Supercharge brainstorming by AI

Introduction

Brainstorming can be significantly enhanced by using AI tools to efficiently generate, organize, and evaluate a wide range of ideas. This includes:

• Idea generation: AI can prolifically generate diverse and unconventional ideas, sparking creativity and pushing beyond initial limitations.

• Idea organization: AI can intelligently categorize, map connections, and visually represent ideas, providing clarity and structure to the brainstorming process.

• Idea evaluation: AI can assess the viability, value, and relevance of ideas, helping to identify which ones hold the most promise for further development.

Start small

No more brainstorming in big rooms with teams around a whiteboard. You can spark ideas anytime, anywhere, just you and your AI companion. let’s talk about how to craft impactful prompts that unlock the full potential of web interface AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Bing Copilot. Consider these steps:

1. Define Your Objective: Establish a clear and specific goal for your brainstorming session.

2. Enrich the Context: Feed background information. Describe your target audience, brand values, existing concepts, and any other relevant details.

3. Decompose the Goal: Break down the main objective into manageable sub-tasks. If necessary, outline a step-by-step roadmap for the AI to follow.

4. Exemplify Desired Outputs: Offer a few well-chosen examples of the outcomes you seek in each category.

5. Embrace Unconventional Thinking: Beyond the tried-and-true, encourage the AI to explore the realm of the unexpected.

6. Refine through Iteration: Approach the process as an iterative journey. Continuously refine your prompts through an ongoing dialogue with the AI by providing constructive feedback.

7. Specify the Deliverables: Clearly define the desired format for the AI's output and next steps.

Embrace the exploration, experiment with different prompts, and enjoy the collaborative journey of unlocking your creative potential through the power of AI.

Example:

You are a highly experienced and creative product manager with the ability to come up with fresh and different ideas for a credit card from a large US bank targeting Gen Z. I want you to provide 3 unexpected new functional ideas about {Buy Now Pay Later for the credit card}.

These ideas should not use the typical consumer finance product or copy what other banks or Fintech are doing. Please present your ideas using markdown and bullet points, giving each idea a title and then describing the idea in one sentence.

Once you have given me your ideas, I want you to ask me if I would like you to modify any of them. Stop and wait for my response.

If I select one of the ideas, I want you to expand on it by writing the following sections: title, one sentence description, one paragraph promotional copy for website and social media, what are the unique selling points of the idea. {Title}:

Go further by leveraging commercial applications

There are commercial AI-powered brainstorming tools built on top of large AI models with better user-ability, improved ideas organization like mind mapping, as well as evaluation. Tools can make the ideation process even more effective among teams, while integrating with other apps like Jira, Slack, and Figma once an idea moves forward. This white paper from Edrawmind provides a good comparison of five tools. (Note: The author is not affiliated with Edrawmind or any of the companies mentioned in this white paper and does not have a commercial relationship with any of them.)

Final thought

You as a product manager, can think AI as an augment to your role instead of replacement. let's define your role and AI's role in the ideation process. In the case of web-based Generative AI prompting, you will be responsible for defining the goals and objectives of a new product or function, providing context, outlining desired outputs, and evaluating ideas. Meanwhile, AI will generate initial concepts and refine them based on your feedback.

Author

Sherman Jiang, a product leader with a proven track record of success at Fortune 500 companies like Visa, HSBC, and Synchrony and honed expertise in Silicon Valley’s fast-paced tech scene. My passion lies in empowering payment and fintech companies through the power of Agile and AI augment. I specialize in engagement of team transformations, product strategy, product discovery, product development, and go-to-market execution. I’m also enthusiastic about how generative AI can make product managers better.

Reference

Deeplearning.ai - Generative AI for everyone course / Tips for prompting

AI Prompts for Productivity from Dave Birss - Good prompts examples

https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-use-chatgpt-brainstorm-ai/ - Tips for prompting

https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.11430 - A framework of level of details in prompting