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Bruno Ashford @brunoashfordSubscribeModule 3 · Lesson 3.5 · 12 min
The Delegation Brief
Write requests the way you would brief a capable new hire, using a simple five-part Delegation Brief.
Use ← → to move. The marker highlights text and the pencil draws on the slide; navigation locks while you annotate. Undo removes the last mark, Esc exits.
1Goal: why this task exists
One or two sentences on the business outcome. Not "analyse the CSV" but "decide which customers to call first this week". The goal is what Claude uses to make the hundred small choices you will never see.
2Context: what a new hire would need to know
Who the audience is, what happened before, what the business cares about. Two to five short lines is usually enough. In Module 4 most of this moves into your CLAUDE.md so you stop repeating it.
3Inputs and Output: where to look and what to hand back
Name the exact files or folders. Then describe the deliverable: format, length, file name and where to save it. The more specific the output, the less you edit afterwards.
4Guardrails: what not to do and when to ask
State what is off limits (do not edit the originals, do not email anyone, do not guess missing numbers) and when Claude should stop and ask you. This is where you protect your business.
5Put it together and send it
Here is a full brief in one message. Copy it, adapt it and keep it. Soon you will write briefs like this in under a minute.
GOAL: Help me decide which 10 customers to call this week to win repeat orders.
CONTEXT: We are a B2B supplier. Repeat customers are our most profitable. The call list goes to Sarah, our account manager, who is not technical.
INPUTS: sales/03-sample-messy-sales-clean.csv only.
OUTPUT: A table of 10 customers with last order date, total spend and a one-line reason to call. Save to reports/call-list.md. Under one page.
GUARDRAILS: Do not edit any source file. Do not invent data. If a customer has fewer than 2 orders, leave them out. Ask me before including anyone flagged in the check column.Think about the best employee you ever hired. On their first day, you did not say "do the report". You told them what it was for, who would read it, where the files were, what good looked like and when to come and ask you. Claude needs exactly the same thing, and it is the owners who brief well who get the most out of it.
The Delegation Brief is a five-part structure: Goal, Context, Inputs, Output and Guardrails. It takes two minutes to write and saves twenty minutes of back and forth. The template is in this module's materials.
Key points
- Brief Claude like a capable new hire.
- Five parts: Goal, Context, Inputs, Output, Guardrails.
- The goal drives all the small decisions you never see.
- Guardrails protect your data and your reputation.
- Save good briefs. They become skills in Module 5.
Avoid
- One-line requests for work that matters.
- Describing the task but not the output format.
- Forgetting to say when Claude should stop and ask.
- Rewriting the same context every day instead of saving it.
A small employment law firm asked Claude to "summarise the client files" and got a generic list. The office manager rewrote it as a Delegation Brief: goal (prepare the partner for Monday's pipeline meeting), inputs (the intake folder only), output (a table of open matters with next deadline and fee estimate), guardrails (no client names in the file title, flag anything with a limitation date under 30 days). The second result went straight into the meeting without edits.