🏦 Commercial Bank Lab

Welcome to the immersion. You are a VP in a commercial bank preparing for a leadership review. You need to understand the business context, identify risks, review forecast trends, and create a short update for senior leaders.

What You'll Produce

By the end of this lab, you will have:

• ✅ A concise executive briefing grounded in relevant work content
• ✅ An analysis of revenue, expense, and margin trends in a forecast workbook
• ✅ A short leadership update focused on risks, decisions, and next steps

NOTE

The prompts are starting points. Replace bracketed text with your own topic, file, meeting, or audience. Keep prompts simple, review Copilot's sources, and validate important facts before using the output.

Activity 1 - Prepare for an Executive Review

Use Copilot Chat to create a short briefing for a leadership meeting.

Turn Findings into an Update

1. Open Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.
2. Use work mode if available.
3. Reference a relevant meeting, document, email thread, or topic.
4. Ask Copilot for a concise executive briefing.
5. Review the response and check any cited sources.

Start with this prompt

Prepare me for my next leadership review about [topic]. Summarize the key context, decisions needed, risks, and questions I should ask.

Refine the result

Make this briefing shorter and organize it into: Key Takeaway, Risks, Decisions Needed, and Next Steps.

TIP

Strong executive prompts make the decision or outcome explicit. Point Copilot to the most relevant sources and name the audience, format, and level of detail you need.

Activity 2 - Analyze a Forecast Workbook

Use Copilot in Excel to identify business trends and risks in a sample forecast workbook.

Get the workbook ready

1. Open the sample workbook at aka.ms/sampleExcel2.
2. Download the workbook to your device.
3. Upload or save the workbook to your OneDrive.
4. Open the OneDrive copy in Excel for the web or desktop Excel.
5. Confirm the data is formatted as a table.
6. Open Copilot in Excel.

Analyze the business

Ask Copilot to identify trends, risks, and recommended actions:

Analyze this workbook for an executive. Identify the biggest revenue, expense, and margin trends, and show the evidence for each.

Then investigate the highest-pressure areas:

Find the areas with the highest margin pressure. Summarize what is driving the issue and suggest three leadership actions.

Optionally, turn the analysis into an executive summary:

Create an executive summary of this forecast with the top three insights, risks to watch, and questions for the finance team.

IMPORTANT

Validate the numbers, calculations, and assumptions in the workbook before using the analysis to make or communicate a business decision.

Activity 3 - Draft a Leadership Update

Use Copilot in Word or Copilot Chat to turn your findings into a concise leadership update.

Steps

1. Open Word or stay in Copilot Chat.
2. Use the meeting briefing and forecast insights from Activities 1 and 2.
3. Draft a short update for a senior leadership audience.
4. Refine the tone and shorten the message.
5. Confirm that the final version is accurate and appropriate to share.

Draft the update

Draft a concise leadership update based on these findings. Use four sections: Progress, Risks, Decisions Needed, and Next Steps.

Make it executive-ready

Rewrite this for a senior executive audience. Make it shorter, clearer, and focused on decisions and next steps.

What Done Looks Like

Before using your final output, check:

• Are the facts accurate?
• Are the sources appropriate?
• Are risks and assumptions clearly labeled?
• Are decisions and next steps explicit?
• Is the message short enough for a senior audience?

A Simple Prompt Pattern

Use this structure to shape your own prompts:

Goal: [what you want]
Context: [why it matters and who the audience is]
Sources: [specific file, email, meeting, or workbook]
Expectations: [format, length, tone, and sections]

Lab Complete

You used Copilot across three connected executive workflows: prepare, analyze, and communicate.

What you practiced:

✅ Grounding in business context: You directed Copilot to the meetings, documents, messages, and data relevant to the decision.

✅ Moving from insight to action: You turned analysis into explicit risks, decisions, owners, and next steps.

Continue with the Executive Prompt Library to adapt these patterns to more leadership scenarios.