A Week with ChatGPT

Introduction

Thanks for stopping by for a read! This article will outline how I've used ChatGPT over the past week with an evaluation of five use cases, and you should be able to read it in ~5-6 minutes.

TL;DR:

I used ChatGPT for 5 different tasks over the past week, including recalling information from a book, creating poll questions for a meeting, refining language for program outcomes, structuring a project assessment, and generating ideas for a LinkedIn article. From these examples, I've found the pros of using ChatGPT include saving time and mental energy, providing detailed information quickly, and generating useful outputs. The cons include the need for refinement and multiple queries to get the desired output.

Out of the 5 use cases I cover below, ChatGPT would recommend reading the third topic - here's what it had to say:

This topic is relevant to a broad audience and can benefit professionals across various industries... [and] the use case provided in this topic shows how AI can assist in generating relevant outcomes, saving time and mental energy. It also highlights the importance of using tools like ChatGPT to streamline work processes and improve outcomes. - ChatGPT

1. Recalling Information from a Book

Do you ever remember reading something extremely useful in a book, only to forget the specifics of what it was? I find myself guilty of this far too often. In this specific instance, I used ChatGPT to fish for the information I knew was in Brene Brown’s “Dare to Lead."

As a Technical Program Manager, I lead a team of Project Managers. One initiative we're tackling is "meeting hygiene," and I knew I had read about some great meeting practices that I wanted to introduce to the team in "Dare to Lead."

Examples

After a few queries with ChatGPT, I was able to:

• gather the various meeting purposes Brene covers, i.e. decision-making, brainstorming, problem-solving, feedback, team building, reviewing
• generate short elaborations on these meeting purposes

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• I found detailed information on what I was looking for in a couple of minutes
• I would not have had the initiative to open up my copy of the book and scour its pages to find what I was looking for; now I have a personal connection with this proposal instead of using a generic page from a Google search
• ChatGPT provided enough context in the answer to my initial question that I knew how to frame my follow-up questions to hone in on what I wanted to know

Cons:

• It took a number of requests and refinement to a) realize what I was looking for and b) get the information I wanted

2. Creating Poll Questions for a Meeting

I am organizing an All Hands meeting for my program next week. My organization uses Google Meet, which has a built-in polling feature for attendees.

Examples

With some knowledge of how Google Meet's Poll feature worked, I was able to:

• ?generate a list of poll questions that could assess the meeting's relevance to the audience, whether the meeting provided the audience with the information they were looking for, etc
• provide a variety of answer options for the audience to select from for each question

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• This saved me a lot of mental energy (and time) from having to start from a blank slate
• The results were nearly complete, with minor grooming and troubleshooting in Google Meet

Cons:

• I had to build upon a few queries to get the final output I was looking for

3. Refining Language for Program Outcomes

One of my responsibilities is leading program roadmapping. My organization has adopted a planning process that focuses on outcomes (particularly over outputs). This is a new practice for myself and many on my team, and drafting outcomes with the right language has proven quite difficult for those of us on the left side of the learning curve. After receiving feedback from colleagues across the program, it was clear that we should combine two of the proposed outcomes into one.

Examples

By asking ChatGPT to help with this consolidation I was able to:

• generate a relevant outcome for my roadmap

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• It was essentially a copy-and-paste request
• It was as good as or better than an outcome I would have been able to draft

Cons:

• Required some minor refinement

4. Structuring a Project Assessment

The product that I am a Product Manager for uses Jira, a powerful project management tool for developers, for the product's change control and development work. We would like to migrate the content of the Jira instance that we are using (think tasks, bugs, and issues for product development), and we found a promising vendor to do so through an RFP. However, a team in my organization has raised their hand to take this on. A lot is at stake in the space I work in, and I'll need to evaluate each option and drive alignment to ensure we make the right choice.

Examples

I gave ChatGPT some of my initial thoughts on the situation and the options we have for the Jira migration and I was able to:

• Generate a pre-filled table to help me assess and communicate an internal versus external approach to the migration
• Additionally, I was able to create a background paragraph for the document I'll be using for alignment

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• This took me a few minutes, and I had a solid outline to help support my strategy for the next steps
• Pre-filling the table was something I didn't expect, and it used my initial input to draft the content

Cons:

• ChatGPT took a lot of liberties when filling out the table and required some review and edits to get it to a more accurate state

5. Helping me with this Post ??

Obviously, I couldn't write this article without using ChatGPT to help.

Examples

Over the course of writing this article, I used ChatGPT to:

• Understand users' reading speed and calculate the estimated reading time
• Giving me its recommended use case to highlight and a quote about why it is preferable
• Provide a TL;DR for the article

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Obvious versatility in functionality

Cons:

• There was some prompt engineering required
• Asking for a conclusion regurgitated the original TL;DR
• Asking for a reading time calculation when having one stated in the article prevented ChatGPT from delivering its own assessment

Conclusion

AI tools like ChatGPT have their pros and cons, and I believe they will revolutionize how we work. From my experience, it takes time to learn how to use these tools effectively. But once you hone that skill, you can unlock a lot of potential in your day to day. I am excited for the future of AI, and I can't wait to test out other tools and watch these technologies evolve over the coming years!