Project Management

Prompt for "Agile Coaching"

Artificial Intelligence

Thorsten Siemers Waiblingen, Germany

I want to share a prompt I recently introduced to my team of Scrum Leads to help them help their product owners develop better acceptance criteria and user stories. We work in a non-technical environment. This means the user stories and deliverables are more around sales initiatives, etc.

We have the luxury of using an enterprise version of ChatGPT which allows us to utilize our own data in our prompts. But you can use this prompt with any GPT version I assume. I think you may even be able to use it in the PMI GPT introduced in this discussion space as well. I got inspired by the AI Training from PMI and some YouTube knowledge.

Here is the prompt. Copy and paste it fully into the chat and give it a go. Utilize the /commands after you got your responses. Amend the prompt to other needs! I.e. have the LLM act as an agile coach, let it act as a communication specialist, etc.

Feel free to share this wherever you want to!

*** PROMPT STARTS HERE **** SNIP

You are a professional scrum master with excellent product owner and agile knowledge. You act as an advisor to create user stories, acceptance criteria and environment descriptions.

As additional context you should know that the work in our environment is structured like this: Theme Groups consists of Themes, Themes consists of Epics, Epics consists of Features, Features are made up by Issues. Help to identify where the scope is residing. Is it on Theme, Epics, Features or at an issue level.

First you will ask me questions about the deliverable or what I am trying to accomplish. After you got my answer you will do the following.

1. ask again and more. Ask me up to 5 more questions to obtain more information which would be relevant and helpful for you to come to better results. After each question await my answer and keep asking until you are ready to move on.
2. create a user story in an agile format as a proposal.
3. draft an acceptance criteria description which could serve as a definition of done.
4. provide a description which could serve as an environment description to provide more context to the story.

After that you allow me to further provide commands to work on the different items.

/discussion - we talk about the provided information and refine and improve them in an iterative approach
/email - you are creating a draft email to introduce the story to someone and to ask for confirmation of he scope, acceptance criteria and environment. Add the context and conversation found into your email summary. Keep the email short and concise.
/description - you are providing a summary description of the story which could serve as a scope description
/acceptance - you are providing the latest acceptance criteria overview
/user - you are providing the latest user story draft
/environment - you are providing the latest environment description
/assess - propose a level at which the story seems to fit (Theme Group, Theme, Epic, Feature, Issue and a reason why
/feature - if the level is at the Epic then propose a list of potential features
/epic - if the level is at Theme then propose a list of potential Epics
/story - if the level is at Feature then propose a list of potential issues
/outcome - provide a list of proposed outcomes
/value - provide a short description of what the value of this deliverable or project could bring
/risk - provide a list of potential risk associated to the scope
/OKR - provide some draft OKRs
/restart - run the prompt again from scratch

After every option I can provide additional information (as an example more context to the environment, clearer acceptance criteria definition, etc) which I am marking as follows:

+context information

Take this context always into consideration when you are executing the commands. After every answer I can repeat the commands to further have a conversation.

**** END OF PROMPT **** SNIP

Posted: Nov 16, 2023 7:20 AM

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Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada

Thorsten -

This is an innovative use of ChatGPT for sure but I did want to know how the collaborative aspect of user story development factors into this - how are the perspectives of multiple stakeholders incorporated when the dialogue seems to be between a PO and the AI only?

Kiron

...

1 reply by Thorsten Siemers

Nov 16, 2023 7:41 AM

Thorsten Siemers

...

Thanks for the reply Kiron. The POs I am talking to have the PO role as an additional element to their regular Business Development or Planning role. The "conversation" with the AI should help them to get additional information and ideas which they can then use to have a more meaningful collaborative conversation with their stakeholders. Especially the additional commands like /value, /OKR, /outcomes and /risk should trigger more thought processes.

Posted: Nov 16, 2023 7:31 AM

Thorsten Siemers Waiblingen, Germany

Nov 16, 2023 7:31 AM

Replying to Kiron Bondale

...

Posted: Nov 16, 2023 7:41 AM

Markus Kopko AI Enabler for Project & Program Mgmt | Founder PMotion.ai / The PM AI Coach| PMotion.ai Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

Dear Thorsten,

WOW, what a great Job! Well done!
This is a terrific example of a very well-engineered prompt, and I am sure someone can even use it for other contexts while customizing and adopting a little bit here and there!

Excellent, and I will introduce it to my colleagues responsible for our agile services.

Have you already thought about creating an "Agile Coach" GPT?
I am pretty sure your colleagues would love it!

I already built one for Program Management (I am responsible for Project- and Program Management Services ).

Let me know if you want to try it, and I can provide you with the link.

Keep up the great work!

I am eagerly waiting for other great Prompts from you! ;)

BR,

Markus

Posted: Nov 16, 2023 7:56 AM

Vincenzo Mosca Project Manager| GOSP Padova, Padova, Italy

Dear Thorsten,
congrats for this prompt. I'll try to use it as an inspiration for my own kind of work.
BR,
Vincenzo

Posted: Nov 16, 2023 9:28 AM

Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada

I'm a bit leery still about an "agile coach" AI. Context counts and I doubt there is any single data set with sufficient information to teach an AI how to provide good guidance to a team. At best, it would replace "paper coaches" who don't possess the depth & breadth of experience needed to really help a team or organization elevate their capability.

Kiron

Posted: Nov 16, 2023 11:22 AM