In the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, the art and science of prompt engineering has become a critical skill. This field focuses on designing and refining prompts to guide AI systems, particularly language models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, to generate desired outputs. Integrating Agile methodologies into prompt engineering can enhance efficiency, adaptability, and collaboration. Here’s how to do it effectively. Understanding Prompt Engineering Prompt engineering involves creating inputs that elicit specific responses from AI systems. This process requires understanding the model’s capabilities, iterating on prompt designs, and fine-tuning outputs for accuracy and relevance. It’s a blend of creativity, technical skill, and an understanding of natural language processing (NLP) nuances. Applying Agile Principles to Prompt Engineering In the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, the art and science of prompt engineering has become a critical skill. This field focuses on designing and refining prompts to guide AI systems, particularly language models like OpenAI’s…
Many companies handle projects for customers particularly efficiently and very well. The focus is on the customer and the service quality is excellent. In addition to projects for customers, companies also carry out internal projects. However, in contrast to customer projects, these are often very chaotic. It is true to the motto: outside Hui – inside ugh. Staff units do not know what to do, internal projects are delayed up to 12 months or have stood still for years and nothing is moving. At the same time, however, external projects are still being carried out very successfully. The question now arises: What can agile program management look like internally? How can I be just as successful internally as externally. In the following I would like to explain my idea and also show how the projects can be monitored (controlling) in a meaningful way. I assume that internal projects are always…
Micromanagement, bad ideas and strange behavior characterize the management in your company? Unfortunately, you are often not alone in this. Often in the course of my consultancy career I have seen managers who almost had a reputation as circus clowns before the workforce. If the name of the manager is mentioned, one only experiences a mischievous smile from the employees. It is sometimes surprising that companies are successful despite these managers. For this purpose, I had employees tell me in various telephone calls through interviews how such managers are shielded. I would like to show you the shielding of managers in a funny way in the form of a case study and then give you tips for solving the scenario. The following story is of course completely exaggerated and I use typical clichés. Reading tip: Case study: Scrum in a corporation A funny story: the top management and the shielding…
Spotify is on everyone’s lips with an agile model made up of squads. Squads are loose groups that have a specific purpose and work in an agile manner. Each squad has an elected squad leader who represents the interests of the team. The squadlead is a “weak” professional leadership role – in my experience, technical knowledge is very important. He is an escalation authority and reports to a TribeLead, Teamlead or department head. All squads have a full IT infrastructure to work autonomously. In the course of my role as a consultant to the board of directors, I worked out a model for a company to sensibly establish squads in the company with both classic hierarchies and agile departments. Of course, an agile coach can now say: It is not intended that way – but agile concepts always apply to the current situation – and that is often the classic…
How do I check if someone is driving properly in the fog? In the same way, you can currently imagine your job as a project manager, manager or department head in times of Corona. For a long time I have been accompanying managers in times of complexity through my advice and consultation hours. Especially at higher management levels, it is important to assess managers quickly and correctly. Imagine: when a manager does not seem to agree on a job and has been approaching a project or organizational development incorrectly or not at all for months. Not only his performance incl. Salary does not generate any benefit, but also the team with often up to 20 employees. High costs in the case of misjudgments by executives I would like to start with a concrete example: I recently had my telephone consultation again and the following happened: A department head had a…
“The only constant in the universe is this change . “( Heraclitus of Ephesus). Team and department structures change regularly, especially in companies. Be it in agile Scrum organizations or Spotify models (Squads). But how can such changes be simplified in such a way that the organization can almost always renew and change itself? The problem is that, especially in agile organizations, changes represent chaos for management and the HR department (self-organization -> HR department loses track of things) and are often almost impossible in classic organizations due to the sheer number of regulations. So how can an organization change itself in a self-learning manner and this in coordination with management and HR? In this article I will only devote myself to the organizational structure. Of course, you still have to anchor processes and culture in a meaningful way. I have the following reading tips for this: Changes according to…
Agility is defined as the ability of a company to react quickly and flexibly to changing market conditions, if possible in real time (cf. agile-unternehmen.de ). The implementation of agility can take place, for example, through agile methods. These are, among other things, specific processes and meeting formats that can make companies more agile according to the definition mentioned. Agility has been very popular for 5 years and the term has even been “burned” in some companies. Nobody can hear the sentence “We are doing it agile” there! Reasons for negative attachment to agility But what can be the reason? Why do meeting participants smile when the word becomes agile or why do employees maliciously turn away as soon as agility appears in a sentence? The reason is that agility is often used as an excuse to blur the lack of methodology or the non-compliance with deadlines. You hear sentences…
Companies grow year after year – German SMEs and medium-sized companies in particular can do one thing best: grow! It is precisely this growth that offers employees great opportunities, such as management positions or other rather special career paths such as lateral entrances. It was precisely these opportunities that made me enthusiastic about SMEs and so far I have only worked in SMEs. I saw a lot of growth there and was always happy to be part of this company and to contribute to its growth. But I also noticed that companies can break down when they grow. “The numbers are great, but it is no longer so exciting to work there.”, Employees told me. I noticed that different crises can arise depending on the growth. In this article I will show you what these are and how an SME can cope with them. Tip: The model is based on…
For many years I have dealt with agility as a form of my doctoral thesis. Of course, I’m not the only one who deals with it. A large team of sociologists at FAU has been working at FAU for 3 years on agile project work and which factors are important in the implementation in terms of good work. There is a free final brochure for this project, which you can download. It is a non-commercial project. Download the final brochure structure There are almost 120 pages with over 10 exciting articles on agile work. The articles are from experts from Ver.di, T-Systems and renowned universities such as FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. The topics are agile scaling project work, leadership for good work, models of agile work and a self-check as well as virtual good work. content In the following I can summarize some aspects of the project. For more information, see the…
COVID-19 forces us all to work from home and moves us to do many of the usual activities online. From visits to the authorities to shopping and continuing education, new opportunities are booming on the Internet. Vocational training, which is currently not taking place or hardly taking place in the form of face-to-face courses, is particularly affected. Especially in times of job insecurity due to a possible economic crisis, you should keep yourself particularly fit and develop new skills. A good alternative to face-to-face courses is video training that takes place online. The company: die.agilen gave me a taste of a video training session and I would like to try it out for you. At the end of the article, I’ll give you a summary of the training and the general suitability of video training for professional development. I have to admit that I was also very classy in this…