How to write a work prompt that gets a usable answer

When you ask a colleague for help, you don't just say "write an email". You tell them who it's for, what happened, what you need and how long it should be. An AI tool needs the same briefing. It is quick and capable, but it knows nothing about your company, your audience or what "good" looks like for you unless you say so.

The five parts of a good prompt

1. Role. Who should the AI act as? "You are an experienced HR business partner" pulls the answer towards the right vocabulary and judgement.
2. Task. One clear verb: draft, summarise, compare, rewrite, list, critique. If you need two things, ask for them one after the other.
3. Context. The facts it can't know: the audience, the situation, what has already been tried, the source material. This is where most of the quality comes from.
4. Format. What should the answer look like? A table with three columns, five bullet points, an email under 150 words, a plain-English summary for a non-specialist.
5. Limits. What to avoid or respect: tone, words not to use, policies to follow, "if you are unsure, say so rather than guessing".

You don't need all five every time. For a quick rewrite, task and format are often enough. For anything you'll send to someone else, use all five.

Before and after

The first prompt gets a generic template. The second gets something close to publishable, because the tool now knows the company size, the workload, the location, the tone and the shape you want.

A template you can reuse

Copy this, fill in the brackets and keep it somewhere handy. It works for most writing and analysis tasks.

You are [role, e.g. an experienced finance manager].

Task: [one clear verb + what you need, e.g. summarise this report for our leadership team].

Context:
- Audience: [who will read it and what they care about]
- Situation: [what is going on, what has already been tried]
- Source material: [paste the text or describe the data]

Format: [e.g. 5 bullet points, then a one-line recommendation; under 200 words].

Limits: [tone, things to avoid, policies to respect]. If anything is unclear or missing, ask me before you answer.

The second message matters more than the first

Treat the first answer as a draft. The fastest way to a good result is a short, specific follow-up:

• "Make it 30% shorter and remove the second paragraph."
• "The tone is too formal for an internal Slack message. Rewrite it as you'd say it to a colleague."
• "You've assumed the team is in one office. They are split across three cities. Adjust."
• "List the assumptions you made, then I'll correct them."

Three common mistakes

Asking for everything at once

"Analyse this survey, write a summary, draft an email to the CEO and suggest next steps" produces four shallow answers. Do it as four messages in the same chat; each step builds on the last.

Hiding the real goal

If you want a summary because you need to persuade your manager to fund a project, say so. The summary will lead with what matters to that decision.

Pasting things that shouldn't leave your company

Names, salaries, health details and customer data have no place in a public chatbot. Guide 2 covers what to keep out and how to work around it.