How do I use the toolkit's prompts and templates?

Three items in the Digital Toolkit are the everyday building blocks: the Project Brain Templates, the Plan Engine Prompts, and the Visual Factory Prompts. They're ready-to-use versions of what the book teaches, so you don't have to retype them from the page.

Project Brain Templates

These are for building and feeding your Project Brain, the persistent knowledge base that knows your deadlines, acronyms, and stakeholders before you ask. They pair with the book's opening chapters, The Project's Brain and Feeding the Brain, which introduce the three-tier document structure of Constitution, News, and Library.

Start here. The other prompts work best once your AI assistant already has your project's context. For background, read What is a "Project Brain"? and How do I set up a Claude Project for my project?

Plan Engine Prompts

These are for planning: work breakdown structures, RACI matrices, and estimation. They pair with the chapter on The Plan Maker. Because your Brain already holds the project's scope and people, the AI can draft a plan for you to review and correct rather than one you build from nothing.

Visual Factory Prompts

These are for generating visuals such as Gantt charts and dashboards, which the book calls Magic Window artifacts. They pair with the chapter on The Magic Window. See What are Magic Window artifacts?

A simple way to work with them

1. Read the matching chapter first so you know what each prompt is meant to produce.
2. Set up your Project Brain with the templates before using the planning or visual prompts.
3. Copy a prompt into your AI assistant and fill in anything specific to your project.
4. Review the output as an editor. Check dates, names, and dependencies before you share anything.
5. Keep the versions that work well for you and adapt them over time.

None of this requires coding. Chapters 1–8 of the book are no-code.

For more on prompts in general, read Five prompts every project manager should master and Building project templates that work with AI.