I refuse to use AI like a normal person.
While everyone else is having polite conversations with ChatGPT (e.g., “Could you please help me brainstorm some marketing ideas?), I treat it differently.
I treat it like a brand-new MBA grad. One who’s memorized every business framework known to humanity.
I don’t ask. I command.
“Execute a SWOT analysis.”
“Structure this using AIDA.”
“Apply the SMART goals framework.”
The result?
While normal people get generic mush, I get boardroom-ready strategy. In 30 seconds.
I call it Framework-Based Prompting and it’s the difference between begging and commanding. You’re not asking your AI for ideas. You’re commanding it to execute proven strategy.
Let me show you how it works.
How It Works: Framework-Based Prompting
Using this pattern is as simple as knowing which framework you want to use.
Step 1: Identify Your Goal
What kind of strategic task are you trying to accomplish? (e.g., analyzing your market position, planning a campaign, setting goals).
Step 2: Choose a Relevant Framework
Pick a well-known framework that fits your task. In the next section I’ll show you some of the more popular ones.
But the key is to make sure the AI knows the framework and how to use it.
So your first prompt should ask the AI: “Do you know about [framework name]? If so, please explain what you know. If not, please say you don’t know about it.” You might need to give it a contextual hint if the framework acronym could mean multiple things.
The great thing about asking the AI if it knows the framework is that it primes the AI’s autoregressive generation. It gets those juices flowing.
Note: If you don’t know what framework to use, just ask the AI. “I want to accomplish this goal (include lots of detail). But I’m not sure which business framework I should use. Can you recommend the top 5?” Just be aware, since LLMs generate based on what’s most probable, it will often recommended the same frameworks from its electronic brain. So to get something truly “outside the box,” you might have to do some non-AI digging on Google.
Step 3: Command the AI to Use the Framework to Accomplish Your Goal
Now you can command the AI to use the framework to solve your goal (this assumes the AI already knows about the framework, of course).
Also, don’t skimp on details of your goal. You might even want to use another prompting technique, such as the Flipped Interaction Pattern to flesh out those details.
Read that last paragraph again because it’s super important. If the AI doesn’t have what it needs for the framework, then it can’t do a good job executing the framework! Keep that in the forefront of your mind.
Examples of Different Frameworks
Most of the larger AI large language models (LLMs) should know thousands, if not tens of thousands, of different frameworks. Here’s just a sampling of some business related frameworks to possibly get you thinking.
Classic Analysis Techniques
- SWOT Analysis – The most versatile foundational tool, applicable to virtually any strategic situation, from product launches to career decisions. Provide the AI with context about your situation (company, product, project, or personal goal). The AI will then identify internal Strengths and Weaknesses, along with external Opportunities and Threats, creating a 2×2 matrix analysis with strategic recommendations based on the combinations.
- PESTLE Analysis – Essential framework for understanding external macro-environmental factors affecting strategy and planning. Share your business context, industry, and geographic market. The AI will analyze Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental factors that could impact your business, helping you anticipate external changes and plan accordingly.
Decision-Making Frameworks
- Decision Matrix (Weighted Scoring) – Extremely practical for comparing multiple options systematically, works for everything from vendor selection to project prioritization. List your options (vendors, projects, strategies) and the criteria that matter to you (cost, features, timeline). The AI will create a scoring matrix, assign appropriate weights to each criterion based on your priorities, score each option, and calculate weighted totals to recommend the best choice.
- Cost-Benefit Analysis – Fundamental financial evaluation method used across all industries to compare investments and justify decisions. Describe the investment or decision you’re considering, including estimated costs and expected benefits. The AI will systematically list all costs and benefits, assign monetary values where possible, calculate the net benefit, and help you determine if the investment is worthwhile.
Brainstorming and Creative Thinking
- Mind Mapping – Highly intuitive and flexible for organizing complex information, breaking down problems, and exploring ideas visually. Give the AI your central topic or problem. The AI will create a hierarchical structure with main branches for key themes and sub-branches for detailed ideas, helping you visualize relationships and explore the topic comprehensively. You can ask it to expand specific branches further.
- Six Thinking Hats – Famous technique for examining problems from multiple perspectives, widely used in meetings and decision-making. Present your problem or decision to the AI. It will systematically examine it through six different lenses: White (facts and data), Red (emotions and intuition), Black (risks and cautions), Yellow (benefits and optimism), Green (creative alternatives), and Blue (process and summary), giving you a balanced, comprehensive view.
Prioritization Methods
- Eisenhower Matrix – Simple yet powerful 2×2 framework for daily task management that immediately clarifies what deserves your attention. List all your tasks, projects, or responsibilities. The AI will categorize them into four quadrants based on urgency and importance: Do First (urgent and important), Schedule (important but not urgent), Delegate (urgent but not important), and Don’t Do (neither), with recommendations for each.
- Pareto Analysis (80/20 Rule) – Iconic principle for focusing on the vital few activities that generate the most results. Share your list of activities, customers, products, or problems along with their impact or frequency data. The AI will identify the 20% that generate 80% of results, helping you focus resources on what matters most and eliminate or minimize low-impact activities.
