SMEMindsProductivity · Beginner · about 20 minutes
The eight-part prompt — Role, Context, Objective, Task, Constraints, Data, Output, Quality
You write write a follow-up email to a client who hasn't replied. You get a competent, forgettable email that could be from anyone to anyone. You edit it heavily.
- You need
- Existing prompt: Write a follow-up email to a client who hasn't replied to my proposal. What I wanted: something that gets a reply, not something that sounds like every follow-up email.
- Tool
- Any assistant
- You get
- Diagnosis — six of eight parts are missing. ROLE absent → default generic business writer.
- Time saved
- Prompt writing goes from 20 seconds to about 3 minutes. Editing goes from 25 minutes to about 5. Net saving is large and it compounds every reuse.
- 1Role
- 2Context
- 3Objective
- 4Task
- 5Constraints
- 6Data
- 7Output
- 8Quality
Check the output
- Does the rewritten prompt use placeholders rather than invented details? If the model filled in a client name or a value, delete it — that is fabricated context and it will read as false to the recipient.
- Is the Objective an outcome rather than an artefact? 'Follow up' is not an objective; 'get a call this week' is.
- Is the Quality Bar specific enough to fail a draft? A bar that everything passes is not a bar.
- Is the Constraints section carrying the no-invention rule? For business use this line should be in every prompt you write.