Surface the strongest objections, hidden assumptions, and reputational downsides of a proposed board-level action before the board commits to it.
Prompts for boards using AI
A curated library for strategic and critical decisions. Read the privilege note before use.
Board members and principals are already using AI assistants to think through strategic decisions. The quality of that thinking depends almost entirely on the quality of the prompt. This section collects prompts designed for board-level decisions — stress-testing a proposed action, surfacing blind spots, pre-mortems on strategic commitments, bias detection, and the structural review of governance questions. Each prompt is accompanied by guidance on when it is appropriate to use, what context to provide, and what to expect.
Read first — not optional
Before using any prompt with real board information, read the note on confidentiality, privilege, and acceptable-use patterns. Pasting privileged or confidential material into a consumer AI assistant can waive privilege, breach confidentiality obligations, and trigger data-protection duties.
Strategic decisions
- Stress-Test a Proposed Action
- Pre-Mortem on a Strategic Decision
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Imagine the proposed decision has failed in eighteen months — what most plausibly went wrong, and what would a foresightful board have done differently at the moment of decision.
- Governance Risk Review
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Review a governance question or situation against a structured set of risk categories — fiduciary, regulatory, reputational, operational, strategic — and surface gaps in the current posture.
Cognitive tools
Structured prompts that map to named cognitive-bias counter-measures. Each corresponds to a specific finding in the decision-science literature and addresses a specific hazard that recurs at the board table. Discussed doctrinally in the reference article on Decision-Making Under Uncertainty for Swiss Boards.
- Reference-Class Forecasting
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Kahneman’s outside view applied to a board estimate — locate the decision in its base-rate class before accepting the inside-view projection. Counter-measure to anchoring and optimism bias on estimates.
- Red-Team a Decision
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Commission a structured critique whose only task is to argue against a decision on its merits before it is taken. Counter-measure to confirmation bias, escalation of commitment, and deal heat.
- Inside View and Outside View
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The same question, put to the board in two framings — inside (from the case’s specific facts) and outside (from the base rate of comparable cases). The gap between them is the diagnostic.
- Dissent by Design
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A structured protocol that makes disagreement the board’s default rather than a personal act. Janis’s institutional response to groupthink, adapted for Swiss board practice.
Planned categories
- Litigation and disputes. Settle-or-fight analysis, evaluation of counsel’s recommendation, discovery posture review.
- Crisis and investigations. Response framing for regulatory inquiries, media posture, communications review.
- People and succession. CEO successor evaluation, board composition review, independence audit.
- Mergers and acquisitions. Assumption audit for acquisition theses, post-close integration risk, standstill structuring.
- AI governance. Board-level AI risk assessment, model-deployment review, AI incident response.