Post-workshop guide
The workshop introduced several tools and ideas at once. This page turns them into practical next steps for research administrators, software and data teams, institutional leaders, and mixed working groups that need a realistic first pilot.
Audience paths
Choose something people already do by hand: sponsor notices, subawards, compliance checks, routing summaries, or internal review prep.
Start with a single CSV, reporting workflow, or schema problem before you design anything more ambitious.
The strongest leadership move is not a broad AI mandate. It is funding a small, reviewable pilot with a named owner and a clear decision point.
Cross-functional teams can get traction faster by pairing a workflow owner, a data or technical partner, and a sponsor who can decide what happens next.
Pilot ideas
Choose one document category that already creates repeated manual work and use the workshop's evaluation mindset to test whether the output is ready for use.
Promptulus and the slide activities can become a short internal training session that uses your own prompts, examples, and evaluation rules.
Data Crawler Carl is a lightweight way to test whether natural language exploration helps your team ask better questions before you commit to a larger analytics build.
If your main challenge is scattered data and fragile reporting, the fastest progress may come from shared models, traceability, and clearer review rules rather than another new tool.
Resource map
Start here when the problem is document review, extraction, sponsor guidance, or another workflow that already depends on careful human reading.
Start here when your team needs a shared language for prompt design before you talk about automation or procurement.
Start here when you want a low-friction demo that turns one CSV into an exploratory conversation about questions, limits, and evidence.
Start here when the real issue is inconsistent institutional data, unclear definitions, or reporting logic that does not scale across units.
Start here when the team wants real prompt examples, schemas, and workflow patterns that can be adapted instead of invented from scratch.
Start here when you need a broader story, more examples, or a way to keep the conversation going after the pilot is scoped.
30-day plan
Pick a small, annoying, repeatable task. If the problem is too broad to explain in one paragraph, it is too broad for the first pilot.
Collect the actual documents, source tables, definitions, and human review criteria that make the workflow trustworthy.
Test the workflow with a small sample, compare outputs to an authoritative source, and document where the system fails.
Use the automate, augment, or leave-alone decision rule. Keep only the work that is auditable, useful, and appropriate for the stakes.
Keep the scope healthy
Start with one workflow, one owner, one source of truth, and one review loop. If that works, you will have something real to scale.
