Find the causes of performance gaps and plan corrective actions
Works out the likely drivers behind each performance gap, separates fixable causes from noise, and builds a corrective action plan with owners and dates.
The prompt
Help me find the likely drivers behind our performance gaps and create corrective actions for each.
Gaps: [LIST each KPI, target, actual, and size of gap]
Supporting data: [PASTE breakdowns, trends, pipeline, staffing, operational data]
What the team says is happening: [NOTES from managers, reviews, or meetings]
Resources available to fix things: [budget, people, time]
For each gap:
1. List the possible drivers across people (skills, capacity, turnover), process (bottlenecks, quality, handoffs), tools and data, market or customers, and targets themselves (set too high, wrong baseline).
2. Rate each driver as supported, possible, or unlikely, based on the evidence I gave. Say what data would confirm the top one.
3. Note whether the gap is a one-off, a trend, or structural.
4. Propose corrective actions aimed at the confirmed or most likely drivers, not the symptom. Mix quick fixes (within 30 days) and structural fixes.
5. For each action, set a measurable indicator that will show it's working and an early checkpoint.
Return:
1. A table per gap: Likely driver | Evidence | Confidence | Corrective action | Owner | Due date | Success indicator | Check-in date.
2. Actions that fix several gaps at once.
3. Gaps that should be accepted or re-targeted instead of chased, with the reason.
4. A short update I can share with my manager or team.
Don't assign blame to individuals; describe causes as conditions and systems. Mark drivers I need to verify as [CONFIRM]. Leave owner names as [OWNER] unless I gave them.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Leadership & Management prompts
What to fill in
- LIST each KPI, target, actual, and size of gap
- NOTES from managers, reviews, or meetings
- budget, people, time
- CONFIRM
- OWNER
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RTF structure (Role, Task, Format). RTF tells the model who to be, what to do and what shape the answer should take. It is the quickest structure that still gives noticeably better results than a bare request.
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