Problem-Solving Frameworks
- 5 Whys Analysis – Elegantly simple technique for drilling down to root causes quickly, requiring no special tools or training. State the problem you’re experiencing. The AI will ask “why” repeatedly (typically five times), with each answer becoming the basis for the next question, drilling down through symptoms until reaching the fundamental root cause that needs to be addressed.
- Fishbone (Ishikawa) Diagram – Classic visual tool for categorizing and analyzing multiple potential causes of problems. Describe the problem or effect you’re trying to understand. The AI will organize potential causes into major categories (typically People, Process, Equipment, Materials, Environment, and Measurement), identifying specific causes within each category and helping you see which areas contribute most to the problem.
Strategic Thinking Tools
- OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) – Widely adopted framework for aligning teams and measuring progress toward ambitious goals across all organizational levels. Share your high-level goals or vision for a quarter or year. The AI will help you craft 3-5 ambitious but achievable Objectives, then define 3-4 measurable Key Results for each objective that will indicate success, ensuring your goals are specific and trackable.
- Business Model Canvas – Popular visual framework for mapping and communicating business strategies, used by startups and established companies alike. Describe your business idea or existing business. The AI will map out the nine building blocks: Value Propositions, Customer Segments, Channels, Customer Relationships, Revenue Streams, Key Resources, Key Activities, Key Partnerships, and Cost Structure, helping you visualize how your business creates and delivers value.
Data-Driven and Analytical Techniques
- ROI Analysis – The fundamental business metric for evaluating whether investments are worthwhile, universally understood across industries. Provide the investment cost and expected gains (revenue, savings, or other benefits). The AI will calculate the Return on Investment percentage using the formula (Gain – Cost) ÷ Cost × 100%, compare it to benchmarks, and help you interpret whether the ROI justifies the investment.
- KPI Scorecards – Essential dashboards for tracking key performance indicators and monitoring organizational health. Tell the AI about your role, department, or business goals. The AI will identify the most relevant Key Performance Indicators to track, suggest target values, recommend visualization formats, and help you create a monitoring framework to measure progress regularly.
Creative and Lateral Thinking Methods
- Assumption Challenging – Powerful for breakthrough thinking by systematically questioning what we take for granted, unlocking innovative solutions. Describe your situation, problem, or industry. The AI will identify the underlying assumptions you’re making (often unconscious ones), then systematically ask “what if this weren’t true?” for each assumption, exploring alternative approaches that emerge when conventional wisdom is questioned.
- Analogical Thinking – Drawing insights from unrelated fields to generate breakthrough ideas, used widely in innovation. Explain your problem or innovation challenge. The AI will find successful solutions from completely different industries or domains that face similar challenges, map the parallels, and help you adapt those proven approaches to your specific context.
Specialized Analytical Frameworks
- Risk Assessment Matrix – Essential visual tool for prioritizing risks in any planning context, from projects to strategic initiatives. List the potential risks for your project or decision. The AI will assess each risk’s likelihood (probability of occurring) and impact (severity if it occurs) on a scale, plot them on a matrix, and prioritize which risks need mitigation plans based on those falling in the high-likelihood/high-impact quadrant.
- Critical Path Method – Fundamental project management technique for identifying timeline bottlenecks and optimizing schedules. Provide your project tasks, their durations, and dependencies (which tasks must be completed before others can start). The AI will map the task sequence, identify the longest path of dependent activities that determines your minimum project duration, and highlight which tasks have no slack time and must stay on schedule.
Implementation and Execution Techniques
- SMART Goals – The gold standard for goal-setting that ensures objectives are clear, trackable, and achievable. Share your general goal or aspiration. The AI will help you refine it into a SMART format by making it Specific (clear and focused), Measurable (with concrete metrics), Achievable (realistic given resources), Relevant (aligned with broader objectives), and Time-bound (with a clear deadline).
- Pre-Mortem Analysis – Increasingly popular technique for identifying and preventing failure risks before starting projects. Describe your upcoming project or initiative. The AI will imagine a future where the project has completely failed, then work backward to brainstorm all the possible reasons why it failed, helping you identify and create prevention strategies for the most likely failure modes before you even begin.
Advantages of Framework-Based Prompting
- Get Instant Strategic Structure: The AI’s output is automatically organized into a professional, recognizable format. You can practically copy and paste it into a slide deck for your boss.
- Ensures Comprehensive Thinking: Frameworks are designed to be thorough. Using one prevents the AI (and you) from overlooking a critical piece of the puzzle (like forgetting about “Price” in a marketing mix).
- “Speaks the Language” of Business: When you present a SWOT analysis or SMART goals, you are using the established language of strategy. This makes your work more credible and easily understood by leadership.
- Leverages Decades of Proven Wisdom: You’re not just getting a random answer; you’re getting an answer structured by a battle-tested theory that was developed, debated, and refined by business experts over many years.