Prepare to delegate a task to AI and verify the result
Lists what you must understand, decide, and gather before delegating a task to AI, and exactly what to verify once it's done.
The prompt
Before I hand a task to AI, help me work out what I need to understand and decide myself first, and what I must check once the AI is done.
The task: [WHAT I want AI to help with - e.g. "a quarterly business review deck for a key client"]
Why I'm doing it and who it's for: [PURPOSE and AUDIENCE]
My knowledge of this topic: [expert / some / new to it]
What I have so far: [notes, data, documents, opinions]
My AI tools and any data rules: [DETAILS]
Answer these:
1. What must I understand myself to judge whether the AI's output is right? List the key concepts, facts, or standards, and a quick way to learn each if I don't know it yet.
2. What must I decide before prompting? The goal, the key message or position, the constraints, and anything politically sensitive.
3. What context does only I have? History, stakeholder preferences, past decisions, unwritten rules - list the questions I should answer in writing for the AI.
4. What sources should the AI use or avoid? Include anything that must not be pasted under my data rules.
5. What must I verify afterwards? The specific facts, numbers, names, claims, tone, and sensitive points to check before the output is used.
Return:
1. A pre-delegation checklist with items 1-4, marked ready / not ready based on what I shared.
2. The gaps I should close first, ranked, with the time each might take.
3. A short brief I can paste into AI once the gaps are closed, with [PLACEHOLDERS] for anything still missing.
4. An after-AI verification list for this task: what to check, against which source, and what would make me reject the output.
5. An honest note if my knowledge gap is too large to review the output safely, and what to do instead (learn first, ask an expert, or co-review).
Be specific to this task, not generic advice about AI.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Working with AI prompts
What to fill in
- PURPOSE and AUDIENCE
- expert / some / new to it
- notes, data, documents, opinions
- DETAILS
- PLACEHOLDERS
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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