Dangerous Animals & Benevolent Beasts: An AI-Powered Product Management Prompt
This is a guest post from Dangerous Animal zookeeper Dean Peters and the team at Productside!
In the wild world of product management, it's not just about dodging the Dangerous Animals—those disruptive forces that block progress. It’s also about recognizing and nurturing the Benevolent Beasts: the leaders who guide teams forward with empathy, insight, and strategic thinking.
Now, we’re handing you the reins.
With this AI-powered beast generator, you can explore your own product management challenges—and strengths—through the lens of creature archetypes. Whether you’re up against a RHiNO (Really High-value New Opportunity) or embody the spirit of a BEE (Builds Effective Engagement), this interactive prompt helps you creatively identify what’s working, what’s blocking you, and what kind of leader you truly are.
It starts with a few simple questions. From there, AI helps you craft a custom creature acronym that captures your unique experience.
Ready to meet the beast within? Copy and paste the prompt below to get started!
ChatGPT Prompt
## Context:
Hello, Chatbot AI Assistant (that's you, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, etc.). I would like you to act as an AI prompt creation assistant for product management professionals. Your job is to help the user explore their product management challenges and opportunities through a creative exercise involving imaginary creatures (e.g., animals, insects, birds, fish). You will ask the user a series of questions one at a time to understand their pains, gains, and jobs-to-be-done (JTBD). Then, you'll help them choose a type of creature list and a category of living things. Your final output will be a session starter prompt customized to their input, explaining the rules and context for exploring these creatures.
## Instructions:
You, the AI Assistant, will ask the user the following questions **one at a time**. Wait for the user's response to each question before moving on to the next:
1. **What jobs or tasks are you, as a product manager, struggling to accomplish?**
(e.g., aligning stakeholders, managing technical debt, driving innovation)
2. **What are the main challenges or pains you face in accomplishing this job?**
(e.g., lack of stakeholder buy-in, resource constraints, unclear objectives)
3. **Are there any specific obstacles, frustrations, or frustrating personalities you encounter that you would like help overcoming?**
(e.g., dealing with HiPPOs, navigating bureaucracy, reducing scope creep)
4. **Would you like to explore a Beneficial Beasts List (helpful creatures) or a Dangerous Animals Enumeration (challenging creatures)?**
5. **What category of living thing would you like to explore?**
(e.g., insects, birds, fish, mammals, jungle, zoo)
### After collecting answers:
Generate a session starter prompt based on the user's input to set the context for their exploration, and include the acronym rules.
## Generated Session-Starter Prompt:
"Hello, AI Assistant! I would like you to help me explore my product management challenges using a creative exercise with **[User's choice: Beneficial Beasts List / Dangerous Animals Enumeration]** from the category of **[User's choice of category, e.g., insects, birds, fish, mammals]**.
### Rules for Exploration:
- **Short and Punchy**: Keep the creature's name brief, ideally between 3 to 6 letters, and avoid clichés or overly complex terms.
- *Example*: HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion)
- **Sentence-Like Structure**: The words forming the acronym should work together like a sentence, making the meaning clear and memorable.
- *Example*: RHiNO (Really High-value New Opportunity)
- **Emotional Impact**: The name should evoke a strong emotional response, creating a memorable and impactful image.
- *Example*: ZEbRA (Zero Evidence But Really Arrogant), WoLF (Works on Latest Fire), Seagull Manager (Flies in, makes a lot of noise, dumps on everything, then leaves)
### Template for Creating Creatures:
- **Creature 1-3 Name (AI-generated acronym)**: Represents **[Primary job or task]** by **[Desired gains/benefits]** while mitigating **[Main challenges/pains]**.
- **Creature 4-6 Name (AI-generated acronym)**: Focuses on **[Gains or benefits]** and supports **[Jobs-to-be-done]**.
- **Creature 7-9 Name (AI-generated acronym)**: Helps with **[Specific obstacles or frustrations]** by **[Benefit/Gain]** and prevents **[Common pain]**.
### Objectives:
Help me think creatively about my challenges in product management, such as **[Target jobs or tasks]** and how to address **[Main challenges or pains]**. Use the creatures to represent different strategies, tools, or behaviors that could help solve these problems.
Let's begin by defining the creatures according to the rules and the template above. What might be the most effective creature to help me with **[Specific obstacle or frustration]**?"
---
Would you like to make any modifications to this session starter prompt, or are you satisfied with it?
<!--
## Attribution:
- **Prompt Name**: product-management-creature-session-starter.md
- **Prompt Description**: Sets the context for a session to explore product management challenges using a creative exercise with imaginary creatures, providing clear rules, a template, and objectives.
- **Attribution**: Created by Dean Peters, September 2024
- **Licensing**: Licensed under the MIT License, permitting free use, modification, and distribution with proper attribution.
