From Chaos to Clarity

Bottom Line Up Front: This article demonstrates how AI-powered prompt engineering can transform everyday business tasks—like distilling clear requirements from messy meeting transcripts—into opportunities for clarity, empathy, and improvement. You’ll learn how structured prompts can extract key insights, visualize user journeys, and even offer critical feedback on requirements quality.

For those interested, the prompts and the resulting outputs from each step have been attached to the bottom of this article. You are invited to explore these materials to deepen your understanding and perhaps try your own hand at prompt engineering.

It began, as it often does, with a simple request.

A coworker reached out, his message appearing quietly in the corner of my screen. Could I help him extract clear business requirements from a cluttered Teams meeting transcript? At first glance, this request appeared mundane, just one among many digital chores filling our daily rhythm. Yet beneath that ordinary request lay an opportunity to continue my series on the subtle craft of prompt engineering with AI.

His request felt familiar: clarity amid chaos, meaning distilled from an avalanche of words. Many of us encounter situations like this across the company. Important tasks pile up leaving us no time to properly consider what’s needed, and the manual effort frequently obscures the critical insights needed to make informed decisions. So, I chose to transform his request into a public demonstration of how AI can help us focus on the real challenges we face as we pursue our objectives under Pathway 2045.

Securing the transcript was straightforward—a mundane digital record, yet filled with hidden gems. The Teams meeting had gathered a swirl of voices, each bearing fragments of ideas and intentions, woven imperfectly through the threads of conversation. My task was clear yet layered: automate the transformation of this tapestry into clear, actionable insights by eliminating unnecessary distractions.

Prompt engineering, as I often share in my reflections, resembles a dialogue—not merely commands given and obeyed but a thoughtful exchange, a gentle shaping of understanding through carefully chosen words. Thus, I crafted several prompts, each with a distinct purpose, thoughtfully aligned to our shared goal of clarity.

The first prompt was straightforward: identify all explicit and implicit requirements within the transcript. It aimed directly at clarity, stripping away extraneous chatter to reveal essential needs embedded within the conversation.

The second prompt, more ambitious and evocative, was designed to illustrate the user’s journey. It mapped the twists and turns, frustrations, and fulfillments, creating a vivid portrayal of the path through the intended experience. Despite its simplicity, the resulting image is deeply valuable. Empathy emerges clearly here, the picture of the flow charts and sequence diagrams make the need leap off the page.

The third prompt invited AI into the reflective role of critic and guide. It gently, humbly asked: how can we improve? How might these requirements become clearer, stronger, more resonant? AI excels at critiquing text, objectively identifying areas where content falls short of established standards. We only need the humility and openness to seek its insights.

Ultimately, his initial request became much more than data extraction. It evolved into a learning opportunity, demonstrating how effectively AI can clarify our needs.

Perhaps that’s the hidden beauty of working with AI—not simply extracting information, but thoughtfully crafting prompts to focus our attention, articulate our needs, and ultimately uncover greater meaning in our complex lives. Each prompt is a small act of hope, a careful step toward clarity, richer understanding, and a future shaped intentionally, thoughtfully, and perhaps just a little poetically.