Prompt Hackathon [Facilitator Guide]
The most common question I get from senior leaders related to AI is - where do we start?
My advice is always the same - you need to light the fires of inspiration at the grass roots level across every team in your business - from HR to legal, from sales to R&D.
And one of the best ways of doing that is to give your people a safe space to learn how to create great prompts that would help them in the work they already do today.
This week I am pleased to publish the facilitator guide that I use to run prompt hackathons in my own clients, so that you can run them for your own teams.
You can access the facilitator guide for free, create a copy and then make it your own.
What is a hackathon?
In technology circles a hackathon is an event where a small group of people come together, in person, and over a short period of time (anything from a few hours to a weekend) ‘hack’ together a proof of concept or early version of a new product or feature.
By bringing people together, giving them a deadline and lots of pizza - amazing things happen and at the end, when the teams demo what they’ve built, you can see the inspiration and ideas flow around the room.
In our case we are not writing code - far from it.
We are writing prompts - instructions for an AI model. So no tech or AI experience is required - just an understanding of the job and an ability to write clear instructions.
I recommend a prompt hackathon of just two hours - but you could easily extend this to 3 or 4 hours for a half-day event that features more demo time and knowledge sharing.
Who is the facilitator guide for?
You do not need to be an AI expert to run these sessions - so you could be in a Learning and Development team, or you might be a manager who wants to inspire their direct reports.
The key is that you are enthusiastic about the business potential of AI, and can coordinate and communicate with a group of 10-15 people.
Pre-Hackathon Planning
In the facilitator guide I’ve shared with you an invite template to send to your target attendees.
I recommend you run these in groups of people from similar roles or functions. This way as the attendees discuss potential use cases and share their demos you will have cross-pollination of ideas. If you have different teams - a lawyer isn’t going to be able to learn too much from a facilities manager use case.
You’ll need to make a decision about what AI technology you are going to provide to your attendees. I provide you with three options and some pros and cons for each in the guide.
You’ll also find a pre-work survey to get your attendees thinking about their own work in the context of:
The processes they follow
The policies that guide their work
The templated that they use to create documents
Running the hackathon
The guide then walks you through step by step how to run your two hour session - including talk tracks and timings.
You are provided with the workshop activities plus templates for prioritising use cases and drafting prompts.
The main exercise in the hackathon is for the attendees to learn what makes an effective prompt and to draft one for a part of their current role.
That might be to automate of improve an existing process,
To help themselves or others understand how a policy effects their work,
To improve the quality of their work when using a template,
The teams will then review each prompt, provide feedback and suggestions before having time to refine and test before the final group demos.
Post Hackathon Follow-up
The hackathon is just the start of the journey. We want the attendees to take the prompts that they have built, along with those written by the other group members, and embed them in their work.
The guide gives you ideas for sharing prompts via an intranet page or Slack/Teams channel, as well as advice for follow up surveys and reporting on the successful adoption and usage of the prompts.
It is expected that you would re-run this hackathon team by team until the majority of your employees have been through it at least once.
This will allow you to build up a significant library of company and role-specific prompts that can be shared across the organisation.
This is the catalyst that you are looking for - your non-technical people starting to see AI as a co-worker, an assistant that they wouldn’t dream of attempting a task without.
Your feedback
I will be continuing to add more content to the facilitator guide, so do let me know what you feel is missing or difficult to understand.
Good luck and I hope you uncover some valuable use cases for AI in your organisation.
Get Started
Whenever you are ready there are three ways I can be helpful:
YouTube Channel: Subscribe for regular updates on AI developments
AI Adoption Accelerator: 12 week AI adoption program for companies
Kowalah: AI-powered buying platform for technology buying groups