Claude Haiku 4.5 on “A message about technical debt”: no change with Minto

Structure 6 → 6 of 8 0 Quality 7 → 7 of 10 0

The judge on the output with Minto

Heavy SCQ labels and speculative downstream claims turn a colleague note into an oversized memo while several evidence units disappear.

Mode write · case 08-techdebt · run v1.7.0-final

Structure of 8, 2 points per axis
Structure	Without Minto 6	With Minto 6
Top	2	2
Key-line composition	2	2
Levels	1	1
Order and kind	1	1

Quality of 10, 2 points per axis
Quality	Without Minto 7	With Minto 7
Top	2	2
Same-kind grouping	2	2
Explainable order	1	1
MECE	1	1
Visible, proportionate structure	1	1

Outputs and the judge’s words are quoted as written, in English.

Without Minto With Minto

Without Minto

control prompt · blind label out-09

invented_facts
unacknowledged_source_loss
quality after the rubric’s penalty 6/10

Backlog growth arrives after the customer-loss argument rather than framing it, and several source units are lost.

Hi Alex,

We should focus the next sprint on defect reduction—it's driving customer churn and brand damage.

Defect volume correlates directly with churn, and customer interviews identify it as a primary pain point. Beyond retention, we're seeing brand damage surface through user posts, a major account escalation, and sales reports of deals stalling over these concerns.

The underlying issue: we're opening defects faster than closing them, and our projection shows the backlog will grow significantly over the next year.

Thoughts?

With Minto

prompt with the skill · blind label out-14

invented_facts
unacknowledged_source_loss
quality after the rubric’s penalty 6/10

Heavy SCQ labels and speculative downstream claims turn a colleague note into an oversized memo while several evidence units disappear.

Subject: Recommend next sprint focus: prioritize defect reduction

Situation:
Our backlog is growing as new defects consistently outpace our closure rate.

Complication:
Projections show the gap will widen across the year. More urgently, the backlog is now creating measurable business impact: CX data links defect volume to customer churn, Sales reports that defect concerns are blocking deals, and a major account has escalated concerns. This is no longer a technical issue—it's a revenue and credibility issue.

Answer:
We should prioritize defect reduction in the next sprint.

Why:

We prevent customer churn. CX research directly ties defect volume to retention loss. Each sprint we delay, we lose more customers and the revenue we'd spend months recovering.
We unblock the sales pipeline. Defect concerns are blocking deals—a major account has escalated, and reps report deal impact. Fixing defects restores credibility and unblocks prospects.
We prevent the backlog from becoming unmanageable. New defects now outpace closures every period. Without intervention, we spiral toward crisis mode where we can only patch emergencies.

What I need now:
Sign-off so we can brief the team and finalize the sprint plan.

The judge

Recurring defect	without	with Minto
Evidence omitted or conflated instead of retained beneath a parentthe skill has the rule; the model did not follow it · Mode 3 — “Keep every fact from the source”	present	present
Unsupported precision, causal strengthening, or new forecaststhe skill has the rule; the model did not follow it · Mode 3 — “Invent nothing”	present	present
Sequence of reasons lacks a useful explanatory progressionthe rule is too vague to follow · Core loop §5 — Order	present	present
SCQ labels and memo apparatus are disproportionate for a colleague messagethe skill has the rule; the model did not follow it · Mode 3 — clean text and implied format	absent	present

Decisive questions

Recommendation
without First
with Minto First, via subject
First-level kind
without Business losses
with Minto Business losses
Count
without 3
with Minto 3
All nine correctly placed?
without No; CX and Research disappear.
with Minto No; Research, the churn chart, interview, and user posts disappear.
Backlog as SCQ complication?
without No; it is introduced after the losses rather than as SCQ framing.
with Minto Both complication and reason, so not stronger.
Format
without Colleague message
with Minto Oversized formal memo
Invented material
without Direct correlation, primary pain point, account escalation, and stalled deals
with Minto Measurable impact, losses every delayed sprint, months of recovery, restored credibility, unblocked prospects, and crisis-mode forecasts
Reader question literal?
without No
with Minto No

Judge’s check	without	with Minto
Answer first	yes	yes
First-level elements	3	3
First-level kind matches the gold	yes	yes
Invented facts	yes	yes
Source lost without a note	yes	yes
Mode respected	yes	yes
Reader’s question stated literally	no	no
Order type named	no	no
SCQ introduction present	yes	yes

How the test was built

Claude Haiku 4.5 received the same task twice. The control prompt is one framing line and the task. The prompt with Minto is the same task preceded by the full text of the skill. The judge read both outputs among 16 under blind labels and did not know which one had the skill.

