Negotiation Prompt Lab
Prepare for the conversation that matters.
Choose a route, copy the next prompt, and build a stronger plan in your approved AI assistant.
Choose the route that fits your situation; the prompts will help you challenge assumptions and decide what to do next.
Foundation | Paste once per negotiation
Set the Working Contract and the Living Canvas
This is the operating layer. It tells the AI how to be a useful negotiation partner rather than an articulate form-filler: ask in small batches, make uncertainty visible, challenge weak thinking, protect ethics and confidentiality, and preserve a living record.
- 6 modes
- 4 questions maximum
- Facts vs assumptions
- Constructive challenge
- Periodic synthesis
Full plan stage 1 | strategic context
Frame the Decision, the Time, and the Dependencies
Start above the deal. Define what is actually being negotiated, what kind of relationship it sits inside, which decisions are already made, what remains negotiable, and how time changes the picture for both sides.
- One-off vs relationship
- External change
- Time value
- Dependencies
- Decision required
Full plan stage 2 | the human system
Map People, Authority, Power, Emotion, and Trust
Negotiations happen through people and decision systems. This module maps both sides: decision-makers, influencers, blockers, implementers, internal alignment needs, cultural context, perceived power, emotional risk, face, and the full SCARF diagnostic.
- Internal alignment
- Authority
- Power
- Emotion & face
- SCARF
- Trust
Full plan stage 3 | beneath the ask
Diagnose Positions, Interests, Pressures, and Perceptions
Separate what each side says it wants from why it may matter, what pressure may sit underneath, how each party sees the situation, and which beliefs are merely hypotheses to test.
- Positions vs interests
- Underlying pressure
- Perception gap
- Evidence test
- Shared vs conflict
Full plan stage 4 | protection and leverage
Build Alternatives, Boundaries, and Timing Resilience
Make the alternatives credible. Build and strengthen your BATNA; assess theirs as a hypothesis; distinguish aspiration, target, reservation, walk-away, and approval gates; then see what time and changing conditions do to each one.
- Our BATNA
- Their likely BATNA
- Aspiration
- Walk-away
- Approval gates
- Timing leverage
Full plan stage 5 | trade-storm
Map the Full Issue Universe Before You Trade
Make the deal larger than the loudest demand. Identify every negotiable variable and sort it into shared interests, compatible differences, direct conflicts, conditional issues, low-cost/high-value possibilities, and non-tradables.
- Issue inventory
- Priorities
- Conflict types
- Tradeability
- Non-tradables
- Unknowns
Full plan stage 6 | value design
Build Trades, Contingencies, Packages, and Concessions
Turn priorities into moves. Link issues, make genuine "yes, if..." proposals, build contingencies, deliberately enlarge or narrow scope, create three comparable offers where evidence allows, and plan what gives only in return for something that matters.
- Yes, if...
- Contingencies
- MESOs
- Scope design
- Sweeteners
- Concession tapering
Full plan stage 7 | shape the path
Design the Conversation: Give, Get, Guard, and the Route to Agreement
Turn strategy into a conversation that works at the table. Plan the opening, agenda, process, question sequence, information sharing, information protection, criteria, status-quo cost, future value, responses to tactics, and decision gates.
- Opening agenda
- Give / Get / Guard
- Criteria
- Status quo
- Future value
- Tactics
Full plan stage 8 | failure before failure
Run the Pre-mortem and Red-Team the Plan
Assume the negotiation or resulting deal has failed. Work backward through decision quality, authority, interests, timing, human dynamics, offers, process, ethics, and implementation - then convert the risks into early signals, prevention, owners, and contingency actions.
- Prospective hindsight
- Blind spots
- Early warning
- Owners
- Implementation risk
- Red team
Practice | choose a hard moment
Rehearse the Counterpart, the Objection, or the Impasse
Practise under grounded pressure. The AI takes a plausible counterpart role using only the plan's facts and visible hypotheses, asks difficult questions, protects interests, and gives short coaching after each response.
- Role-play
- Realistic pressure
- Ethical tactics
- Listening
- Concession discipline
- Coaching
After the conversation | learn at speed
Debrief the Reality, Then Reset the Plan
Before the story hardens, capture what happened, what it may mean, what shifted in leverage and relationship, what was committed, and what needs to happen next. The system updates the canvas rather than pretending the earlier plan still fits.
- Observation vs story
- Commitments
- Leverage delta
- Relationship signals
- Owners & dates
Synthesis | the usable field document
Export the Complete Negotiation Field Brief
When the work is ready, turn the entire living canvas into a concise, decision-ready document. This is the full output specified by the source architecture - not a generic summary.
- One-page map
- Stakeholder map
- Trades & offers
- BATNA & limits
- Ten questions
- Next actions