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Prompting and Task Execution — practice exercise

Prompting and Task Execution — practice exercise

Difficulty: beginner · Estimated duration: 45–60 minutes

You will do this exercise in the Claude app (web, desktop or mobile). No code is involved. You write prompts, read Claude’s replies, and keep a short record of what you changed and why. The scenario is invented for practice: you are an operations coordinator at a mid-sized company.

What you need: a Claude account and a blank note for your record. Stage 4 asks you to write opening messages, not run them, so every stage works on any plan.

StageWhat you practiseMinutes
1A complete brief, for a business and a technical task14
2Numbered steps, tagged material, draft → review → refine12
3Your own criteria, specific feedback, continuing a cut-off reply12
4Choosing a strategy by task type12

Stage 1 — Write a complete brief

Skills: CCAOF-U1.T1.LO1.S1, CCAOF-U1.T1.LO1.S2, CCAOF-U1.T1.LO1.S3 Minutes: 14

The facts: expenses are now submitted in the finance app within 30 days, with a photo of the receipt, and approved by your line manager.

  1. Send this deliberately vague prompt: Write something about the new expense process. Save the reply.
  2. Now write a full brief for the same task. Include the facts above, the audience (all staff), the purpose (explain the new steps), and the form (five bullet points, under 150 words).
  3. Add one instruction with its reason (for example: most staff read this on their phones, so put the deadline first).
  4. Add three short example bullets written in your company’s style, marked as examples.
  5. Send the brief. In your record, note two differences between the two replies.
  6. Technical task: brief Claude for a spreadsheet formula. Your sheet has unit price in column B and quantity in column C; you want each row’s total in column D, rounded to cents. Write the brief so the inputs, the result and where it goes are all stated.

Stage 2 — Structure a multi-part request

Skills: CCAOF-U1.T1.LO2.S1, CCAOF-U1.T1.LO2.S2, CCAOF-U1.T1.LO2.S3 Minutes: 12

Use these meeting notes:

Ops sync, Tuesday. Priya will book the training room for the onboarding session. Sam to check the new-starter laptops by Friday. Budget for the team lunch still not agreed; Lee to ask finance. Next sync moved to Thursday.

  1. Write one prompt that asks for three outputs: the action items, an owner for each, and a short follow-up email to the team.
  2. List the three outputs as numbered steps in the order you need them.
  3. Wrap the meeting notes in a tag such as <notes> … </notes>, typed as plain text, so they are separate from your instructions.
  4. After Claude replies, ask it to review the email against two criteria: it names every owner, and it is under 100 words. Then ask it to refine the email based on that review.

Stage 3 — Iterate against criteria

Skills: CCAOF-U1.T2.LO3.S1, CCAOF-U1.T2.LO3.S2, CCAOF-U1.T2.LO3.S3 Minutes: 12

The facts: a customer returned a jacket on 2 March. Refunds are issued within 14 days of the returned item arriving at the warehouse, to the original payment method.

  1. Before prompting, write your own three success criteria for a reply to this customer, who is asking where the refund is. Make each one something you can check by reading the reply.
  2. Ask Claude for the reply, giving it the facts. Check the reply against each of your criteria and note which it meets.
  3. For any criterion it misses, give specific feedback in the same chat that says what to do instead.
  4. Practise continuing a cut-off answer. Open a new chat and paste the prompt and partial reply below. Ask Claude to continue from where the reply stops, without starting again.

Prompt: Write a three-section guide for customers: How returns work, When refunds arrive, What to do if a refund is late. Facts: refunds are issued within 14 days of the returned item arriving at our warehouse, to the original payment method.

Partial reply: How returns work. Pack the item with its label and drop it at any post office. When refunds arrive. Refunds are issued within

Stage 4 — Match the strategy to the task

Skills: CCAOF-U1.T3.LO4.S1, CCAOF-U1.T3.LO4.S2, CCAOF-U1.T3.LO4.S3, CCAOF-U1.T3.LO4.S4 Minutes: 12

Write the opening message you would send for each task, and name the capability you would use:

  1. Is tomorrow’s national rail strike still going ahead?
  2. A cited overview of three competitors’ published onboarding programs, for your manager.
  3. A letter to customers about a price change (you choose the details).
  4. Twelve names for a new internal newsletter, from safe to unconventional.
  5. Which of five departments drove last quarter’s rise in overtime costs (use any small table you invent).

Acceptance checks

  • Your Stage 1 brief includes the facts, the audience, purpose and form, one instruction with its reason, and three marked examples. Your formula brief names the input columns, the result and the destination.
  • Your Stage 2 prompt numbers the outputs and tags the notes; the final email passed a review against two stated criteria.
  • Your Stage 3 record shows your own criteria, which ones each version met, the exact feedback you gave, and a continued guide that picks up mid-sentence.
  • Your Stage 4 answers pick a different strategy for each task and explain why.

Reference solution

Stage 1. The vague prompt usually returns a general article about expense processes. A complete brief reads: Write a short update for all staff explaining our new expense process: submit expenses in the finance app within 30 days, attach a photo of the receipt, and your line manager approves them. Format: five bullet points, under 150 words. Most staff read this on their phones, so put the 30-day deadline in the first bullet. Match the style of these example bullets: followed by three marked examples in your house style, such as Snap your receipt and attach it in the finance app. The reply should now name the app, the photo, the 30-day limit and manager approval, in five bullets with the deadline first. The two differences to record are that it fits the reader and the format, and that it leads with the deadline because you said why. For the formula, a good brief reads: In my sheet, column B is unit price and column C is quantity. Give me a formula for column D that multiplies them for each row and rounds the result to two decimal places.

Stage 2. A strong prompt reads: Using the meeting notes in the notes tag: 1. List the action items. 2. Give the owner of each. 3. Draft a follow-up email to the team. The notes then follow between <notes> and </notes>. Claude should find three actions: Priya books the training room, Sam checks the laptops by Friday, and Lee asks finance about the lunch budget. It should also mention the moved sync. The review step should catch an email that leaves out an owner or runs long, and the refined email should fix it. That is the draft, review and refine loop.

Stage 3. Good criteria are checkable, for example: states that the refund arrives within 14 days of the jacket reaching the warehouse; says it goes to the original payment method; ends with one next step if it has not arrived. A typical first reply meets one or two of them. Good feedback is specific and positive, for example: Add that the refund goes back to the original payment method, and end with one next step: reply with your order number if nothing has arrived after 14 days. Avoid “that’s wrong.” For the continuation, Claude should resume mid-sentence (“…14 days of your item arriving at our warehouse”) and then write the third section. It has the earlier exchange, including the refund facts, only because you pasted it; check that every figure in the continuation comes from those facts. In the original chat you could simply have asked it to continue.

Stage 4. (1) Web search, because it is a quick public fact. (2) Research, ideally with extended thinking so Claude plans before gathering; ask for citations your manager can check. Research needs web search turned on. (3) A drafting brief with the audience (existing customers), the requirements (friendly, under 200 words) and the key points (the new price, the date, what customers need to do). (4) An explicit request for range: twelve names, from safe to unconventional; go beyond the obvious. (5) An analysis request that states the question and the focus (by department, by month) and pastes the whole table in the same message. The skill being tested is the choice itself: five tasks, five different opening messages.

Sources

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