3. Use the brief to request one draft, then check it against the original five lines.

## Prompt

Turn the supplied facts into a writing brief for a 150-word trial proposal. Include the reader, decision needed, evidence supplied, constraints and unknowns. Do not draft the proposal yet.

## Refine

Check your brief for invented targets or approval. Make the five-day trial a proposal, with no claim that it will prevent every missed callback.

## Expected checks

The result should request a decision, preserve the zero-software-budget constraint and cite two missed callbacks as an observation, not proof of a cause.

## Save

Keep brief-v1.txt alongside the resulting draft. Next time, change the facts before reusing the brief.

## Sources

- Writing clear prompts: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/10032626-prompt-engineering-best-practices-for-chatgpt