The buzz around AI is undeniable, and at Everest, we see its potential on two fronts: externally, building AI-powered products for clients, and internally, revolutionising how we work. This guide focuses on the latter, specifically how conversational AIs can supercharge your productivity and output as a product manager, business analyst, or designer.

AI’s Impact on Product and Design Practices

AI is transforming the way we work. While AI design tools are evolving rapidly, this guide focuses on how conversational AIs, like chatbots, can significantly boost our speed and quality. We’ll explore how to use them strategically to save time and, more importantly, achieve outcomes we previously couldn’t due to time constraints.

Key Areas Where AI Shines for Design, Product and BA

There are many ways AI can improve your workflow. These are only a few examples to start with, the more you use AI the more you’ll understand how to make the most of it. For practical reasons, I’ll divide them into two blocks: How to work better with others and how to define better products.

01. WORKING BETTER TOGETHER

• 01 Communication: Improve clarity and conciseness, while tailor messages to specific audiences and channels.
• 02 User Stories: Write faster, more complete, and consistent stories with clear acceptance criteria.
• 03 Meetings and Workshops: Optimise agendas, take notes, and generate follow-up actions.

02. A BETTER PRODUCT PROCESS

• 04 Research: Analyse data, summarise findings, and identify trends.
• 05 Synthesis: Organise information, create frameworks and develop insights.
• 06 Ideation: Generate ideas, brainstorm solutions, and explore different perspectives.
• 07 Content Creation: Draft emails, presentations, reports, and even visual representations.

The Power of Context

Providing clear context is crucial for getting the most out of AI. The more specific your prompts, the better the results. Consider including the following in your prompts:

• Your Role: Specify your role, such as “product manager,” “UX designer,” or “business analyst.”. You can also explore other perspectives ;)
• Context: Describe the project type, company size, industry, or any other relevant details.
• Audience: Identify who you’re communicating with, whether it’s team members, clients, or stakeholders.
• Channel: Indicate the communication channel, such as email, presentation, Slack message, or social media post.
• Desired Outcome: Specify the goal of your communication, such as clarity, engagement, persuasion, or information sharing.
• Structure of the Output: If applicable, provide the desired format or structure for the AI’s response, such as bullet points, a table, or a specific outline.

Example Prompts:

• “As a product manager, write a concise email to the development team outlining the key features for the upcoming sprint (include raw data).”
• “I’m a UX designer. Create a presentation slide deck highlighting the user research findings for a new mobile app to present to the business stakeholders.”
• “Act as a business analyst. Generate a list of potential risks and mitigation strategies for this project launch (specify project).”
  
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01 WORKING BETTER TOGETHER
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01.1 Improve Your Communication

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Achieve clarity and tailor communications better to your audience and goals.

AI can be a real game-changer for your communication, ensuring your messages are not only clear and correct but also perfectly tailored to different audiences and channels. It’s like having a communication expert on hand, helping you craft everything from casual Slack updates to formal emails and project summaries.

Imagine effortlessly transforming rough meeting notes into polished Slack updates for your team, a formal email for stakeholders, and a concise Notion update, all with just a few prompts. Let’s explore how AI can revolutionize your communication workflow.

Enhanced Writing Skills:

• Grammar and Style Correction: Gemini can review your written communication, suggesting improvements in grammar, punctuation, and style to ensure clarity and professionalism.
• Conciseness and Clarity: It can help you refine your writing, removing unnecessary jargon or complexity and ensuring your messages are easily understandable.
• Tone and Voice: Gemini can provide feedback on your writing’s tone and voice, helping you adapt it to different channels and audiences.

Tailoring Communications to Audiences:

• Channel-Specific Adaptation: Gemini can assist you in customising your communication for different channels like email, presentations, or social media, considering each channel’s unique characteristics.
• Audience-Specific Adaptation: It can help you tailor your language and messaging to resonate with specific audiences, considering factors like their knowledge level, interests, and preferences.

Help for Structure and Content:

• Ideas and Outlines: Gemini can generate ideas and outlines for different types of communication, helping you overcome writer’s block and structure your thoughts effectively.
• Templates and Examples: It can provide templates and examples of various communication formats.
• Content Expansion and Rewriting: Expand or rewrite existing content, adapting it for different purposes or audiences.
• Visual Representations and Infographics: Transform your ideas into captivating visuals. Simply describe your concept, provide context, and explore a variety of visualisation options — from infographics to charts and diagrams.

01.2 Faster and Better User Stories

Accelerate and Enhance Story Writing with AI

AI is a massive ally when it comes to writing clear, concise, and valuable user stories. It can help streamline your process and improve the quality of your stories in several ways:

• Consistency: Create and reuse templates with defined tone and voice to ensure a consistent style across all your user stories.
• Completeness: Include acceptance criteria and apply frameworks (like INVEST) to make sure your stories are well-defined and ready for development.
• Identify Blind Spots: AI can help surface potential issues or missing considerations that you might have overlooked, leading to more comprehensive stories.
• Prioritise Effectively: Identify the MVP and prioritise features based on value to ensure you’re focusing on the most impactful work first.
• Structure and Scope: Refine and structure your user stories for clarity and avoid scope creep by explicitly instructing the AI to not add any additional features or requirements.
• Apply Best Practices: AI can assist in applying industry best practices and suggesting improvements to your user stories.
• Accessibility: Ensure your user stories consider accessibility needs by explicitly prompting the AI to address this aspect.
• Reuse and Save: Maintain a repository of your AI-generated user stories for future reference and easy adaptation.

