PRACTICAL GUIDE

Better context.
Fewer assumptions.

Turning a few meeting notes into an action list is a small task. It’s also a useful test of whether an AI response stays faithful to its source.

Nadeem Ahmed · Practical guide

This guide uses a fictional meeting to demonstrate how to define and evaluate a task.

The question

Can you get a clear action list without inventing who owns the work, when it is due, or whether the team actually agreed to do it?

That’s a more useful goal than asking for a summary that simply looks polished. It gives you something specific to check.

Start with the source

FICTIONAL MEETING NOTES

Launch page draft: Asha will share an outline on Thursday.
Pricing still needs review. No reviewer assigned.
Omar will check the sign-up flow; deadline not agreed.
The team discussed adding testimonials, but made no decision.

Give the task clear boundaries

A broad instruction leaves important decisions unspecified:

“Turn these notes into an action plan.”

A more explicit version defines the source, the format, and how to handle uncertainty:

A PROMPT YOU CAN ADAPT

Turn the meeting notes below into an action list. Use only information present in the notes. Return a table with four columns: Task, Owner, Deadline, and Status. If an owner is missing, write “Not assigned”. If a deadline is missing, write “Not agreed”. Preserve relative dates as written; do not convert them into calendar dates. Include work explicitly identified as needed, even if it still needs an owner. Exclude ideas that were discussed without a decision, and list those separately under “Not yet agreed”. Do not invent tasks, owners, dates, or commitments. After the table, list the questions that still need an answer. Meeting notes: - Launch page draft: Asha will share an outline on Thursday. - Pricing still needs review. No reviewer assigned. - Omar will check the sign-up flow; deadline not agreed. - The team discussed adding testimonials, but made no decision.

The added context defines what a useful answer should contain. It also tells the model what to do when the source is incomplete.

Define the answer you would accept

This is a reference answer constructed from the notes. Use it to evaluate a model’s response; it is not a recorded model run.

Reference action list
Task	Owner	Deadline	Status
Share the launch-page outline	Asha	Thursday	Agreed
Review pricing	Not assigned	Not agreed	Needs an owner and deadline
Check the sign-up flow	Omar	Not agreed	Needs a deadline

Not yet agreed: adding testimonials. Discussion alone does not establish a commitment.

Open questions: Who will review pricing, and by when? When should Omar finish checking the sign-up flow?

Check the result, not just the format

Trace every detail. Each task, person, and date should be supported by the original notes.
Keep uncertainty visible. Missing information should remain missing until someone supplies it.
Separate ideas from commitments. “We discussed it” and “We agreed to do it” are different statements.
Test another example. Try ambiguous ownership, conflicting dates, or a note with no actions at all. One neat response does not establish reliability.