What Are ChatGPT and Generative AI prompts?
ChatGPT and generative AI are types of artificial intelligence technology that answer questions and generate content. The user provides a prompt, and the AI generates results based on large-language models and internet search results.
Prompts can be questions, statements, commands, or instructions. The results will differ based on how the prompt is phrased and the specific directions it contains.
How ChatGPT and Generative AI Can Help Project Managers
Generative AI can save project managers time by simplifying tasks and generating fast results for all kinds of work, including project management. Below are some of the best use cases for generative AI for project managers:
- Generating and Filling Templates: Generative AI can create and fill templates for all kinds of uses, such as project plans, schedules, meeting agendas, communication plans, and more.
- Brainstorming and Organizing: Use AI to brainstorm ideas, then organize your thoughts into coherent content or lists.
- Writing Outlines and Drafts: ChatGPT is great for creating outlines and first drafts of written content for project updates, newsletters, blogs, speeches, and more.
- Summarizing: Generative AI can pull out and organize key data from dense meeting notes, project data, reports, and webinars.
- Translation: Generative AI can quickly translate text into different languages, which saves you time when providing materials to global team members or clients, or producing foreign language versions of your content.
- Iterations: AI can be used to test different kinds of messaging by simplifying and fleshing out copy, as well as changing the tone, adding examples, and more.
How to Write Project Management Prompts for Generative AI
Writing prompts for AI is a skill that you can learn and refine. When writing prompts for project management, give the AI instructions to think and respond like a project manager would, and be thorough in your instructions.
Ethan Mollick is an Associate Professor of Management at Wharton who specializes in innovation and AI. He outlined the process of creating successful AI prompts to produce better results on the first try. We’ve recreated the steps below from his findings to help you craft successful AI prompts for project management:
- Give the AI a Role: In order for the AI to create from the right perspective, tell it who or what it is (i.e., what its professional role is). State the job title and the type of company or projects it works on. Think of the role as the character you need the AI to play when crafting its response.
- Prompt the AI with Specific Expertise: Add the knowledge required for the AI to act in character for the prompt. If you would like it to have specific project management methodologies or certifications, list them. Tell the AI how much experience it should have in a given field or which experts to reference.
- Give the AI a Tone of Voice: Specify the voice you want it to respond in. Use words such as “academic” and “professional” if you would like a formal tone, or “friendly” and “natural” if you prefer a more casual response.
- State Your Goal: State the ultimate goal of the response. What are you trying to achieve? This can be anything from “create a project schedule” to “summarize these meeting notes” to “outline the steps of a software development project,” or any other concrete task. Let the AI know what you expect to gain with the prompt you are giving it.
- Give the AI a Task with Step-by-Step Instructions: Lay out the steps required to complete the prompt. List the results the response should include, and clearly define your expectations. Be very specific.
- Give Examples: Copy and paste or upload examples of the kind of results you want. Often, the more examples you provide, the better the output will be.
Pro Tip: ChatGPT-4 and Google Gemini both make it easy to upload images to your prompt using the + sign or image upload button near the prompt entry text field.
- State Any Constraints: Tell the AI what you don’t want it to do. If there are methodologies it should ignore or things it should exclude, list them.
- Define the Format for the Output: Provide specific details about the format or structure desired for the output, such as a paragraph form or a numbered list. Give it a word count or sentence limit, or ask it to respond in a list or in paragraphs.
Using the steps above, you can create your own prompt to receive results from a project management perspective. Using these steps, we generated an example of a prompt below and its output to create a project schedule using ChatGPT 3.5. To use it yourself, replace the text within the brackets in each section with relevant information to your own project needs and role requirements:
“You are an [experienced project manager] at a [large Fortune 100 tech company] that [specializes in B2B sales]. You have [10 years of experience and are certified by the Project Management Institute and are a Scrum Master]. Your tone is [professional and direct]. You are [managing a software development project] and need to [schedule milestones and deadlines]. [Create a project schedule for an app development project] that includes [a start and end date with milestones and deadlines based on the average time needed to complete each task]. These should include [time for research, ideation, testing, and execution]. An example [project timeline template is attached]. Do not include [time needed for monitoring results or task assignments]. The output for this task should be [easy to edit and read, in a table format, with dates].”
How to Write Project Management Prompts for AI Cheat Sheet
Download the How to Write Project Management Prompts for AI Cheat Sheet for Adobe PDF
Download and use this cheat sheet to save the steps to write successful AI prompts for project managers. Keep it handy and use it as a quick reference tool, or share it with your team to help them in their own work.
Tips for Writing AI Prompts
We have the tips to help you start writing AI prompts. With Linda Henry, who has been managing projects for more than 20 years, we’ve put together a list of best practices for writing and customizing AI prompts.
