# Find what's missing from a report or proposal before I act on it

Spots the gaps in a briefing, report, or proposal: missing data, voices, risks, and questions to ask before you act.

- Topic: Thinking & Decisions
- Framework: RTF
- Level: Advanced
- Tags: Analyze, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/find-what-s-missing-from-a-report-or-proposal-before-i-act-on-it

## Prompt

```text
Review this material and tell me what's missing before I act on it.

**Material:** [PASTE report, briefing, proposal, or recommendation]
**What I'm about to do with it:** [e.g. approve budget, choose a vendor, brief the board, change a process]
**What I already know that isn't in it:** [CONTEXT - optional]

Check for gaps in:
1. **Evidence** - claims without data, data without source or date, small samples, averages hiding big variation, missing comparison (vs. last year, target, or competitors).
2. **Options** - alternatives not considered, including "do nothing" and "do it smaller".
3. **People** - stakeholders, customers, or teams affected but not consulted.
4. **Costs and effort** - one-off and ongoing costs, people time, opportunity cost.
5. **Risks** - what could go wrong, dependencies, legal, compliance, security, or reputation issues not mentioned.
6. **Execution** - owner, timeline, success measures, and how we'd know early that it's failing.
7. **Assumptions** - things the material takes for granted.

Return:
- **The 3 most important gaps**, each with why it matters for my decision.
- **A full gap list** as a table: Area | What's missing | Why it matters | Question to ask.
- **Verdict:** ready to act / act with conditions / go back for more - with one sentence of reasoning.

Rules: only flag gaps that would change the decision or how it's carried out - not nitpicks. Don't assume information is missing if it might be in an appendix I haven't pasted; note that possibility. The decision is mine.
```

## What to fill in

- PASTE report, briefing, proposal, or recommendation
- CONTEXT - optional

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.