Prompt Engineering Worksheet
Six regulated-firm scenarios — work through one in three rounds and you will see the difference structure makes
How this works
You will work through any one (or more) of six firm scenarios in three rounds:
| Round | What you do |
|---|---|
| Round 1: Baseline | Pick a scenario. Write a quick, natural prompt. Note the result. |
| Round 2: Apply RTCF or CRAFT | Redo the same scenario using a structured framework. Compare. |
| Round 3: Advanced | Try chain-of-thought, iterative refinement, or multi-turn techniques. |
| Debrief | Reflect. Save your best prompts. |
A quick reference for the framework is at the bottom.
Scenario 1 — The difficult client email (legal practice)
Situation
You act for a long-standing commercial client. They have just sent a terse email saying they are “extremely disappointed” with your most recent advice — they feel it was “too generic” and “didn’t reflect what we actually need.” You believe the advice is sound and addresses the question they actually asked. You suspect the wider context shifted after a board meeting you were not part of. You need to respond professionally, acknowledge the frustration without conceding the work, and propose a path forward.
What you know
- Eighteen-month relationship, generally constructive
- The advice took two days of senior associate time and partner review
- A short alignment call would likely resolve it
- Tone matters — escalating helps no one
Round 1 (baseline) — your natural prompt:
Your prompt:
Quality of output (circle one): Usable as-is / Needs heavy editing / Not usable
What is wrong with the output?
Round 2 (RTCF) — fill the table:
| Component | Your input |
|---|---|
| Role | |
| Task | |
| Context | |
| Format |
Quality (circle one): Usable as-is / Needs minor editing / Needs heavy editing
What improved?
Round 3 (advanced): ask the model to “think step by step about what the client is really concerned about before drafting the response,” or have it draft three versions at different levels of directness and explain which is best.
What did you try? Did it improve further?
Scenario 2 — Drafting a complex client letter (accounting)
Situation
A client running a family business asks for written guidance on whether to make a top-up super contribution before 30 June using carry-forward concessional cap. The client is 58, still working, and has unused cap from the prior two years. They have also recently inherited a small holiday rental which complicates matters. You need to draft a one-page letter setting out the options, trade-offs, and the questions you should put to the client before recommending one.
What you know
- The client is a sophisticated reader but not a tax professional
- Conservative tone: clear about uncertainty
- The letter will be reviewed by the partner before sending
- APES 110 and TPB obligations apply
Run the three rounds. For Round 3 try: “identify the three weakest points in this draft from the perspective of a senior partner reviewing it,” then revise.
Scenario 3 — A clinical referral (medical practice)
Situation
You see a 67-year-old patient newly noted with atrial fibrillation. They are asymptomatic and otherwise well, on metformin only for stable type 2 diabetes. ECG is attached. You need a referral letter to a cardiologist colleague that is clinically accurate, plain, and ready for your review and signature.
What you know
- Standard referral format
- Half a page; clinical but plain
- Verify clinical content against current Australian guidance before sending
- Patient information should not leave your enterprise environment
Run the three rounds. For Round 3 try: “flag any clinical claims in this draft that I should verify against current Australian guidance before signing.”
Scenario 4 — A practice policy summary (any sector)
Situation
The firm has just released a new ten-page Information Security Policy. Partners want a summary the team will actually read. Length: under 400 words. The team mostly cares about: what they can and cannot do with email and personal devices, how to handle client information on the road, and what changes if anything for staff working from home.
What you know
- Audience: mixed — partners, fee earners, support staff
- Tone: practical and constructive, not corporate
- Format: an internal email the partner can forward
- The full policy is the source — paste or upload it (using an enterprise tool with appropriate data terms)
Run the three rounds. For Round 3 try: “identify what each role group will care about and what they will skim past — restructure the summary so it puts the relevant points to each group up front.”
Scenario 5 — A vendor decision analysis (financial advisory)
Situation
The firm’s current SoA-tooling vendor is up for renewal in three months. Annual cost is $X. A competitor has appeared with newer features and a lower price. There is also a third option — building more of the workflow inside Microsoft 365 — that nobody has properly explored. You need a one-page brief for the partner meeting that lays out the three options, the key trade-offs, and a recommendation, with the assumptions the partners should challenge.
What you know
- The brief is a discussion starter, not the decision
- The partners want it concise and structured
- The trade-offs are not just price — they include data residency, integration, change cost, and risk
- The recommendation should be defensible if the firm goes a different way
Run the three rounds. For Round 3 try: “argue strongly for each of the three options in turn, then step back and tell me which one would be hardest to defend in twelve months and why.”
Scenario 6 — Documenting an undocumented process
Situation
You are the only person who knows how to run the firm’s end-of-month process — pulling time data, reconciling against the rate card, generating invoices in your accounting platform, applying client-specific PO numbers from a separate sheet, and updating the internal tracker. It lives in your head. The senior partner has rightly pointed out this is a risk. You need a step-by-step process document that another staff member could follow if you were on leave.
What you know
- Three systems involved (practice management, accounting, internal tracker)
- About 12–15 clients per month
- Three hours, give or take
- The document needs to be specific enough that someone following it does not need to interpret
Provide the model with a verbal walk-through of the process (in your own words), then run the three rounds. For Round 3 try: “identify any step that is ambiguous or assumes knowledge a new staff member would not have. Suggest how to make each clearer.”
Debrief
After completing your scenarios, reflect:
1. What was the single biggest improvement from Round 1 to Round 2?
2. Which component of the framework made the most difference?
- Role
- Task
- Context
- Format
3. Your top prompting lesson from this exercise?
4. Save your best prompt — copy your strongest structured prompt into a personal template library.
| Task type | My template prompt |
|---|---|
RTCF/CRAFT quick reference
Use this while writing prompts.
| Component | Ask yourself | Example |
|---|---|---|
| R — Role | Who should the AI be? | ”You are an Australian solicitor experienced in commercial disputes.” |
| T — Task | What exactly should it do? | ”Draft a 200-word client letter explaining…” |
| C — Context | What background does it need? | ”Long-standing client; conservative tone; partner will review.” |
| F — Format | How should the output look? | ”Plain text, ready to send. No headings. Reading age 14.” |
Not every prompt needs all four. Simple tasks may only need T and F. Complex tasks benefit from all four.
The RTCF framework maps closely to CRAFT (Context, Role, Action, Format, Tone). Both are structured approaches to the same goal: helping the model understand exactly what you need.
About this work
borck.consulting helps regulated Australian small firms turn exercises like this into a small library of firm-specific prompt patterns — so AI work looks and reads like firm work, not like generic AI output. Engagements begin with the AI Readiness Diagnostic.