TFF #018 - Your 6 Part Prompt Framework - Broken Down

Read Time - 3 Mins

Hello, and welcome to a another edition of the Tech for Finance Newsletter, where we’re looking at a 6 part prompt framework you can use to improve your results when prompting ChatGPT, or other similar Generative AI platforms.

The 6 Parts Are:

1/ The Context

2/ The Skill

3/ The Detail

4/ The Example

5/ The Instruction

6/ The Format

Why do we need to use these?

Due to the nature of Large Language Models. There is an infinite amount of responses that could be produced from a simple question.

Imagine all the fish in the sea.

Is the instruction “Find me a fish” useful?

No - It’s guesswork.

Is the instruction “Find me an edible fish” better?

Yes - As we’re narrowing down the pool.

Is the instruction “Find me an edible, pacific, white fish that goes well with chips” better still?

Bingo - We’ve found our cod.

In asking Generative AI poor questions, we’re letting it guess what we want. So we need to narrow down the responses to produce better results.

The parts in detail

1/ The Context

Used to frame the prompt and help ChatGPT understand it’s starting point.

Example - “You work in the finance team of a small retail business”

2/ The Skill

Used to outline the skills you’d like ChatGPT to employ in generating a response

Example - “Act as an expert financial controller”

3/ The Detail

Used to provide as much information as is necessary in enabling ChatGPT to carry out its response

Example - “You are tasked with building a month-end close schedule”

4/ The Example

Used to provide an example of the sort of response you’d like ChatGPT to give

Example - “Here are some example activities that must be included: {List activities}”

5/ The Instruction

Used to provide specific instructions on how ChatGPT is to use the information and examples you’ve given to provide the desired output.

Example - “Please provide a step by step process, including milestones, sub-tasks and dependencies for different team members.

6/ The Format

Used to tell ChatGPT how you want it to format the response e.g bullet points, list, table, step by step, code etc

Example - “Please output in table form”.

You don’t have to use every element from the above, but the more detail you can provide, the better the output.

A word of caution however - The free version of ChatGPT (with the 3.5 model) doesn’t respond as well to longer prompts as the paid version, ChatGPT Pro (that uses the GPT-4 model).

If the quality of your output isn’t great using the free version, try reducing the number of elements, and then continue the chat conversation to continue to refine your results.

That’s it for this week.

Look forward to catching up soon.

Adam

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Wanting more?

For a more detailed guide on how to use the above framework, make sure to join the waitlist for ‘The Ultimate GPT Framework for Finance: ChatGPT, AutoGPT & Beyond”

It includes:

Detailed guidance on how to use the 6 element framework
Example prompts and templates you can use to speed up your workflow
Guidance on when you should be using AutoGPT and what for
Instructions on how you can use ChatGPT + Python to auto-generate PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets
FREE tool recommendations
And much much more

Join the waitlist here.

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