Process discovery workshops are messy.
You’re gathering ideas, mapping workflows, capturing frustrations — and often trying to facilitate, listen, and take notes at the same time. Add in multiple stakeholders and shifting scope, and it’s easy to miss important insights or lose momentum.
That’s why more process professionals are starting to use AI as a silent partner — before, during, and after workshops.
This article walks through how AI can help you prep smarter, organize input faster, and walk away from discovery sessions with clearer takeaways and less stress.
Why AI is Useful for Process Discovery
Discovery workshops are high-pressure. There’s a lot to capture, and even more to synthesize.
With the right AI prompts, you can:
- Draft prep materials like stakeholder overviews and discovery goals
- Use previous documents to generate workshop starter questions
- Summarize whiteboard notes or transcripts after the session
- Spot early themes and surface conflicting inputs
Before the Workshop: Use AI to Prep Faster
Prompts:
“I’m running a process discovery session for onboarding new vendors. What are 10 questions I should ask stakeholders to uncover pain points and gaps?”
“Based on this scope document, help me write a one-page workshop brief for stakeholders — including goals, roles, and agenda.”
Outputs:
- Participant briefing documents
- Agenda slides or talking points
- Tailored question lists for different roles
After the Workshop: Make Sense of the Chaos
You’ve got:
- Photos of whiteboards or sticky notes
- Meeting recordings or transcripts
- Rough notes from the facilitator or team members
AI can help you:
- Extract key process steps and pain points
- Group comments into themes
- Generate a workshop summary or next-step outline
Prompts:
“Here’s a transcript from our discovery session. Summarize the process being described, highlight major pain points, and suggest 3 possible areas for improvement.”
“Group these sticky note inputs into categories based on theme or problem type.”
Real-World Example
One facilitator shared a success story using ChatGPT:
- Used AI to create role-specific discovery questions
- Uploaded workshop notes and asked ChatGPT to cluster pain points
Generated a 2-slide summary deck for execs within 30 minutes
In Conclusion
You don’t need AI to run a great discovery session — but it can help you feel more prepared, stay more organized, and follow up faster.
Used well, it turns your workshop insights into outcomes — without losing the nuance or wasting hours cleaning up afterward.
