Predict and prevent problems with ChatGPT

PLUS: organise your work chaos, automatically

Author

Martin Slaney
February 28th, 2023

Hey there đź‘‹

Here’s what you’ll learn today:

  • how to use ChatGPT to predict and prevent problems that could occur with a new feature or product launch

  • how to organise your work chaos

  • the one company that can radically transform product design

  • and lots more 👇

đź’¬ PROMPT USE CASE: RUN A PRE MORTEM

You’ve probably heard of the post mortem concept in product development? In all the companies I've worked for, whenever a launch encountered issues, an initiative failed to meet expectations, or we experienced unacceptable system downtime, we conducted a post mortem.

As time went by, I definitely saw the value of these post-mortems, as they provided valuable insights into what went wrong and how we could have improved. Then it dawned on me that we shouldn't have to wait until things go wrong to conduct these evaluations! Rather, we could benefit from extracting insights beforehand.

That’s where the concept of a pre mortem comes in. It’s a way to proactively spot major problems ahead of time, leading to calmer launches, psychological safety in expressing concerns and a boost in morale.

Here’s the best prompt I’ve found to provide additional ideas when running a pre mortem with your team:

Imagine this product feature that we are working on - a way to show users of our banking app how sustainable their purchases are - has failed six months from now. Now, let's work backwards from there and ask ourselves what went wrong, what could have contributed to this utter failure?

Generate a long list of hypothetical failed outcomes, and include black swans. Classify these into 3 categories:

1) Poison - seriously problematic things that could be really harmful to the product or the project;

2) Allergy - something that some people could perceive as a threat but that's not unilaterally obvious;

3) Virus - the elephant in the room that no one really talks about but could be a silent killer.

Then suggest some mitigating actions which could be taken for the Poisons and Viruses.

And here’s the output from ChatGPT, which I find incredibly powerful:

Hypothetical Failed Outcomes:

  • The data used to calculate the sustainability of purchases is inaccurate, leading to incorrect calculations and misleading information.

  • Users do not understand how to use the sustainability feature, causing frustration and a lack of adoption.

  • Users do not trust the sustainability feature, feeling that it is biased or not accurate.

  • The sustainability feature slows down the app, causing frustration and a decrease in usage.

  • The sustainability feature causes bugs and glitches in the app, making it unusable for some users.

  • The sustainability feature is not properly integrated with the rest of the app, making it difficult to use and understand.

  • The sustainability feature is not properly marketed or advertised, causing low awareness and adoption rates.

  • Virus: A major competitor releases a similar, but better-designed and more user-friendly sustainability feature that steals users from our banking app.

  • Virus: A major regulatory change related to sustainability reporting requirements forces the app to drastically change its sustainability feature, leading to confusion and frustration among users.

Classification:

  • Poison: 1, 4, 5

  • Allergy: 2, 3, 6, 7

  • Virus: 8, 9

Mitigating Actions:

Poison: Regularly check and update the data used in the feature, optimize the code to reduce the impact on the app's speed and stability.

Allergy: Develop clear and simple instructions for using the sustainability feature, provide clear and transparent information about how the calculations are made, conduct user research to understand and address any trust issues or misconceptions about the feature, integrate the feature more closely with the rest of the app's design and user experience, develop a marketing and awareness campaign to promote the feature and its benefits.

Virus:

For Virus 8: Keep an eye on competitors and their features, constantly innovate and improve the sustainability feature, conduct regular user research to understand how to improve the feature and how to differentiate it from competitors.

For Virus 9: Stay up-to-date with any regulatory changes related to sustainability reporting, proactively communicate with users about any changes to the feature and provide clear instructions on how to use it under the new regulations.

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đź“° NEWS AND GOOD GREAT READS

“There's one company that's sitting on a hidden mountain of data that could radically change the way products are designed. The rest are likely vaporware or toys.” Link

“Snapchat is releasing its own AI chatbot powered by ChatGPT.” Link

“Tech’s hottest new job: AI whisperer. No coding required.” Link

👀 Look out for Sunday’s AI Audit.

AI Audit - an analysis of AI opportunities for a well-known product.

Each week, in addition to the weekday newsletter like this one, I’ll put myself in the shoes of a product team, ideate the generative AI opportunities and prioritise what I think would add the most value to the customers. If you have any suggestions for products you’d like covered, hit reply and let me know!

Thanks, and happy prompting,

Martin - Chief Prompt Officer

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