How to improve productivity by optimizing usage of Gen AI tools within your organization

Gen AI is deployed through an increasingly large set of tools that can make a significant impact on an organization’s productivity and impact. As the use of Gen AI is constantly evolving, it can be challenging for staff to build a common understanding of how to use these tools to derive across-the-board productivity improvements.

This guide is designed to resolve the issue, supporting your staff in understanding how and when to use Gen AI tools to benefit your organization. This is particularly important when onboarding new team members or supporting staff through a digital transformation.

Understand current uses of Gen AI in your organization 

Individuals and organizations are adopting Gen AI at differing rates. While some are curious and actively experiment with Gen AI tools and updates, others are apprehensive and slow to start interacting with such tools.  

When used appropriately, Gen AI can be a productivity booster, especially for resource-strapped SIOs, where these tools can make a big difference. However, teams only optimize the use of Gen AI when they are aligned and coordinated within an organization.  

The first step in helping your team harness Gen AI for productivity gains is to develop an accurate depiction of the various ways the team is already using these tools. It is important to use this as an opportunity to learn from team members about the use cases, benefits, challenges, and concerns they currently have with Gen AI.  

To build this understanding, for a small team, we recommend collecting this information through a handful of informal interviews a focus group, or even just observations. For a larger team, along with the above, an anonymous survey is an option. 

Facilitate a Gen AI use case workshop 

The next step is to organize a workshop for staff to discuss how they use Gen AI tools and the opportunities they see and share their questions and concerns. (Additionally, as it can often be challenging to collect information through emailed surveys or focus groups if you weren’t able to collect information from Step 1 on Gen AI use, you can do so within the workshop, as described below.)  

There are three key objectives for this type of workshop:  

1. To learn how staff use Gen AI and the challenges they have with it;  
2. To learn the types of opportunities staff see in using Gen AI tools; and  
3. To communicate these use cases, challenges, and opportunities with the larger group.  

An example of a workshop agenda is as follows: 

• Use Case Examples: Allow team members to demonstrate and describe their uses of Gen AI tools for work (ex. for analysis, image creation, content development, etc.)
• Use Case Cataloging: In small groups, have team members list their Gen AI use cases, including challenges, in a shared document. Have each groupshare their results.
• Discussion: Lead discussion on risks, concerns, opportunities, or needs in relation to Gen AI 
• Next Step: Describe next steps for implementing Gen AI Use Cases (discussed in Steps 3 and 4 below) 

Provide Gen AI resources to staff

After the workshop, it is important to capture the learnings to share and embed within the organization now and in the future. To do so, we recommend creating two support documents: 
 

1. Gen AI Do’s and Don’ts: A document that showcases organization-specific Gen AI do’s and don’ts and any other pertinent information (which should include the organization’s Gen AI Use Policy, if available.) 
2. Gen AI Use Cases Tracker: A document that tracks the various use cases discovered during Steps 1 and 2. 

The objective of these documents is to create a common understanding of Gen AI usage within the organization that would allow for all staff to optimize these types of tools for productivity. The documents are living resources that should be updated regularly and provided during onboarding of new staff.  

In this guide, we have developed a template for both of these resources, which you will be able to adjust to your organization’s needs, services, and common Gen AI uses.

Develop multiple touchpoints for staff engagement

After holding the Gen AI workshop with your organization and documenting the learnings, it is important to find ways to keep the momentum and engagement going with staff. Otherwise, documentation will quickly become irrelevant, and productivity across the organization will be lost through inconsistent and suboptimal use of Gen AI tools.

In addition to the resources in Step 3, we recommend putting in place:

• Annual (or semi-annual) Gen AI workshops to update the use cases
• Training sessions on new Gen AI tools commonly used in the workplace (these could be led in-house or through third-party providers)
• Gen AI usage and concerns surveys to do a “pulse check” on these topics (and refine training priorities and resources accordingly)
• Reminders of open availability of IT staff to discuss any questions regarding Gen AI tools and optimizing their use

In order to maintain these efforts, it is recommended to have someone accountable and spearheading the activities. To institutionalize this engagement, this role could be listed in job descriptions.

‘So what’ and next steps

Defining Gen AI use cases is just one piece of the larger puzzle of digital transformation. As you explore the best ways to use Gen AI for your organization, you may be interested in consulting these other guides: 

• How to appropriately staff an organization to meet its data needs 

• How to align an organization to define a data strategy