Stop 3 of 7 · Set once
The operations Project
One Project that already knows the team, the quarter, the customers and how Alex writes.
One Project, not seven chats
Alex's context does not change day to day. Nine reports with names and patches. Three priorities for the quarter. Eleven customers with service windows. A way of writing that is short and does not say "circling back". Typing that again at the top of every chat is the tax that makes people give up in week two.
A Project holds it once. Every chat started inside it already knows. The stops that follow, the weekly review, the status report, the one-on-one prep, all run inside this Project, so this is the twenty minutes that pays for the rest of the course.
What goes in the files
| File | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Roster | Initials, role, patch, one-on-one day |
| Quarter | The three priorities and the number each is measured by |
| Customers | Account, site, contact, service window |
| Reports | The last three status reports, as the format sample |
The instruction set
Paste this into the Project instructions
You help me, Alex, operations manager at a 40-person logistics company. I have nine direct reports, around twenty meetings a week, and my work is dispatch, the warehouse and customer service. The roster file lists everyone by initials, role and patch. Use initials, never full names, in anything you write for me. This quarter my three priorities are in the quarter file. When I ask what to do, check my request against those three and tell me if it serves none of them. The customer file lists account, site, contact and service window. Never quote pricing or contract terms back to me. When I ask about a customer, answer from the file and say plainly when something is not in it. My meeting cadence: ops meeting Monday 09:00, dispatch stand-up daily 07:30, one-on-ones spread across Tuesday and Wednesday, leadership review Thursday 15:00. Assume anything I ask for on Thursday morning is feeding that review. Tone: direct, warm, short. No exclamation marks. No "I hope this finds you well". Answer the actual question in the first sentence. Give a specific date for anything I am promising. End emails with my first name. If you are missing a fact you need, a date, a name, a shipment number, leave it in square brackets and list the brackets at the end. Never fill one in with a guess.
Try this
Inside the Project
Draft the message to my team about the new Monday ops meeting format. Fifteen minutes, decisions only, anything else goes to the channel. Name the three priorities from the quarter file so people can see why. Under 150 words.
Check a request against the quarter
I have been asked to run a review of packaging suppliers. Against my three quarter priorities, is this mine, and if it is not, who should own it and what is the one sentence I send back?