But remember: While AI is a powerful tool, always review the generated stories. Make sure they accurately reflect your requirements and don’t inadvertently introduce additional scope.

By leveraging AI and following these tips, you can significantly enhance the speed and quality of your user story-writing process. This allows your team to focus on delivering value to your users faster and more efficiently.

01.3 More effective Meetings and Workshops

Make the Most of Your Meetings and Workshops

AI can be your secret weapon for planning, executing, and following up on effective meetings and workshops. Let’s dive in:

Prepare Better Meetings:

• Suggest improved meeting formats: Get recommendations on the best format for your meeting depending on the situation and your goals, whether it’s a brainstorming session, a decision-making meeting, or a progress update.
• Prepare meeting content and pre-reads: Have AI help you craft agendas, discussion points, and pre-read materials to ensure everyone comes prepared.
• Craft clear meeting descriptions and goals: Get assistance in writing concise and informative meeting descriptions that clearly outline the purpose and desired outcomes.

Organise Better Workshops:

• Suggest suitable workshop techniques and structures: Get recommendations on the best workshop formats and activities based on your audience and objectives.
• Design engaging activities: Tailor activities to various audiences, whether online or using Miro boards, with AI’s help.
• Receive recommendations from proven frameworks: Leverage AI’s knowledge of established workshop frameworks to enhance your design.
• Discover effective icebreaker activities: Get creative ideas to kick off your workshop and foster a collaborative atmosphere.
• Communicate workshop goals and activities clearly: Generate clear and concise descriptions of workshop goals and activities to set expectations.
• Generate workshop materials and content: Create materials and content for your workshops with AI’s support.

Follow Up from Meetings/Workshops:

• Generating Meeting Syntheses: Provide AI with meeting notes, transcripts, or recordings, even bulk pastes from Miro boards. Get concise summaries highlighting key points, action items, and thematic groupings tailored to specific stakeholders or goals.
• Adapting Communication for Different Channels and Stakeholders: Specify your target audience and communication channel, and let AI adjust the language, tone, and visuals accordingly.
• Generate action items: Extract tasks, deadlines, and notes from your meetings and workshops to ensure follow-through.

Example Prompts

• “Suggest an engaging icebreaker activity for a virtual workshop with a team of 10 designers.”
• “Generate a concise summary of this meeting transcript, highlighting key decisions and action items.”
• “Rewrite these meeting notes into a professional email for the client, focusing on project progress and next steps.”

By incorporating AI into your meeting and workshop processes, you’ll save time, boost engagement, and achieve better outcomes.

02 A BETTER PRODUCT PROCESS
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02.1 Using AI to streamline your research

Research is crucial, but often overlooked. As a product or design specialist, you know research is key to informed decision-making. However, with limited time and often being the only one on your team in your discipline, it can be challenging to conduct comprehensive research and avoid blind spots or personal biases. This is where AI can become your invaluable research companion, not only saving time but also significantly enhancing the quality of your work by opening up your thinking to diverse perspectives in no time.

1. Create Competitor Analysis

Gain a comprehensive understanding of the competitive landscape and identify exemplars in the industry.

Prompt example: “Analyse the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of our top 3 competitors.”

2. Apply Proven Frameworks

Utilise established models to structure your analysis.

Prompt example: “Use the SWOT analysis framework to evaluate our current market position.”

3. Create Artificial Users and Test Ideas With Them

Simulate user interactions to gain insights and validate concepts.

Prompt example: “Develop 3 user personas for our new fitness app and outline how they would interact with its key features.”

4. Ask for the Opinion of Different Types of Experts

Obtain diverse perspectives to ensure a well-rounded approach.

Prompt example: “Gather feedback from a UX designer, a software engineer, and a marketing specialist on this concept (explain concept/functionalities)”

5. Identify Assumptions

Make a comprehensive list of assumptions and probe for your possible blind spots

Prompt example: “What are the main assumptions I may be making in concept X?”

6. Explore Best Practices

Identify and learn from successful strategies implemented by others.

Prompt example: “Research industry-leading approaches to customer retention in the e-commerce sector.”

7. Plan Research Projects

Design a structured approach to gather and analyse data effectively.

Prompt example: “Outline a research plan to understand customer satisfaction with our new product launch.”

8. Define Research Material

Identify the information required to achieve your research objectives.

Prompt example: “Create a research plan to evaluate our employee training program with the following goals (goals). Include the research activities considering, best quantitative and/or qualitative methods and define recruitment criteria for user research.”

9. Write Unbiased Discussion Guides

Structure conversations to elicit insightful and objective feedback.

