You have an intern starting Monday. You want them to feel ownership. The note you send says they can pick anything interesting. They spend the week trying to guess what you actually wanted, and they are right to. "Anything" from a manager is a test they cannot pass.
A project choice is a decision with a small list. Two options is kindness. Five is a catalogue.
Two projects that are actually startable
For each one, four lines:
- What exists on day one — a repo, a doc, a person.
- What "done" looks like in a month, in a sentence they could put on a résumé.
- What they will learn that the other option does not teach.
- Who they ask when they are stuck.
If you cannot write those four, the project is not a choice yet. It is an idea. Interns cannot start ideas. They can start work that has a door.
Write it for a cold reader. They do not have your map of the org. They do not know that "the billing repo" is a poisoned well, or that Dana answers in ten minutes. Put the routing in the note.
Recommend, and say what would flip it
"I recommend the export cleanup. It ships, it is sized for one person, and you will see production. I would flip to the research spike if you already know you want a systems-heavy loop and you are fine with a month that may not land in the product."
A recommendation is not taking the choice away. It is giving them a position to accept or refuse. The reply is the point: a sentence from them, in their words, that you can both point at later when the project gets hard.
Default so week one has a start
"If I have not heard by Tuesday 15:00 UTC I will put you on the export cleanup and we can talk about a rotation in week four." Waiting for a perfect preference is how Monday becomes Thursday.
They can write this back from email and a page if they have no account yet. Receiving needs nothing installed. If they later sign in with an emailed code, a new thread needs an accepted contact. The one they already answered can continue.
You approve what you send. Their assistant, if they connect one, should see a briefing, not a paste of your morning chat. No attachments; link the repos.
If you already talked the two projects through, connect your assistant and have it write the four lines for each while you still remember why you like them.