ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for those who know how to create prompts. The simplest form of prompting ChatGPT is to feed it the task and ask for results. However, this approach is unlikely to trigger the best response from the model.
Instead, invest more time in prompt engineering, and provide ChatGPT with a better context of the situation, desired outcomes, data, constraints, etc. The following article offers a primer to creating ChatGPT prompts for Scrum practitioners to get you started running. You will learn:
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I ran the session on ChatGPT on Thursday, April 6, 2023 from 13:45 pm CEST to 16:15 pm CEST on the model GPT-4. (This requires upgrading to ChatGPT Plus.) I did not apply Grammarly to ChatGPT’s answers.
Let us reduce time-to-value by starting with some simple, ready-to-go prompts for Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Developers that you can use out-of-the-box, that will simplify your life as an agile practitioner:
Prompt: “I want you to act as an experienced Scrum Master. Please [insert your task here.]”
Examples of tasks:
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Prompt: “I want you to act as an experienced Product Owner. Please [insert your task here.]”
Examples of tasks:
Prompt: “I want you to act as an experienced Developer. Please [insert your task here.]”
Examples of tasks:
The following advanced ChatGPT prompts comprise several elements:
Also, consider experimenting with labeling the different prompt sections; for example, with “Context,” “Goal,” or “Response Structure.”
Here are three examples of advanced ChatGPT prompts for Scrum practitioners:
An example of an advanced Scrum Master ChatGPT prompt:
I want you to act as a Scrum Master.
I will describe a conflict situation in a Scrum team. You will use your knowledge of teaching, coaching, mentoring, communication, and conflict resolution to provide me with suggestions on how to solve the conflict.
Your suggestions include surveys, talks, interviews, team meetings, games, exercises, or other parties like stakeholders or line managers, and other useful practices.
My first request is: Tension has been mounting among the members of your Scrum team for quite some time. The stakeholders have unrealistic expectations regarding future Increments and are dissatisfied with the team’s performance. The technology your Scrum team has built over time is increasingly less reliable, and technical debt is notably increasing. Shortly into this Sprint’s Retrospective, the team members start arguing loudly and passing blame.
How would you handle the situation?
Depending on the answer of the model, you may want to follow up with another prompt, for example:
An example of an advanced Product Owner ChatGPT prompt:
I want you to act as a Product Owner.
I will describe a conflict situation within the organization. Then, you will use your knowledge of product discovery, product management, innovation, collaboration, alignment, stakeholder management, expectation management, communication, and conflict resolution to provide me with suggestions on how to solve the conflict.
Your suggestions include surveys, talks, interviews, stakeholder meetings, training classes, educational offerings, exercises, workshops like user story mapping and value stream mapping, or including other parties like business analysts, subject matter experts, line managers, or c-level members, and other useful practices.
My first request is: "Your sales team sells non-existing features to customers to meet its quarterly quotas. They also agree on fixed delivery dates for these new features and accept contractual penalties in the case of non-delivery. However, at no time does the sales team reach out to you as a Product Owner in advance to align their need to meet sales quotas with the overall product strategy, roadmap, or current Product Goal. How would you handle this situation?"
Depending on the answer of the model, you may want to follow up with another prompt, for example:
An example of an advanced Developer ChatGPT prompt:
I want you to act as a Developer on a self-managing Scrum team, responsible for creating all Increments.
I will describe a conflict with your Scrum team’s Product Owner and some stakeholders. You will use your knowledge of programming, developing software, extreme programming, technical excellence, innovation, creating viable technology stacks, technological longevity, technical debt, quality assurance, quality management, Scrum, the importance of the Definition of Done, stakeholder management, collaboration, communication, and conflict resolution to provide me with suggestions on how to solve the conflict.
Your suggestions include discussions, surveys, talks, interviews, stakeholder meetings, workshops, exercises, or including other parties like subject matter experts, technology leaders, line managers, or C-level members, and other useful practices.
My first request is: “Your startup is running out of cash quickly. The organization would need to meet a product milestone to receive a new funding round from venture capital firms. However, meeting this funding requirement with the remaining runway would also mean abandoning the quality standard defined by your Scrum team’s Definition of Done. The stakeholders do not see it as a problem; they want to take the risk but not go out of business due to a lack of funds. Meeting the milestone is the only way for the startup to survive. On the other side, abandoning the Definition of Done violates the first principles of Scrum. How would you address the conflict?”
Depending on the answer of the model, you may want to follow up with another prompt, for example:
Or course, there are already services available that support prompt engineering. You start with your initial prompt, define some settings, and the service will return an improved prompt you can use for ChatGPT or other large language models (LLMs), large models (LMs). and LMOps.
