Q: How can you use ChatGPT in strategic planning?
A: Think of ChatGPT as your assistant! You can use ChatGPT to easily streamline some of your basic-level tasks, like synthesizing data, creating tables or outlines, and even asking it for simple market data or competitive analysis.
Using ChatGPT in your daily work can free up your time for deeper and more strategic thinking!
Great question! Here are a few of the best answers from our Strategy Collaborative Q&A Session!
ChatGPT, the AI tool for generative predictive text, has taken the world by storm as users discover innovative ways to integrate it into their work. It has gained recognition for its potential to automate tasks, synthesize and organize data, gather information and analysis, and facilitate creativity. Think of it as a junior assistant, freeing time for more in-depth content exploration and creativity.
Use #1: Automation of Basic Tasks
ChatGPT, and other generative predictive text models, are now widely used to automate tasks such as data organization. You can load a data set and ask it to create a table, chart, or other organizational means. You don’t need to spend hours inputting data into a readable table. You can also input meeting notes or agenda items into the application and ask it to create a summary report.
Use #2: Synthesizing Data
You can also use AI to extract themes and synthesize information at a higher level. In our Q & A example, we show how you can ask the AI tool to create high-level themes or summaries from a large data set. You can then take it further by asking it to organize the data into bullet points related to each theme and even write the themes as vision statements.
Even this article was written with the assistance of ChatGPT! We tasked it with organizing the transcript from this discussion and synthesizing it into a cohesive outline that our writers could expand upon into a comprehensive blog post.
Use #3: Assisting Your Plan Creation
ChatGPT is an incredibly useful assistant in strategic planning. For example, users can employ ChatGPT to generate a preliminary analysis of their organization using available content, create an overview of strengths and weaknesses, organize information into a SWOT analysis, and condense the information into an overall summary.
Users can even ask it to create a report on market trends or even conduct a competitive analysis.
However, we strongly recommend doing your due diligence with the information it provides, as it is limited in its training data and has been known to fabricate some of its responses.
Currently, it can’t search the web in real-time, so the only information it has access to is the data with which it was trained (up to September 2021). With a proper vetting process, it serves as an excellent starting point for research, organization, or conducting specific tasks for strategic planning.
Pro Tip:
When asking it to provide you with information sourced from the internet, be sure to double-check and find verifiable sources of information to ensure accurate and up-to-date information.
Facilitating Creativity and Inspiring New Ideas
One of the best use cases of ChatGPT is how it can help get one started on the writing process. It can be helpful to break through writer’s block by providing a starting point to build upon.
It can inspire fresh ideas by asking it to provide a paragraph based on a prompt or even asking it to provide you with an outline or a new way to phrase something. You can even ask it to play devil’s advocate and provide a different perspective.
Points to Consider
Despite its many advantages, users should bear in mind these points:
- Confirmation and Validation: While the application can generate a unique perspective quickly, users should confirm and refine the AI’s output.
- Learning Process: ChatGPT learns from each interaction, which enhances its ability to provide tailored outputs. However, it may require a period of interaction to understand a user’s needs better.
- NEVER share confidential information or data. AI is still a bit of uncharted territory regarding information ownership, so it is best never to share confidential information or data inside AI.
- Art of Prompt: The way a question is asked matters significantly. Users need to learn to phrase their prompts effectively to get the most suitable results.
Pro Tip:
An interesting experiment with ChatGPT could be to ask it to take on a role or persona as it writes, aka a marketing director or customer role. This can help strengthen the output of your question prompt. Check this tweet for more ideas and inspiration.
In conclusion, ChatGPT serves as a valuable tool for automating tasks, synthesizing data, assisting with strategic planning, and inspiring new ideas. However, the application has its challenges and users should approach the AI’s outputs with a critical eye for validation and refinement.
