By the end you will have a two-page decision memo on a real call you owe someone, drafted in Claude from a single-line brief and edited into shape.
Founders, chiefs of staff, and strategy leads lose hours turning messy context into something a board will read, and a blank doc is the slowest place to start. A decision memo forces the ask to the top and the tradeoffs into the open, which is how leadership actually reads.
Drafting it in Claude gets you to an editable structure in minutes so your time goes to judgment, not formatting.
This is the free first module of urfired.ai's Executive & Strategy path. No signup, no card. The steps note what Claude access you need.
Before you open Claude, write the actual call you owe someone as a single time-bound line, like "Decide whether to open an Austin office in Q4." If you cannot get it into one sentence, you have a debate, not a decision, so sharpen it first. Doing this and the next step before the timer starts keeps the full 18 minutes for drafting and editing instead of hunting for facts.
Still before you touch the tool, list everything you actually know: the numbers, constraints, deadlines, and the two to four options on the table. Do not polish it, messy bullets are fine.
This is the raw material the memo gets built from, and nothing else should get in.
Go to claude.ai and sign in; the free tier handles this lesson. Open Settings, then Capabilities, and confirm "Code execution and file creation" is on, since Artifacts, the editable side-panel documents Claude builds, do not run without it.
Many accounts already have it enabled, so if the toggle is on, move straight to the next step.
In one message, paste your one-line decision and your raw bullets. Add the rule "use only the facts I give you here, and mark anything you are unsure of as needs verification rather than inventing it" so Claude does not fill gaps with plausible fiction.
That rule is the difference between a memo you can defend and one you have to fact-check line by line.
Tell it to write a two-page decision memo as a document Artifact in this order: the decision in one bold line at the top, two to four lines of context, an options table (option, cost, benefit, key risks, recommended), your recommendation with its one key assumption, a first implementation step with an owner, and the top three risks with mitigations. Decision-first ordering is how executives read, so lead with the ask, not background.
Ask it to include a do-nothing baseline as one of the options.
Send the prompt and Claude renders the memo in the Artifact panel on the right. Read every claim against what you actually gave it; anything it added that you did not provide is a candidate to cut or verify.
Confirm the options are genuinely distinct and that the recommendation names a real assumption, not a vague one.
Reply in the same conversation with specific changes, like "cut the context to two lines" or "the recommendation is too hedged, commit to one option." Claude rewrites the Artifact in place and keeps earlier iterations, so you can flip back with the version selector in the artifact window if a change goes wrong. Stay in one chat; starting a new chat for each revision loses the Artifact.
For a targeted change, highlight the exact text in the memo Artifact, click "Edit with Claude," and type what you want; Claude rewrites just that passage in place, so you do not have to describe where it sits. You cannot type directly into the Artifact, so for a stray typo it is often faster to fix it in your own editor after export.
If the memo runs long, tell Claude to cut it to two pages rather than trimming word by word yourself.
Copy or download the memo, then read the recommendation once more and ask whether you would defend that exact call in a room. The memo builds the case; you still make and own the decision.
Save this version as the template you reuse next cycle.
Pick one real decision you owe someone this week, something with two to four live options and a deadline. Before you open Claude, write it as a single time-bound sentence and list your actual context as raw bullets.
Then, in Claude's free tier, paste both with the "use only my facts, mark unknowns as needs verification" rule and have Claude generate a two-page decision memo as a document Artifact: decision-first, an options table with a do-nothing baseline, a committed recommendation with its key assumption, and the top three risks. Iterate in the same chat until it fits two pages and reads like your judgment.
A two-page decision memo on a real call, decision-first with an options table and top risks, drafted in Claude from your one-line brief and edited into your own judgment.
Module 02: Run a sourced market scan with Perplexity Deep Research (Perplexity, 16 min)
Free gets you this starter lesson today. Pro unlocks the full 13-module path when checkout opens, no card and no charge until then.
New here? The free 2-minute assessment reads your role and gaps, then matches you to the right path. Get your score