patrickz
Before you start
A chat assistant and a task that currently annoys you.
Why this lesson exists
Patrick’s challenge prompt uses questioning to prevent fast work on the wrong problem. Treat the first answer as a draft of the problem, not an instruction to build immediately.
The idea this guide practices: Ask why before you ask how.
Do the exercise
Describe the friction
Say who has the problem, when it happens and what they do today. Use an example rather than a list of desired features.
Invite useful disagreement
Ask the assistant to test your assumptions and offer a non-AI alternative. It should ask a small number of questions before proposing a solution.
Choose a narrow outcome
Write what must become easier, what is out of scope and how you will observe success. Include constraints such as time, device or privacy.
Turn the brief into acceptance checks
Create three actions a person can perform to verify the result. Use those checks to steer the work and to decide when it is done.
A prompt to adapt
Replace the bracketed parts with your own details.
Before solving this, help me clarify what I want. Situation: [example]. Who is affected: [people]. Current workaround: [workaround]. Ask three important questions, challenge one assumption, and propose a simpler non-AI option. Then write an outcome, constraints, exclusions and three acceptance checks.
What this looks like
“I need a dashboard” becomes “I need to know which two invoices require a follow-up today.” A sorted list may solve the problem before a dashboard is justified.
Check your result
Use evidence from your output. A confident explanation from the AI is not enough.
If it isn’t working
If the assistant immediately writes code, restate that this is a problem-definition task. If the brief stays vague, provide one real example of the current failure.
Optional. Progress stays in this browser.
Next in the beginner path: Compare AI tools on your own tasks with a simple scorecard →
Where this came from
Adapted from the archived LinkedIn theme “Ask Why Before You Ask How.” See the post coverage and editorial method. One of the original LinkedIn posts ↗
Prepared September 2026. Tools and interfaces change; use current official setup instructions. Session lengths are estimates.