From the book · Unleash Your Business With AI
Chapter 16: Get the knowledge out of people's heads
The 3 prompts from Chapter 16, ready to copy, with the chapter's mistakes to avoid and three tasks for this week.
The voice-note method
You are helping me write a Standard Operating Procedure for my business. Below is a transcript of our [role, not name] explaining how to [task]. It may be in [language] or in mixed language, and it may be unstructured. [paste transcript, with customer names, phone numbers, bank details and passwords removed] Turn it into a one-page SOP in this format: 1. Title 2. Purpose (one line) 3. Who does it, and how often 4. What you need before starting (materials, documents, access) 5. Steps, numbered, one action per step, in simple English 6. Quality checks (what "done right" looks like) 7. Common mistakes and how to avoid them 8. Who to ask if something goes wrong (role only) 9. A checklist of at most 8 lines that can be printed and put on the wall Rules: - Keep every detail the speaker mentioned, even small ones. Do not drop numbers, sizes, timings or names of materials. - Do not add any step, number or reason the speaker did not give. - Where something is unclear or a step seems to be missing, write <<QUESTION: ...>> at that point. Do not fill the gap yourself. - At the end, list all your questions together so I can ask the speaker.
What you should get back: a one-page draft in nine parts, with several <<QUESTION>> lines. A draft with no questions at all is a warning sign. Spoken explanations always have gaps, and you want the AI to show them to you, not paper over them.
Check: the expert reads every step against how the job is really done. Compare every number, size and timing in the draft with the transcript. If you asked for a Hindi or Gujarati version, a person who reads that language checks it too.
That's the first one
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- Test the page before you trust it
- When one person is on leave: the handover document
- Mistakes to avoid
- Do this week
Test the page before you trust it
Here is an SOP from my business: [paste SOP] Act as a new joiner in their first week who has never done this task. Read it step by step. 1. List every point where you would have to stop and ask someone, and say exactly what you would ask. 2. List any word or term a new person may not know. 3. List any step that contains more than one action. Do not rewrite the SOP. Do not answer the questions yourself or assume how our business works. I will take the questions to the person who does the job.
What you should get back: three short lists. Take them to the expert, who decides which points need a change.
Check: this does not replace step 6. An AI reading a page is not a person standing at the packing table with a carton in hand. Do both.
When one person is on leave: the handover document
I am going on leave from [date] to [date]. My role: [role] at a [type of business]. Here are my rough notes on everything open on my desk. Customer and supplier names are replaced with codes or roles. [paste notes or voice-note transcript] Write a one-page handover note with these sections: 1. Open work, as a table: Item | Current status | Next step and due date | Who covers it (role) 2. Promises already made to customers or suppliers, with dates 3. Things that will come up while I am away (payments due, renewals, filings, deliveries) 4. Where to find things (folder, register, file name) 5. Decisions that must wait for my return or go to the owner 6. Which SOP to follow for each routine task Rules: - Use only what is in my notes. Do not invent a status, date or amount. - If an item has no due date or nobody covering it, write <<DATE?>> or <<COVER?>>. - Do not include any password, PIN, OTP or bank detail, even if my notes contain one. Tell me if you removed any.
What you should get back: one page, six sections, with gaps marked instead of filled.
Check: the person going on leave and the person covering sit together for fifteen minutes with the page. A human fills every <<COVER?>>. You read section 5 yourself. Passwords and banking access are never part of this document. They are handed over person to person, under the rules in Chapters 21 and 23.
Mistakes to avoid
- Skipping the expert's correction. The AI draft reads well, so it gets filed as final. It will have smoothed over a detail that matters.
- Letting the AI fill gaps. If your prompt does not forbid it, the AI will invent a sensible-sounding step. Keep the
<<QUESTION>>rule in every SOP prompt. - Documenting everything at once. Twenty half-finished SOPs help nobody. Finish five.
- Writing names instead of roles. The page goes out of date the day someone moves.
- Putting sensitive details on the page. No passwords, bank details or customer phone numbers in an SOP, a handover note or a prompt.
- Filing and forgetting. No owner and no review date means the page is already ageing.
Do this week
- List the five tasks that worry you most when a particular person is away. Write the role next to each.
- Ask one willing expert for a ten-minute voice note on one of those tasks, transcribe it, and run the SOP prompt. Hand the draft back for correction the same day.
- Create one shared folder called "SOPs", save the corrected page in it with an owner and a review date, and print its checklist.