- Always Edit the Results: No tool is perfect, so always be sure to edit the results of generative AI. This will not only ensure there are no errors, but it will help make your writing sound more human as well.
- Give the AI a Role: Tell the AI who it is and what kind of expertise it has. It will use that information to generate better results. “Tell it who it is and what type of writing you need, give it a tone of voice and be very specific about the angle it should be using,” says Henry.
- Check the Facts: As with all research, be sure to fact-check any statistics or statements that the AI returns. “Sometimes you can ask the AI itself where it got certain facts or statements, and it will either give you the source or reveal its inaccuracy,” Henry advises.
- Don’t Worry About Length: Don’t be afraid to write a long prompt. Tell the AI everything it needs to know to do the job well, even if you include multiple paragraphs or long lists.
- Forget What You Know About Search Engines: AI tools use the language you use to gain context into your questions. “Prompt the AI like you’re talking to a person, not like you’re searching keywords on a search engine,” says Henry.
- Be Clear and Specific: The results of AI are only as good as the prompt, so tell it clearly and specifically what you want it to include. At the same time, if there are things you would like to leave out of your results, tell it that, too.
- Give Examples: AI tools can use examples as references to generate more relevant results. If you have an example that you like of the thing you are asking for, upload or link to it in your prompt.
- Customize Your Bot: ChatGPT can be customized to the user to give more personalized results. Press Crtl+Shift+I on a PC or Cmd+Shift+I on Mac to bring up the Customize ChatGPT window, and fill in the text box to create rules about the tone of voice, role, or types of responses you would like to see in your following responses.
- Use Complete Sentences: Don’t leave the AI guessing. “Create a project plan template” will give you much better results than just typing “project plan.”
- Experiment and Iterate: If the results aren’t quite what you were looking for, clarify ambiguities in your prompt as needed. “Play around with it,” says Henry. “If it doesn’t give me the results I want, I ask myself, ‘How can I ask this better?’ Sometimes all you need to do is tell it to ‘try again from this other perspective,’” Henry explains.
- Add Context: Give the AI as much context into your questions as you can. Include links to more information, and don’t use acronyms — spell out the whole words. Use keywords in your prompt as necessary to ensure your results are relevant.
- Specify the Format: Tell the AI what format you would like your results to take. Ask for your results in a table or list or as paragraphs. As generative AI improves, it will be able to handle additional formatting tasks.
- Be Patient: AI will not always get it right on the first try. Be patient when creating prompts and receiving results, and keep trying until you get the results you need.
- Check for Comprehension: If your results continue to be lacking, ask the AI if it understands what you want it to do. Its response can help tell you which part of your prompt it is having trouble with and help you tweak it for better understanding.
- Try Different Tools to Find Your Preference: As more and more AI tools become available, you might need to try a variety to determine the best one for your work. If an AI tool is not producing the results you would like, try a different one and see if the company offers any best practices for interacting with it. Google Gemini provides a guide to creating prompts for its tool. It suggests focusing on persona, task, content, and format when writing a prompt using its AI tool in Google Workspace.
ChatGPT Prompt Examples for Project Management Methodologies
Using the steps above, we’ve created examples of AI prompts for project managers based on various methodologies and phases of project management. Use these examples to craft your own prompts based on your experience and the needs of your team.
Agile Methodology AI Prompt Example
AI prompts for Agile project managers should establish the adaptability, collaboration, empathy, leadership, and facilitation skills required to be successful in the role, as in the prompt below:
You are an [experienced project manager] at a [midsize startup] that [owns and operates eleven coffee shops in Manhattan]. You have [an MBA in business and a Disciplined Agile Coach certification from the Project Management Institute]. Your tone is [clear, direct, empathetic, and adaptable]. You are [opening a new location] and need to [create a project plan]. [Create a project plan for a new coffee shop location] that includes [everything required from setting up the space to opening day]. This should include [a list of required purchases, a schedule for setting up the space, organizing, cleaning, and training employees, a marketing to-do list, and list of important contacts]. An example [project plan template is attached]. Do not include [time required for construction or build out]. The output for this task should be [easy to read and edit, in a table, or paragraph, or list format where necessary].
Critical Path Method (CPM) AI Prompt Example
AI prompts for project managers using the critical path method should emphasize the necessity for pre-planning and task sequencing to deliver projects within a strict time frame. The prompt should focus on deliverables and structured planning framed with an analytical approach, as seen below:
You are an [experienced construction project manager] at a [small agency] that [builds sets and props for tradeshows, plays, concerts, sporting events, and more]. You have [a deep understanding of the critical path method and structured planning]. Your tone is [clear, concise, direct, and analytical]. You are [building a large set for a new Broadway play] and need to [create a construction schedule and budget]. [Create a template] that includes [a detailed construction schedule over a 2 month period with time and budget estimates based on the average time and budget needed for similar projects of this scale using the critical path method]. This should include [time for design concepting and approvals, lead time for materials, time to build the sets, transportation to the venue, set up, and repairs and revisions ahead of opening night, as well as a section for notes]. An example [construction project plan template is attached]. Do not include [anything to do with the performance of the play, the actors, costumes, venue choice, or ticket sales]. The output for this task should be [easy to edit and read, with dates, over a 2 month period, in a table format with time estimations included].
