The brief. Hotel Bellevue just called: staff party, Friday 19 September, sixty guests, "the big winter menu". First, review four colleagues' briefs and find what will go wrong. Then fix a rough brief yourself, send it to the Planner and grade the quote that comes back.
The manager's formula
A good brief to an agent is the same brief you'd give a capable new colleague on their first day. Three parts, every time:
- Context — what happened, and where the facts live. Don't retype the handbook; point at it: "menus and house rules are in the Rosehill Handbook."
- Task — what to produce. One deliverable, named: "draft the quote as a table I can send."
- Done — what you will check before it goes out: "prices match the handbook, the deposit is shown, no Monday anywhere."
What you never do: explain how to calculate. Sixty times ninety-five is the agent's job — the what and the checkable done are yours.
1 · Spot what will go wrong 🔍
Each of these briefs will produce a bad quote — or a good one nobody can check. Flag the lines responsible, then press Check.
2 · Fix Marco's draft — and send it 📨
The composer opens with the brief Marco actually wanted to send. You now know every problem in it. Rewrite it right there in the box — context, task, done — then send it: a real conversation with the Planner opens beside the page.
Grade what comes back — this is your "done" list, and it is the manager's half of the job:
- ✅ 60 × CHF 95 = CHF 5'700 — the handbook's Winter Feast price, not Marco's 90.
- ✅ Delivery free — 60 guests is well over the 25-guest threshold.
- ✅ Deposit CHF 1'710 shown — 30% because the order is above CHF 2'000.
- ✅ Invoice to the hotel, not the organiser — Bellevue's quirk on the Clients page.
- ✅ No staff rota in the answer — you cut it from the brief, didn't you?
- ✅ Anything the handbook doesn't say is flagged, not guessed.
A tick missing? Improve the brief, not the arithmetic, and send again — the ✨ button brings Marco's draft back if you want to start over. Experiment worth a minute: send Marco's draft unchanged once, and see whether the Planner trusts his CHF 90 or the handbook.
Then compare notes: the solution shows a brief that passes all six checks, and what each of the four puzzle briefs would really have produced.