Achieving intended outcomes – prompt engineering goals

Prompt engineering is most effective when approached as a goal-directed endeavor. Clearly defining the objectives and intended outcomes you want to achieve is an essential first step that informs every subsequent prompt design decision.

Before crafting your prompts, always start by asking yourself – what is the purpose of generating this content or executing this task? What would constitute success? Articulating concrete goals gives your prompt engineering efforts direction and enhances your ability to guide the LLM toward your desired results. Whether your aims are to generate text summaries, synthesize insights from data, suggest personalized recommendations, or anything else, anchoring your prompts in specific goals is key.

Prompt engineering applications serve different types of goals, as depicted in Figure 11.1.

Figure 11.1: Prompt goals

While thoughtful prompt engineering...