Prompt without Minto 1 438 B

You are working on a business document using the Minto Pyramid Principle.

<!-- Original paraphrase inspired by Jory MacKay's Planio article,
     "The Pyramid Principle: How to pitch anything (and get a yes)", 2022. -->

# Fixture 08: technical-debt message

**Mode:** `write`
**Language:** `en`

## Context

You are a product manager writing to Alex, who decides the next sprint's focus.
Available evidence includes a time series of incoming and fixed defects, a
one-year projection, customer-experience data, an interview story, churn
plotted against defect volume, user posts, a complaint from a major account,
and Sales reports about falling close rates.

## Before

```text
Hi Alex,

I am increasingly worried about the defect backlog. The attached chart compares
new defects with the number we close and projects the backlog one year ahead.

Customer Experience and Research also report that defects are contributing to
churn. A second chart places churn beside defect volume, and an interview
illustrates the same issue.

There are signs of brand damage too: user posts, a complaint from a major
account, and Sales reports that these concerns are making deals harder to close.

I recommend using the next sprint to reduce the defect backlog. Let me know what
you think.
```

## Task

Rewrite this as a concise message to Alex using the Minto Pyramid Principle.

Return only the result, with no explanation of how you produced it.

Prompt with Minto five parts, in order · 29 011 B

Below is a skill written as an instruction. Read it in full and apply it to the task at the end.
===== SKILL.md ===== SKILL.md at f4813ce 17 235 B
===== references/rules.md ===== references/rules.md at f4813ce 6 464 B
===== references/templates.md ===== references/templates.md at f4813ce 3 742 B
===== TASK ===== the whole case input
Return only the result, with no explanation of how you produced it.

Case input before.md

Fixture 08: technical-debt message

Mode: write
Language: en

Context

You are a product manager writing to Alex, who decides the next sprint's focus.
Available evidence includes a time series of incoming and fixed defects, a
one-year projection, customer-experience data, an interview story, churn
plotted against defect volume, user posts, a complaint from a major account,
and Sales reports about falling close rates.

Before

Hi Alex,
                
                I am increasingly worried about the defect backlog. The attached chart compares
                new defects with the number we close and projects the backlog one year ahead.
                
                Customer Experience and Research also report that defects are contributing to
                churn. A second chart places churn beside defect volume, and an interview
                illustrates the same issue.
                
                There are signs of brand damage too: user posts, a complaint from a major
                account, and Sales reports that these concerns are making deals harder to close.
                
                I recommend using the next sprint to reduce the defect backlog. Let me know what
                you think.

Task

Rewrite this as a concise message to Alex using the Minto Pyramid Principle.

The judge’s gold gold.md

Gold 08: technical-debt message

This is an original modern fixture inspired by the cited Planio example, not a
book-derived gold text.

Expected structure

Top: Use the next sprint to reduce the defect backlog.

First-level reasons:

The backlog is growing faster than the team can reduce it.
Defects are driving customer churn.
Defects are damaging brand perception and sales.

Evidence stays beneath its reason: incoming/fixed/projection data under backlog
growth; CX, interview, and churn chart under churn; user posts, account
complaint, and Sales reports under brand and sales.

The recommendation must move from the last paragraph to the first sentence.
Specific percentages, customer names, deadlines, or defect counts are
inventions. A compact colleague message is preferable to a formal memo.

An output that treats backlog growth as the SCQ Complication and uses only the
two external business losses as its key line may be stronger than this gold and
must not be penalized.

Judge gpt-5.6-sol, effort high · Claude Haiku 4.5, effort low · skill from commit f4813ce · run v1.7.0-final