As example for such a service, I used PromptPerfect for all following exercises:
Original prompt: I want you to act as an experienced Scrum Master. Please design a Retrospective.
PromptPerfect suggestion: As an experienced Scrum Master, your task is to design a retrospective for a team that has just completed a sprint. The retrospective should provide the team with an opportunity to reflect on their performance during the sprint and identify areas for improvement going forward. Please structure your retrospective around three key questions: What went well? What could have gone better? What will we do differently next time? Your retrospective should include specific activities or exercises that encourage open communication and constructive feedback among team members. You may also want to consider incorporating visual aids, such as charts or diagrams, to help illustrate key points. Finally, please provide clear instructions on how to facilitate the retrospective and any materials needed for each activity or exercise.
Original prompt: I want you to act as an experienced Scrum Master. Please help create a Definition of Done.
PromptPerfect suggestion: As an experienced Scrum Master, your task is to help create a Definition of Done for the project at hand. The Definition of Done should clearly outline the criteria that must be met in order for a product backlog item to be considered complete and ready for release. This includes factors such as functionality, quality, performance, and security. Your response should provide specific guidelines on what constitutes “done” for each aspect of the project, including any relevant metrics or tests that need to be passed. You should also encourage collaboration between team members to ensure that everyone understands and agrees with the Definition of Done. Please note that your response should be flexible enough to allow for various relevant and creative definitions based on the unique needs and goals of the project.
Of course, you can always use ChatGPT itself to make suggestions for working with ChatGPT. Ultimately, for this exercise, we want ChatGPT to create a Retrospective exercise:
Prompt: I want you to act as an experienced Scrum Master. You want to use ChatGPT to create a new Retrospective exercise. What prompts do you suggest a Scrum Master use to help ChatGPT create the best Retrospective workshop ever?
ChatGPT 4.0 Response:
As an experienced Scrum Master, I would suggest the following prompts to utilize ChatGPT for creating a highly engaging and effective Retrospective workshop:
These prompts can help a Scrum Master leverage ChatGPT's creative capabilities to design a Retrospective workshop that addresses various aspects of team performance, collaboration, and continuous improvement in an engaging and effective way.
Let’s take the next step in prompt engineering: I took the previous prompt, see above, and used PromptPerfect to improve it. Consequently, the new prompt now comprises several paragraphs:
Prompt by PromptPerfect:
As an experienced Scrum Master, your task is to collaborate with ChatGPT to create a new Retrospective exercise that will help improve team performance. Your prompts should focus on generating creative and innovative ideas for the retrospective workshop.
Please provide specific guidelines on what aspects of the project you would like to address in the retrospective, such as communication, collaboration, or productivity. Additionally, please suggest potential activities or exercises that could be used during the retrospective to encourage participation and engagement from all team members.
Your response should also include clear instructions on how to facilitate the retrospective exercise and ensure that it meets its objectives. Please highlight any potential challenges or issues that may arise during the retrospective and provide strategies for addressing them.
Overall, your goal is to work collaboratively with ChatGPT to develop a comprehensive and effective Retrospective exercise that will help improve team performance and promote continuous improvement.
Feeding the enhanced prompt to ChatGPT results in significantly more elaborate instructions on how to create ChatGPT prompts:
ChatGPT 4.0 Response:
To collaborate with ChatGPT to create an innovative Retrospective exercise that focuses on improving team performance, communication, and collaboration, consider using the following prompts:
Next, provide guidelines on specific aspects to address:
Suggested activities or exercises:
Instructions for facilitating the Retrospective exercise:
Potential challenges and strategies for addressing them:
By working collaboratively with ChatGPT, you can develop a comprehensive and effective Retrospective exercise that addresses the key aspects of team performance, communication, and collaboration, fostering continuous improvement.
Now that we have better understanding of what kind of ChatGPT prompts may support the generation of a Retrospective, let us run a simple test:
Follow-up prompt: Based on your last answer, please create a new Retrospective exercise.
ChatGPT 4.0 Response:
By conducting the Collaboration Constellation Retrospective exercise, you can facilitate open and honest conversations, address communication and collaboration challenges, and identify process improvements to enhance team performance.
Kudos, ChatGPT; this Retrospective exercise draft is a good outcome, given the prompting engineering effort for this exercise was less than 10 minutes.
I believe that ChatGPT and its competitors will become standard tools for many knowledge workers, Scrum people, and agile practitioners in general included. Consequently, honing your prompt engineering skills is an excellent investment. Hopefully, this article will entice you to explore the matter: Use it or fall behind — it won’t go away!
What prompt engineering techniques, hacks, and jailbreaks do you use for ChatGPT?
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Support your team’s efforts regarding ChatGPT prompts by pointing to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide:
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