Produce the weekly numbers · MS-4004

By the end of this task, you will be able to turn a week of operational data into a short management summary with one chart behind it, check the figures against their source, and leave behind a prompt that produces the same thing next week.

Your situation

Eight weeks in. The number is moving in the right direction and it is still under the line.

This summary goes two places: to Joni Sherman before her leadership review, and to Nestor Wilke as the weekly number he was promised. Same numbers, one document, two readers who will each take something different from it.

There is a week in this data that does not fit the trend. Finding it is the point of the task.

Important

Deliverable: a management summary under 150 words, one named chart with its axes, every figure checked against the workbook, and a reusable prompt for next week.

Files you'll use

File	What's in it
CanadaPost_Ops_Recovery_Weekly.xlsx	Eight weeks of Calgary recovery tracking, and a Read me sheet
CanadaPost_Ops_Recovery_Weekly.csv	The same data as CSV
CanadaPost_Ops_Network_Findings.md	What the improvement can and cannot be attributed to

How to read the prompts

Each prompt below is one block you can copy whole. The # lines are labels, not instructions — they mark where the prompt stops setting the goal and starts giving the context, the sources, and the expectations. Copying them along with the prompt does no harm.

Those four moves, in that order, are what makes a prompt work. Use the same shape when you write your own.

Steps

Open the workbook in Excel. Read the Read me sheet before you prompt anything — it says what each column means and what the data does not establish.
Write the summary.
Prompt o3-a
goal
Turn this week of recovery data into a short management summary.
context
It goes to Joni Sherman, our regional operations director, and it is the same summary the customer sees. Calgary averaged 90.2% on-time last year against a 95% requirement.
sources
Use only the attached weekly recovery workbook.
expectations
Under 150 words. Where the number is this week, which way it moved, what changed, and what is still not fixed. Every figure keeps its unit and its week. No recommendation.
Pick the chart. One, not six.
Prompt o3-b
goal
Tell me which single chart would prove the point this summary makes, and what goes on each axis.
context
I have eight weeks of data and a director who reads one chart. Putting all six measures on it would be worse than putting none.
sources
The workbook and my summary.
expectations
One chart, named, with what goes on each axis, what the series are, and one sentence on the point a reader should take from it. Then name the chart I should not build and why.
Now check yourself. This is the step people skip and then regret.
Prompt o3-c
goal
Check every number in my summary against the workbook.
context
This goes to the customer. Last year we sent a figure that did not match the file it came from and it cost us the meeting.
sources
The summary and the workbook.
expectations
For each figure, say whether it matches, and quote the cell or the row it came from. Flag any figure that is an average of averages, and any week where the underlying count is too small to carry a percentage.
Make it repeatable, because you are doing this twelve more times.
Prompt o3-d
goal
Turn what I just did into a prompt I can run again next week without rewriting it.
context
This summary is due every week for thirteen weeks and I want it to look the same every time, whoever produces it.
sources
The steps we just went through.
expectations
One reusable prompt with the file name and the week left as blanks I fill in. Add the two checks I should run on the output before I send it.
Save the reusable prompt somewhere your team can find it, not in your own notes.

Check your work

Every figure carries its unit and its week.
The week that breaks the trend is named, with what the file gives as the reason.
The summary says what is still not fixed.
Every number has been traced back to a cell or a row.
The reusable prompt has blanks for the file and the week.

Stretch prompts

Starting out — see the shape:

Using only the attached workbook, tell me in five bullets what
happened over the eight weeks.

Comfortable — separate the signals:

Induction on-time and delivery on-time both improved. Tell me
where they moved together and where they did not, and what the
weeks that disagree might mean.

Confident — forecast honestly:

On this trend, when does Calgary reach 95%? Give me the
assumption behind that answer, what would make it wrong, and
say plainly whether eight weeks is enough to forecast from.

Tip

The habit here is checking your own arithmetic before someone else does. Copilot summarises well and still lets figures drift between drafts. The customer has the same workbook you do.