Tuesday Prompt Day | 6W + E Practical Experiment #4: From Information to Prioritization
Last week, we explored an important idea: A good prompt doesn't just ask AI for an answer. It gives AI enough context to produce an answer that can actually be evaluated and improved. But there is another challenge. What happens when Copilot has the right information… …but gives the wrong priority? Imagine asking Copilot to review a project update containing: An unresolved business dependency A resource constraint A minor documentation delay All three may be correct. But are they equally important? No. This is where prompt engineering moves beyond information retrieval. The goal is not just: "Give me the information." The goal becomes: "Help me identify what matters most." Using the 6W + E approach, we can make that expectation explicit: WHO → Who is making the decision? WHAT → What information needs to be considered? WHY → Why does the decision matter? WHEN → When is action required? WHERE → Where is the impact? WHICH → Which items should receive priority? E → What evidence supports the prioritization? Now the output becomes more useful: 🔴 High Priority Unresolved business dependency → Directly affects the project outcome. 🟡 Medium Priority Resource constraint → May affect execution if not addressed. 🟢 Lower Priority Documentation delay → Important, but limited immediate business impact. Notice what changed. The information didn't change. The priority did. And that leads to an important prompt-engineering principle: Correct information ≠ Useful answer A useful AI response should be: Relevant → Prioritized → Evidence-based → Actionable This is the next step in our 6W + E journey. We are moving from: Prompt → Output to: Prompt → Output → Evaluate → Prioritize → Refine → Act That's where prompt engineering starts becoming a practical decision-making discipline rather than simply a way to get better AI responses. 💡 My takeaway: Don't only ask AI: "What is the information?" Also ask: "What matters most, why does it matter, and what evidence supports that priority?" Next Tuesday, we'll take this one step further.