There is no correct answer here, and nobody is coming to tell you what to do.
This is the actual shape of most real work: an underspecified request from
someone who is busy, where the cost of asking six questions and the cost of
guessing wrong are both real.
The skill being tested is judgement — deciding what you can reasonably assume,
and what you genuinely cannot proceed without.
Rank the unknowns by how much your work changes depending on the answer.
"Who is this for" changes almost everything: a number for your manager's own
understanding is a different artifact from a slide in a board pack. "Should the
file be Excel or Google Sheets" changes nothing — assume, and say you assumed.
Ask about the thing that would make you throw away the work if you guessed
wrong.
Your manager has a board meeting on Thursday, and the deadline is Wednesday.
That is not a coincidence, and it tells you a great deal about what the output
probably needs to be, and how long it can be. Notice it and you have removed
half the ambiguity yourself.
Do not reply "sure, will do" and work it out alone. If you have read it wrong,
you will discover that on Wednesday.
Do not reply with five questions. It reads as unable to proceed without
supervision, and your manager is offline anyway.
Do not wait until Monday to reply. Sending your understanding tonight means a
wrong reading gets corrected before you have spent two days on it.
A strong reply does four things in about 150 words:
Reflects the request back. "I'm reading this as: why did we lose the two
customers last month, and is there a pattern." If that reading is wrong, your
manager corrects it in five seconds on Monday morning, and you have lost
nothing.
Makes assumptions explicit. "I'll assume you need this for Thursday's board
meeting, so I'll aim for one page plus the underlying numbers." Stating the
assumption invites correction without requiring a reply.
Asks the one question that matters. Usually some version of: "Is this for
the board on Thursday, or for you?" — because the answer changes the format,
the depth and the tone entirely.
Commits to something specific. "I'll have a draft to you Tuesday midday so
there's time to change it before Wednesday." Note the Tuesday: an experienced
person builds in a revision cycle rather than delivering on the deadline itself.
A weak reply is either "Sure, on it" — which defers the risk to Wednesday — or a
list of six questions, which hands the thinking back to the person who
delegated it.
Which did you feel more strongly: the urge to ask more questions so you could
not be blamed, or the urge to say yes and figure it out silently?
Most people lean hard one way. Knowing which way you lean is the thing worth
taking from this lab, because that instinct will show up in every ambiguous
request you ever receive.
Your attempt
Constraints
·You may ask exactly ONE clarifying question
·Your reply must be under 200 words
·You cannot start work until Monday, and it is due Wednesday