Operations consultant
Marcus Hale
Independent consulting
Problem
Marcus Hale runs workshops for operations teams. The room is lively, the whiteboard fills up, and then everyone leaves without a decision. He used to spend the evening rewriting notes into a long recap that hid the open choices. Clients would reply that it looked great and nothing would change on Monday. He does not want Gemini to invent consensus or to attribute quotes to people who did not say them. He wants a decision log he can build before the session ends: options, owner, and what is still unresolved.
Gemini strategy
Marcus types rough notes during the workshop, without client secrets that are not needed for the decision. At the end he asks Gemini to sort them into a one-page log: decision proposed, alternatives mentioned, who appeared to own it, and unresolved questions. The prompt forbids smoothing disagreement into agreement. He then reads the log aloud in the room. That spoken check is his verification step: people correct owners and strike lines they did not mean. He sends the corrected page the same day. If the model added a next step nobody offered, it comes out before the email goes.
Prompts
Turn workshop notes into a decision log
You are assisting an operations consultant at the end of a workshop. I will paste rough notes. Do not invent decisions, owners, quotes, or agreement. Produce a one-page log with four headings: proposed decision, alternatives people mentioned, apparent owner, and unresolved. If the notes do not support a heading, write "Not stated in the room." Quote short fragments instead of polishing them into a new opinion. Flag any place I may be forcing a consensus. Do not write a strategy narrative. Keep it plain enough that I can read it aloud before people leave.
Prepare the read-aloud check
Turn this decision log into a five-minute read-aloud script for the room. After each proposed decision, add the question of whether this is the choice and who owns the next step. Do not strengthen weak agreement. If a line says the point was not stated, keep it visible. Suggest the order I should read so unresolved items are not buried at the end. Do not add recommendations that were not in the notes. Close with one sentence I can send by email after people have corrected the page in the room.
Process
- 1. Capture rough notes without extra client secrets.
- 2. Sort them into a decision log that preserves gaps.
- 3. Read the log aloud and let the room correct it.
- 4. Send only the corrected page the same day.
Result
Marcus's estimate is that clients leave with fewer follow-up emails asking what was decided. On a recent session the room struck two owners the model had inferred from who spoke most. The corrected log fit on one page and went out before dinner. One client still replied with praise and no action, which the log made easier to see. He no longer writes a long recap to hide an undecided point. The workshop ends when the page is corrected, not when the whiteboard is full.
Lessons
- Read the decision log in the room so people can correct it.
- Do not let the model turn disagreement into fake consensus.
- A short corrected page beats a long recap that hides open choices.