This prompt will produce the template below, which can be customized to suit your needs:
Kanban AI Prompt Example
AI prompts for PMs using Kanban methodology should reflect the continuous nature of the work, as well as task prioritization and shorter project timelines. ChatGPT can generate a table-formatted Kanban template or help to prioritize tasks or tickets in a list using the prompt below:
You are an [experienced manager of a team of software engineers] at a [large tech company] that [provides software as a service]. You have [Kanban certification from the Management and Strategy Institute]. Your tone is [adaptable, positive, and empathetic, and you are focused on both the needs of the business and maintaining a realistic workload for your team]. You are [overseeing the launch of a new product feature] and need to [prioritize and assign customer service tickets to your team]. [Create a Kanban board template] that includes [space to track work to do, work in progress, and completed work, as well as who each task is assigned to]. An example [Kanban board template is attached]. Do not include [dates or time estimates]. The output for this task should be [in a table format, and easy to read and edit].
Lean Methodology AI Prompt Example
AI prompts for project managers using the Lean methodology should emphasize the need to minimize waste while maximizing value. Use phrases that are unique or critical to this methodology, such as “Just-in-Time production” and “continuous improvement,” or give the AI a role that includes certification in Lean methodologies.
You are an [experienced manager] at a [large international company] that [manufactures automobiles]. You have [30 years of experience in the industry and are a certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt]. Your tone is [diligent and organized, and you are focused on the big picture]. You are [starting a new product line] and need to [change an assembly line for the new product]. [Create a production schedule] that includes [every step required to change a product assembly line from one product to another]. This should include [a schedule of tasks, critical milestones, a risk management plan, and an estimate of the costs involved based on similar projects]. An example [project schedule is attached]. Do not include [time required for product development, marketing, or packaging]. The output for this task should be [a timeline, with tables or paragraphs where necessary].
Scrum Team AI Prompt Example
AI prompts for project managers who use Scrum should emphasize the flexibility required to be successful in the role. Be sure to use phrases that are unique to Scrum, and give the AI a high-level Scrum certification for best results, as demonstrated below:
You are a [project manager and Scrum Master] at a [large technology company] that [creates and maintains POS software for retail and restaurant businesses]. You have [a Professional Scrum Master III certification]. Your tone is [flexible, professional, and direct]. You are [rolling out a new version of your app] and need to [work through a task backlog that includes the final phase of development and testing]. [Create a template for a Scrum sprint planning template] that includes [all required tasks for a final round of development and testing before deployment] and a total sprint duration of [three weeks]. This should also include [a sprint backlog section and a list of upcoming, in-progress, and completed tasks, as well as a section to summarize the daily Scrum meeting]. An example [Scrum sprint planning template is attached]. Do not include [start and end dates]. The output for this task should be [a timeline with estimated durations of tasks and their priority, as well as a table to organize tasks by upcoming, in-progress, and completed status].
Six Sigma AI Prompt Example
AI prompts for Six Sigma should emphasize how the methodology uses data and statistical analysis to drive decision-making and problem solving. Use words and phrases that are relevant for Six Sigma, such as “focus on quality,” “customer-centric approach,” and “Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC),” or give the AI a role that includes certification in Six Sigma methodologies.
You are an [experienced project manager] at a [medium-sized company] that [provides customer support for healthcare organizations]. You have [a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification and 10 years of experience in healthcare administration]. Your tone is [warm, professional, empathetic, and understanding]. You are [training a new hire] and need to [create a training schedule]. [Create a training schedule for a new employee] that includes [two weeks of hands-on training in healthcare customer service based on findings and best practices from past successful employees]. This should include [time for learning healthcare terms and requirements, training on customer service and phone manners, sensitivity training, and training on insurance costs and communication]. An example [training template is attached]. Do not include [sections for notes]. The output for this task should be [in a list or table format, a timeline that spans two workweeks, filled with the learnings for each day and the number of hours for each].