Prompt example: “Create an unbiased discussion guide with the following goals (goals) for 1:1 interview to explore user preferences for a new mobile banking app.”

Prompt example: “Please review my discussion guide and improve it to remove biases”

02.2. Synthesis: Turning information into action

Synthesis is where raw data transforms into actionable insights. However, consolidating scattered information and presenting it clearly for decision-making can be time-consuming. AI can streamline this process, helping you not only identify key themes and patterns but also present the information in the most effective way for various audiences and objectives.

1. Fast-Track Synthesis and Insights from Miro Boards or Unstructured Data

Quickly extract valuable information from unstructured data sources.

Example prompt: “Analyse this Miro board and summarise the key themes and action items.”

2. Prepare Action oriented Reports and summaries

Organise and present information in a clear and structured format focusing on insights that drive action

Example prompt: “Generate a report focusing on the actionable insights from this synthesis report (copy full synthesis) optimised for the audience (xx)”

3. Extract Insights

Uncover hidden connections and valuable takeaways from the information.

Example prompt: “Identify the most significant trends and patterns in this data.”

4. Adapt for Diverse Audiences

Tailor communication to resonate with different groups.

Example prompt: “Summarise the key takeaways from the Miro board in a way that is easily understandable for non-technical stakeholders.”

5. Apply Frameworks

Leverage proven models to structure your analysis and derive actionable insights.

Example prompt: “Use the SWOT analysis framework to analyse the insights gathered from the Miro board.”

6. Best Practices

Continuously improve processes and leverage industry knowledge.

Example prompt: “Best practices in presenting information from research to executives.”

02.3 Ideation: Fuel creativity

Ideation is the lifeblood of our products, but sometimes, the creative well runs dry. AI can act as your brainstorming partner, helping you generate new ideas, explore different perspectives, and overcome creative blocks.

1. Apply frameworks and brainstorm

Leverage proven ideation techniques and structured approaches to stimulate creative thinking.

Example prompt: “Utilise the SCAMPER framework to generate new product ideas based on our existing offerings.”

2. Start from something

Use a starting point or problem statement to focus the ideation process.

Example prompt: “Begin with the concept of a ‘smart home device’ and brainstorm innovative features and functionalities.”

3. Divergent thinking (get many ideas)

Encourage free-flowing and expansive thinking to explore a wide range of possibilities.

Example prompt: “Generate as many ideas as possible for improving customer engagement on our social media platforms, without any limitations or constraints.”

4. Get Feedback from Target Audiences

Validate ideas with potential users to ensure they resonate and meet their needs. No, this doesn’t substitute at any point talking with real humans, but can give you at least some type of divergent thinking when you’re in a rush, or to contrast real research findings.

Example prompt: “Conduct focus groups with our target customer segment to gather their reactions and feedback on the proposed new service offering.”

5. Get Feedback from Ideas from Different Specialists

Seek diverse perspectives and expertise to evaluate and refine ideas. Again, doesn’t substitute talking with real people.

Example prompt: “Share the top 5 product concepts with business experts, venture capitalists, and other designers to gather their feedback and insights.”

6. Extra ball: Naming Brainstorming

Generate a variety of potential names that capture the essence of the product or service.

Example prompt: “Brainstorm creative and memorable names for our new product line, considering its target audience and key features.”

02.4 Content creation: Craft compelling narratives

The good news: Lorem ipsum is FINALLY DEAD!!

Whether it’s crafting a persuasive presentation, drafting engaging website copy, or developing informative case studies, AI can help you create content that resonates with your audience and achieves your communication goals.

1. Create Storytelling Adapted for Audience:

Shape narratives to resonate with specific audiences, considering their interests and expectations.

Example prompt: “Craft a compelling narrative about our company’s journey, highlighting key milestones and values, tailored for a presentation to potential investors.”

2. Create Structure for Presentations and Documents:

Organise content effectively to enhance clarity, comprehension, and engagement.

Example prompt: “Develop a clear and logical structure for a white paper on the future of artificial intelligence, ensuring a smooth flow of information and key takeaways.”

3. Develop from a Line a Full-Fleshed Content for a Website:

Build comprehensive content from concise ideas, crafting engaging and informative narratives.

Example prompt: “Expand the tagline ‘Innovation for a Sustainable Future’ into compelling website copy that showcases our company’s commitment to environmental responsibility.”

4. Case Studies Page:

Highlight real-world examples of success to demonstrate the value and impact of your products or services.

Example prompt: “Develop a case study showcasing how our software solution helped a client streamline their operations and achieve significant cost savings.”

Disclaimer. This article is 100% created from original content, compelled by the shared experience of the product specialist at Everest. We all use a mix of AI and traditional ways and our quality of work has improved notoriously, allowing us to do better in short time projects, enhancing our outputs and the way we communicate with each other. This is only about how we use simple chat AI capabilities, there are tools and AI tool integrations on top of this and maybe soon enough we will also share that.
AI helped me write this article by polishing the text and illustrating it with nice images (after a fair bit of iteration). Thanks, Gemini and Midjourney :)

Try this at home and integrate it your way into your process. Is completely worth it.

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