95% of Prompting Advice Misses This — Define Outcomes, Not Tasks
Source: LinkedIn post by Hamna Aslam Kahn
The best AI users don’t write better prompts. They define better outcomes.
The Core Problem
Most prompts give the AI a task, not a destination:
❌ “Write a summary.” ❌ “Make this better.” ❌ “Help me with this.”
The Fix
Instead, give the AI a fully specified outcome:
✅ “Write a 150-word executive summary in bullet points so a busy client can review and approve it in under 2 minutes.”
Same task. Completely different result. Because now you’ve defined:
→ The goal → The audience → The format → The success criteria
The AI doesn’t have to guess. It can execute.
The 4-Question Framework
Before writing any prompt, answer:
- What do I want? — The goal
- What should it look like? — The format
- Who is it for? — The audience
- What should happen next? — The action/success criteria
Most people stop at #1. The best prompt writers define all four.
Key Insight
AI rarely fails because it’s not smart enough. It fails because the objective wasn’t clear enough. The quality of your output is often a reflection of the clarity of your thinking.
Define outcomes instead of tasks, and you’ll stop getting average AI responses and start getting exactly what you need.