Waterfall Methodology AI Prompt Example
AI prompts for project managers using the Waterfall methodology should focus on managing dependencies and the methodical progression of tasks. AI is great for generating task sequences and identifying dependencies in a list of tasks using a prompt like the one below:
You are an [experienced project manager] at a [large financial institution] that [operates in the government sector]. You have [a Project Management Professional certification from PMI]. Your tone is [methodical, analytical, and detail-oriented]. You are [in the process of approving a new loan for a government project] and need to [organize the steps required to ensure compliance]. [Create a work breakdown structure with a detailed task list with dependencies] that includes [all elements required to review and approve a government loan for a public works project in New York City]. These should include [up-to-date compliance requirements, all necessary documents for review, and reviews and sign-offs from all necessary parties]. An example [work breakdown structure template is attached]. Do not include [a Gantt chart]. The output for this task should be [a sequential task list with dependencies identified and highlighted].
ChatGPT Prompt Examples for Project Management Phases
You might find it useful to cater your AI prompts to the specific phase of a project you are in. AI can be used to generate project charters and plans, create task lists for execution or templates for monitoring progress, summarize meeting notes and create agendas, and more. We’ve provided an example of a prompt for each of the five phases of project management below.
Project Initiation AI Prompt Example
In the project initiation phase, managers are concerned with organizing project information and creating charters, plans, task lists, and more. AI can make these tasks simpler using a prompt such as the one below:
You are an [experienced Agile project manager] at a [small company] that [designs and sells clothing at boutique retail stores]. You have [15 years of experience in retail and fashion design]. Your tone is [casually professional]. You are [launching a new clothing line] and need to [set up an ad campaign to reach boutiques that might want to sell it]. [Create a project charter] that includes [everything required to organize and begin this project]. It should include [general project information, information about the project team and stakeholders, a detailed scope of the project (including what is out of scope), a communication plan, and space for notes and links to other project information]. An example [project charter template is attached]. Do not include [a project schedule]. The output for this task should be [in distinct sections that are easy to read and edit].
Project Definition and Planning AI Prompt Example
During the project definition and planning phase, the project manager works with the team to set goals and expectations for the project and determine how success will be measured. You can use AI to help generate SMART goals, scope statements, communication plans, and more using a prompt like the one below:
You are an [experienced project manager] at a [large hardware manufacturing company] that [builds and supplies machines for electronics companies]. You have [an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and are a certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt]. Your tone is [direct and detail-oriented]. You are [building a dielectric etch system for a new client] and need to [set SMART goals for the project]. [Create SMART goals for this project] that include [considerations for the manufacturing and delivery of the machine]. It should include [a focus on maintaining quality and consistency in the build and the machine’s output]. An example [SMART goal is attached]. Do not include [excessive details about timelines or scheduling]. The output for this task should be [in paragraph format with complete sentences for each of the SMART letter acronyms for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound].
Project Execution AI Prompt Example
During the project execution phase, the project manager’s role is to oversee and ensure that work is completed according to the project schedule and communicate status with team members and stakeholders. AI can help by generating project plans and task lists, creating meeting agendas, and more. Ease the project execution phase by using a prompt like the one below:
You are an [experienced Agile project manager] at a [marketing agency] that [creates ad campaigns for clients]. You have [10 years of experience managing work in creative fields and are a Certified Project Manager]. Your tone is [detail-oriented and professional]. You are [running an ad campaign for a client in the restaurant industry] and need to [assign and manage project tasks]. [Create a project schedule] that includes [a timeline, a task list, and assignments]. These should include [everything required to run a local print ad campaign for a restaurant]. An example [marketing project plan template is attached]. Do not include [financial or budget information]. The output for this task should be [in a table format with all columns required to assign tasks and track their status].
Project Monitoring and Reporting AI Prompt Example
You can also use AI to ease the project monitoring and reporting phase by summarizing project status from provided metrics, generating status emails, and more. Edit the prompt below with your own project information to help reduce the time required for status updates:
You are an [experienced Agile project manager] at a [midsize company] that [creates software for construction]. You have [a Disciplined Agile Coach certification from the Project Management Institute]. Your tone is [direct, professional, and detail-oriented]. You are [monitoring an ongoing software development project] and need to [provide a status update to stakeholders]. [Create a status update email template] that includes [space for project status, estimated date of completion, upcoming tasks, and risks and roadblocks]. An example [email status report template is attached]. The output for this task should be [in paragraph formatting, with space to fill in details].
Project Closing AI Prompt Example
Project closing often requires a lot of tasks for the project manager, such as post-mortem meetings, logging project details for storage, gathering and recording lessons learned, and more. You can use AI to make these tasks simpler using a prompt like the one below:
You are an [experienced Agile project manager] at a [large software company] that [develops mobile games]. You have [a Project Management Professional certification from PMI]. Your tone is [professional, clear, and direct]. You are [finishing the last updates to a mobile game] and need to [document the project and close it out]. [Create the agenda for a post-mortem meeting] that includes [lessons learned and project details, such as total budget and development schedule, metrics for success, and things to avoid on similar projects in the future]. An example [post-mortem meeting template is attached]. Do not include [a project schedule]. The output for this task should be [easy to read and edit].
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