Operations, Finance and Leadership Playbook

Why this matters

Operations, Finance, and Leadership teams produce outputs that reach the whole organisation: board updates, all-staff announcements, process documentation, and meeting summaries. Getting the tone wrong has bigger consequences. Getting the structure wrong wastes everyone's time.

Claude excels at exactly these tasks: taking messy notes and turning them into clean action lists; taking raw numbers and turning them into a narrative; taking a policy decision and turning it into a communication that people will actually read.

Project system prompt template

You are an executive assistant and operations support AI for [Company Name].

You help with:
- Meeting summaries and action item extraction
- Internal communications and announcements
- Board and leadership reports
- Process documentation
- Data summaries and interpretation

Company context:
- Size: [X employees], [sector]
- Financial year: [April-March / Jan-Dec]
- Key audiences: CEO, CFO, Board, All-staff, [Department leads]
- Tone: clear, direct, no jargon. Match the audience — board = concise;
  all-staff = warm and human.

Defaults:
- UK English spelling
- Dates in DD Month YYYY format
- Mark all outputs as drafts

Meeting notes to action items

Convert these meeting notes into:

1. A structured action table:
   Owner | Action | Deadline | Dependencies
   Infer deadlines: "end of week" = next Friday,
   "next sprint" = next sprint start date.

2. A 3-4 sentence summary for people who were not there.
   Include: decision made, why, and next steps. No padding.

[paste rough notes]

Tip: include the meeting date and attendee names so Claude can infer owners from first names correctly.

Board and executive reports

Write a [1-page / 2-page] board update for [period].

Format:
- Executive summary: 3 sentences (what happened, so what, what is next)
- Key metrics table: [list your KPIs]
- Highlights: 3 bullets (what went well and why it matters)
- Risks and mitigations: 3 bullets
- Priorities for next period: 3 bullets

Data: [paste your numbers and context]

Audience: experienced board members. Tone: direct, no spin.
Assume they read this in 5 minutes.

Full example:

Write a 1-page board update for Q3.

Format: executive summary (3 sentences), metrics table,
highlights (3), risks (3), Q4 priorities (3).

Data:
- Revenue: GBP 2.1M (target GBP 2.3M, -8.7%)
- ARR: GBP 8.4M (+12% YoY)
- Churn: 3.2% (target less than 3%, slight miss)
- New customers: 14 | Headcount: 67 (+5 from Q2)
- Risk: 3 large renewals due in Q4, all unconfirmed
- Highlight: professional services margin improved to 34% from 28%

Audience: experienced board members reading this in 5 minutes.
Direct. No corporate language.

All-staff announcements

Employees are better at spotting corporate language than any other audience.

Write an all-staff email from [role] about [topic].

Key messages:
- [What the change is]
- [Why we are making it]
- [What it means for staff day-to-day]
- [What happens next / timeline]

Tone: honest and human. Acknowledge if this is difficult news.
Length: [X words max].

Avoid: "exciting journey", "going forward", "learnings",
passive voice for decisions we made.

Example — hybrid working policy:

Write an all-staff email from the CEO announcing a new hybrid
working policy: 3 days minimum in-office from 1 January.

Key messages:
- Policy: 3 days minimum, team flexibility on which days
- Why: collaboration data and team feedback both pointed here
- What it means: no contract changes, flexi still applies Mon/Fri
- Exceptions: caring responsibilities, reasonable adjustments

Honest about trade-offs, warm, not defensive.
350 words max. No corporate language.

Process documentation

Write an SOP for [process name].

Rough steps:
[number your steps with the person/role responsible and tools]

Format:
- Purpose (1 sentence)
- Scope (who this applies to)
- Process steps (numbered, with responsible role and tools)
- Exception handling
- Related documents
- Quick-reference checklist at the end

Audience: a new team member who does not know this process.
Plain English. No assumed knowledge.

Example:

Write an SOP for our monthly invoicing process.

Steps:
1. Finance pulls invoice report from Xero on 1st of month
2. Cross-checks against CRM for new or churned customers
3. Sends invoices by account tier (enterprise first)
4. Chases outstanding invoices at day 14
5. Escalates to account manager if unpaid at day 21
6. End-of-month reconciliation in Xero

For a new Finance Assistant. Format: Purpose, Scope, Steps with
owner and tool, Exceptions, Checklist.

Interpreting data for presentations

Help me interpret [data type] for a [audience] presentation.

Data: [paste numbers, survey results, or metrics]

Provide:
1. What the headline number means in context (with industry
   benchmark if known)
2. The story behind the numbers
3. 3 recommended actions with rationale
4. One-sentence headline for the slide

Be specific. Avoid vague phrases like "there is room for improvement".

Example — NPS data:

Interpret our NPS data for a leadership team presentation.

Data:
- Promoters: 42% | Passives: 31% | Detractors: 27% | NPS: 15
- Top comment themes:
  - "Support response times too slow" — 34 mentions
  - "Love the product features" — 28 mentions
  - "Onboarding was confusing" — 19 mentions
  - "Account manager is excellent" — 15 mentions

Industry SaaS NPS benchmark: ~31.
Context, what the themes tell us, 3 recommended actions with
rationale, one-sentence slide headline.

Finance: recurring reporting prompts

Monthly management accounts narrative

Write the narrative for our monthly management accounts.

Key variances: [list significant ones with numbers and reason if known]

Format: 4-5 short paragraphs covering Revenue, Costs, Cash, Outlook.
Audience: non-finance senior managers. Business terms, not
accounting terms.

Budget request justification

Write a business case for a budget request.

Request: [what and how much]
Problem it solves: [what is currently broken or limited]
Expected outcome: [time saved, revenue enabled, risk reduced]
Alternatives considered: [what else was evaluated]
Payback period: [if calculable]

Format: 1 page. Audience: CFO and Finance Committee.
Lead with the outcome, not the request.

What makes a good operations prompt

Two techniques consistently improve results:

Specify the audience explicitly. "Write for experienced board members who will read this in 5 minutes" produces something very different from "write a board update." Audience instructions shape structure, length, and vocabulary.

Give Claude your raw material. Paste in the rough notes, the numbers, or the bullet points you already have. Claude is dramatically better at improving and structuring existing content than generating it from nothing.

See also: M64-L4 (Shared Styles and Templates)