🔒 This module opens once you've passed the one before it.

Module 3 · about 10 minutes

How to ask so you get it right first time

Four ordinary building blocks. Learn them once and every ask you make, for the rest of your career, gets better.

Tell it who it should be, what it needs to know, the rules, and the shape you want back. That's the whole trick.

1 · The four blocks
2 · Build a proposal
3 · Quick quiz
4 · One thing to remember

1 The four blocks, in human words

You already do this when you brief a colleague. You just don't usually do it for the AI, because it feels like typing into a search box. It isn't a search box. It's a new starter waiting for a brief.

🧑‍💼

1 · Who it should be

The hat you want it to wear, and who the result is for.

"You're our account manager writing to a long-standing client."

"This is for my manager, who wasn't on the call."

📋

2 · What it needs to know

Everything it couldn't possibly know because it wasn't there. Paste the notes. Name the situation.

"They want three games live by end of quarter. Last launch had delays and they remember."

📏

3 · The rules

Length, tone, and above all what it must not do.

"One page, warm but professional. No prices, no promised dates."

Without rules it will happily invent a price and a date that sound right.

📐

4 · The shape you want back

An email. Five bullets. A table. Three options to choose from. A subject line.

"Short intro, three bullet benefits, numbered next steps, sign-off."

Shape is the cheapest block and the one people forget most.

Order doesn't matter, and it doesn't need to be pretty. Four short sentences in a row is perfect. If you like a memory hook: Who · Know · Rules · Shape.

Which shape for which job?

You need to...	Ask for this shape
Reply to someone	An email, with a suggested subject line
Brief someone who wasn't there	Five bullets, most important first
Compare options (suppliers, dates, venues)	A table: one row per option, one column per thing you care about
Get unstuck on a blank page	Three different versions, short, so you can pick a direction
Prepare for a meeting	An agenda with timings, plus the two questions most likely to come up

2 Mini-game · Build the ask, watch the proposal change

Mari needs a proposal for Nordic Play. Right now her ask is just "Write a proposal for Nordic Play." Drag each block into the ask, or tap its Add button, and watch the draft go from generic to on-brand. Take a block back out to see what breaks.

Blocks

Drag a block into the ask, or press Add. Using a keyboard? Tab to a block and press Enter.

🧑‍💼Who it should beYou're our account manager writing to Anna, a long-standing client.

📋What it needs to knowThey want three of our games live by the end of the quarter. They care about launch speed and support; last launch had delays.

📏The rulesOne page, warm but professional. No prices (commercial team adds those). Don't promise dates.

📐The shapeShort intro, three bullet benefits, numbered next steps, sign-off.

Mari's ask

Write a proposal for Nordic Play.
(drop blocks here)

Blocks in the ask

0 / 4

The ask, as the AI reads it

The draft that comes back

Generic draft

3 Quick quiz

Six questions, 80% to pass (5 out of 6). Options shuffle every attempt. Nothing is recorded until you pass.

One thing to remember

Who · Know · Rules · Shape. Four short sentences before you press enter, and it lands first time.

Pass the quiz to open module 4.