Choose five measures to run a college canteen week by week

A canteen manager decides things every day: how much rice, when to open a second counter, what to stop buying. You are choosing just five numbers that would change those decisions, with a clear rule for when each one says 'act'.

• Which decisions did you actually see staff make during your lunch-hour visit?
• For each decision, what single number would tell them to act, and how could it be counted with a pen and a register?
• Who would count it, when, and how long would it take?
• Which measures will you drop, and what is the reason for each?

A measures sheet with five rows, each linking one measure to one decision, how it is counted, who counts it and an action threshold, plus a dropped-measures list and a one-screen mock dashboard clearly marked as using made-up data.

Picking measures that sound impressive, like customer satisfaction scores, that nobody in a busy canteen will ever record. If a worker cannot count it daily without extra tools, it does not belong.

• Notes from one lunch hour at a canteen: every decision you saw or heard staff make
• A short chat with one staff member about what they check and what goes wrong, with their permission
• Your own made-up data for the mock dashboard, typed by you and labelled as invented

AI must not invent decisions the staff make, or present any number as the canteen's real sales or waste. Decisions come from your visit; dashboard numbers are yours and labelled as made up.

1. 3.1 Turn visit notes into a decision listCLAUDE CHAT

   Why this tool: Claude can sort rough notes into a clean list of decisions without adding new ones.

   Paste your visit notes and ask for a list of distinct decisions only. Delete anything you did not actually observe.

   Prompt to copy · fill in the [brackets]Copy

   Here are my notes from a lunch hour at a college canteen:
   [paste notes]
   List each distinct decision the staff made or would need to make, in one line each. Only use what is in my notes. If something is unclear, ask me instead of guessing.

2. 3.2 Propose and stress-test measuresCLAUDE CHAT

   Why this tool: Asking what could go wrong with counting each measure exposes the ones nobody will record.

   For each decision, ask for candidate measures and their counting problems. Keep only measures a worker could record daily.

   Prompt to copy · fill in the [brackets]Copy

   For each decision below, suggest one or two measures that would tell the staff when to act. For each measure, say how it could be counted by hand and what could go wrong with the counting.
   [paste decision list]

3. 3.3 Save a measure-review SkillCLAUDE SKILLS

   Why this tool: A saved checklist applies the same tests to every candidate measure, so your choice is consistent, not a mood.

   Write a short Skill that checks each candidate measure for: one linked decision, a hand-countable method, a named counter, a threshold. Run it on your full candidate list and read every verdict before accepting it.

   Before you let it act: Before running it, read the Skill's instructions and make sure the four tests are the ones you want. Check its verdict on two measures you already judged yourself.

4. 3.4 Build the one-screen mock dashboardGOOGLE SHEETS

   Why this tool: A sheet with a few small charts is enough to show how the five measures would look on one screen.

   Type two weeks of made-up daily values yourself, label them as invented, and draw one small chart per measure with the threshold drawn as a line. Copy the charts onto one slide.

• Each of the five measures links to a decision you actually observed
• Each counting method needs only a register, a pen or a simple tally
• Every threshold says what action follows, not just 'review'
• The dropped-measures list gives a reason for each drop
• The dashboard data is labelled as made up
• Totals on the dashboard match the raw table
• Every axis is labelled with its unit

AI likes generic restaurant metrics such as average ticket size or table turnover that do not fit a college canteen. Check each suggestion against what you saw at the counter.

• Five measures with decision, method, counter and threshold
• A list of dropped measures with reasons
• A one-screen mock dashboard with threshold lines
• A clear label that the dashboard data is invented

Page one is the measures table; page two is the dashboard slide. A canteen manager should see which number to watch for each decision in under a minute.

Describe one measure you dropped even though it sounded good, and why a busy canteen worker would never have counted it.