SKILL: Summarise several documents into a one-page brief

A worked Skill from Innovation Day. Spec-first output (Way #1), anonymise before pasting (Way #3), and - the headline beat - make the AI surface a contradiction rather than smooth it over, then have a human sign it off (Way #2).

1. Goal - what this Skill does, and when to use it

Take a small stack of related documents - a policy note, a vendor update, a risk extract - and fuse them into one short brief that a decision-maker can read in a minute. Use it before a steering meeting, or whenever you’ve been handed three documents that “you should be across.”

It replaces reading all three, then trying to hold the differences between them in your head.

2. Inputs - what you paste in for it to work

• Input 1: the documents (here: a policy note, a vendor update, a risk-log extract).
• Input 2: a one-line label for each, so the AI can attribute points to a source.

PRIVACY CHECK (Way #3): internal docs carry names and supplier identities. Swap them before pasting.

In the docs	Replace with
”Sandra Whitfield” (Programme Director)	Person A
”Brightwave Ltd” (the integration vendor)	Vendor 1

The dates, the risk IDs (R-12, R-15…) and the substance all stay - they’re what the brief is about. Only the identifying names go.

3. Output - what “good” looks like (write this BEFORE the prompt)

A one-page brief in five blocks:

The non-negotiable: if two sources disagree, that disagreement goes in Conflicts / gaps and Open questions - it is not averaged, ignored, or smoothed into one confident statement.

4. Instructions / Prompt - the exact text to paste

You are helping me combine several documents into a one-page brief.

Produce exactly five blocks:
1. TL;DR - 2 to 3 sentences, plain English.
2. Key points - bullets. Attribute each to its source in [square brackets].
3. Conflicts / gaps - where the documents DISAGREE with each other or leave
   something unanswered. State the disagreement plainly with both sides.
4. Recommended action - one clear next step.
5. Open questions - decisions a human still needs to make.

Critical rules:
- If two documents give different dates, numbers, or facts, DO NOT pick one
  and DO NOT average them. Surface the conflict in blocks 3 and 5, quoting
  both sources.
- Do not invent agreement that isn't in the text. If something is unresolved,
  say so.
- Attribute every key point to its source document.

Documents:
[DOC 1 LABEL]: [PASTE]
[DOC 2 LABEL]: [PASTE]
[DOC 3 LABEL]: [PASTE]

5. Worked Example - one real run, anonymised

Input (three docs, names anonymised):

• [Policy note] - Customer Portal migration approved by Person A. Go-live fixed at 1 June 2026, will not move; Marketing has committed this to customers. Legacy portal off at go-live, no parallel running.
• [Vendor update, from Vendor 1] - End-to-end integration testing cannot begin until 2 June, expected to take five working days → realistic readiness 9 June 2026. Strongly advises against switching off the legacy system before testing passes; recommends a short parallel-running window.
• [Risk extract] - R-15 Integration testing timeline, Likelihood High / Impact High, Owner TBC: vendor readiness not confirmed against the published go-live - potential clash, needs escalation.

Output it produced:

Brief - Customer Portal migration

TL;DR Go-live is formally fixed at 1 June and already committed to customers, but the vendor cannot be integration-ready until 9 June. The two dates are in direct conflict and the risk log already flags it as needing escalation.

Key points

• Go-live fixed at 1 June 2026; legacy portal switched off, no parallel running. [Policy note]
• Date already communicated externally by Marketing. [Policy note]
• Integration testing can’t start until 2 June; realistic readiness 9 June 2026. [Vendor update]
• Vendor advises against switching off legacy before testing passes; suggests short parallel run. [Vendor update]
• R-15: integration-testing timeline is High/High risk, owner TBC, potential clash needing escalation. [Risk extract]

Conflicts / gaps

• Date conflict: Policy note says go-live is fixed at 1 June and will not move; vendor says readiness is 9 June at the earliest. These cannot both hold. [Policy note] vs [Vendor update]
• The policy mandates no parallel running; the vendor recommends a parallel window. Directly opposed.
• R-15 owner is TBC - no one yet owns resolving the clash. [Risk extract]

Recommended action Escalate the 1-June-vs-9-June clash to the programme decision-maker now, with the two options on the table: hold the date and accept go-live without passed integration testing, or move the date / run legacy in parallel.

Open questions

• Does go-live hold at 1 June, or move to ~9 June to match vendor readiness? (the core decision)
• Will a short parallel-running window be allowed, against the current “no parallel running” policy?
• Who owns R-15 and the escalation? (Currently TBC.)
• Given Marketing has committed 1 June externally, what’s the customer-comms plan if the date moves?

The catch (Way #2): the failure mode is false harmony. Ask a chatbot to “summarise these three documents” and it will often produce a tidy line like “Go-live is 1 June; the vendor is supporting the cutover” - quietly picking the policy date, dropping the 9-June readiness, and burying the single most important fact in the stack. The prompt’s “if two documents disagree, surface it - do not pick or average” rule is what forces the contradiction into Conflicts and Open questions instead. When you check a multi-doc summary, the one thing to verify is: did it surface the disagreements, or smooth them away?

6. Guardrails - how to stay safe and sane

• Privacy (Way #3): swap names and supplier identities (Person A, Vendor 1) before pasting. Keep the substance.
• Human check (Way #2): read Conflicts and Open questions first. A summary that reads suspiciously clean is the warning sign - go back to the source and confirm the disagreements survived. You sign the brief; you own that it’s honest about what’s unresolved.
• Limits: this surfaces conflicts - it does not resolve them. It can’t tell you which date wins; that’s a human decision with context the documents don’t contain.

7. Reuse notes - so it isn’t lost

• Owner: (your name)
• Last updated: (date)
• Lives in: programme shared space → Skills folder. Reuse it for every “here are three documents, get across them” moment before a steering meeting - Way #5.

Built at Innovation Day. The five ways of working: ways-of-working.md.