# Give your troop work that it can finish

> Give work in a message or as a task, and write a brief that a teammate can finish with no guesses.

You give work to your troop in a message or as a task. This page tells which way to use, and how to write a brief
that a teammate can finish with no guesses.

## Choose a message or a task

| You want to                                                                   | Use                                          | What happens                                                                  |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Ask a question, get a quick result, or let the troop decide who does the work | A message to the Chief of Staff              | It answers, or makes a task and hands it to the teammate whose job it is.     |
| Give a job to one teammate that you know                                      | A message to that teammate                   | It answers in its chat. The first real piece of work becomes a task.          |
| Ask the whole troop, with people in the same thread                           | The troop chat                               | The teammates that you @mention answer in the thread.                         |
| Plan work, set a date, or follow it on the board                              | **New task**                                 | The task waits in **To do** for its teammate, or in the backlog for a person. |
| Ship a change to your own app                                                 | A ticket on the **Engineering** tab of Tasks | The Engineer takes it through Analyze, Plan, Build, Test and Release.         |

Each job of a teammate lives on a task, whichever way it starts. Comments on the task steer the work. See
[Track work on Tasks and projects](/docs/tasks).

## Send a message

1. On **Home**, type in the message box. Or open the chat of a teammate in the sidebar.
2. Say the goal, the result that you want, and where to find what it needs.
3. Select **Send**.

The teammate answers in its chat. While it works, its face moves, and a line says what it does now. See
[Chat with a teammate and call it](/docs/chat).

## Make a task

1. Open **Tasks** and select **New task**. Or press the action in ⌘K.
2. Type the title in **What needs doing?**.
3. Add the brief: the goal, what done looks like, and anything to use.
4. Pick **Assign to**: a teammate, a person, or **The lead decides**.
5. Set the **Priority**, the due date, the project and the parent task if you need them.
6. Select **Create task**, or press Cmd with Enter.

A task for a teammate starts in **To do**, and the teammate starts at once. A task for a person or for nobody waits in
the backlog.

## Write a brief that comes back right

A teammate does what the brief says, with what the brief names. A good brief has these parts:

| Part                 | Example                                                                                   |
| -------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| The goal             | "Get 10 cafes in Lisbon to try our pastries."                                             |
| What done looks like | "A list of 10 cafes with their owner's email, and a first email for each one, as drafts." |
| What to use          | "Use our price list in Docs, and the tone of the Voice file."                             |
| What not to do       | "Do not write to cafes that we already serve. They are on the list Customers."            |
| When                 | "By Friday."                                                                              |

- Name the docs, lists and pages to use. Link a doc with # in the box.
- Say the format: a doc, a list, a draft, a table, a short answer.
- Say the size: "3 options", "one page", "10 leads".
- Put one job in one brief. Give a big job to the Chief of Staff: it splits the job into sub-tasks.

> [!TIP]
> A message that starts with /name asks the teammate to use that skill, such as /x-article. Type / at the start of the
> box to see the skills of the teammate. See [Add and manage skills](/docs/skills).

## Give the teammate what to read

The button **Add a doc, task or interview to read** adds things for the teammate to read with the message:

- docs, interviews and research reports
- tasks
- canvases and CRM lists
- files: text, PDF and Word. Troopy keeps them in the brain, where everyone in the workspace finds them.

A teammate gets only what its tools can read. A teammate with no tool for the CRM does not get a list.

## What happens next

- When the teammate needs a person, it asks on the task, and the question waits in **Needs you**.
- When a call needs a yes, such as an email or a post, the approval waits in **Needs you**.
- When the work is done, the task goes to **In review**. You read the result, then mark it done or send it back.
- What a finished task taught the teammate can come back as a lesson to approve. See
  [Add and manage skills](/docs/skills).

## Related

- [Answer what needs you](/docs/needs-you)
- [Track work on Tasks and projects](/docs/tasks)
- [Talk in the troop chat](/docs/troop-chat)
- [Hire and manage teammates](/docs/teammates)