AI Product Management Training Material
Module: Prompt Engineering for PMs
Overview
Prompt engineering is the craft of designing effective instructions for large language models (LLMs) to
produce high-quality outputs. For AI product managers, it’s a foundational skill to prototype, evaluate,
and ship features using LLMs.
1. What is Prompt Engineering and Why It Matters
• The process of structuring input (prompts) to guide LLM behavior
• Enables non-technical teams to influence model performance without retraining
• Crucial for designing user-facing AI interactions like chat, summarization, Q&A, etc.
• Impacts output quality, consistency, tone, and usefulness
PMs use prompting to: - Prototype features quickly - Validate ideas before engineering investment -
Tune UX and response quality
2. Anatomy of a Good Prompt
A well-designed prompt typically includes:
• Instructions: Clear command about what the model should do
*Example: "Summarize this article in three bullet points."
• Context: Background information or examples that help the model understand the task
*Example: "The article below is about healthcare policy."
• Output format guidance: Indicating structure, length, or tone
*Example: "Write in a formal tone suitable for executives."
• Examples (optional): Provide few-shot samples to prime the model
3. Prompt Patterns and Strategies
• Zero-shot: No examples provided — relies solely on clear instructions
• Few-shot: Include a few sample inputs/outputs to guide the model
• Chain-of-thought: Ask the model to reason step-by-step to improve accuracy
• Role-based: Instruct the model to “act as” a persona (e.g., "You are a product manager...")
• Multi-turn prompts: Guide conversations with follow-ups or corrections
Choosing the right pattern depends on complexity, ambiguity, and expected variability in output.
1
4. Prompting vs. Fine-tuning vs. RAG
Approach Use Case Pros Cons
Prototyping, UX Limited control over
Prompting Fast, no code needed
design output consistency
Domain-specific tone High accuracy & Costly, requires
Fine-tuning
or knowledge customization training data
RAG (Retrieval- Complex pipeline,
Knowledge grounding Combines up-to-date
Augmented requires infra
(FAQs, support, docs) info with LLM reasoning
Generation) support
PMs should understand trade-offs to make build-vs-buy and model design decisions.
5. Tools for Prompt Design & Testing
• OpenAI Playground – Test prompts interactively with GPT models
• Claude Console – Explore prompt variations and temperature controls
• PromptHero – Browse public prompt examples and templates
• LangChain Hub – Test prompts as part of agent workflows
• Prompt Engineering Notebooks – Use Python/Jupyter to test prompts programmatically
Tip: Track prompt revisions and performance just like code changes.
6. Evaluating Prompt Performance
• Relevance: Does the response align with user goals?
• Consistency: Does it behave similarly across sessions or phrasing changes?
• Hallucination Rate: Are the outputs grounded and accurate?
• Fluency: Is the tone, grammar, and structure polished?
• Latency: Is the response fast enough for the use case?
Use structured testing and real-user feedback to iterate.
Next Step: Practice designing prompts for 3 tasks relevant to your product. Use OpenAI or Claude
Playground to compare prompt formats and track performance.
