How Two Brand Strategists Cut Playbook Creation Time by 70%—Without Losing the Human Magic

TL;DR

Imagine spending 6 hours facilitating brand workshops where clients have real breakthroughs—then facing hours of documentation afterward to capture what happened.

Parker and Jarren are brilliant at facilitating deep brand work—which I experienced firsthand, one week earlier, when they ran their Shine Bright workshop with me.

The way they help people connect with what truly matters and find their voice is exceptional.

But when it was time to compile the playbook, they felt they were doing the work a second time, and they saw an opportunity: Why repeat yourself when AI could handle the repeatable parts of turning workshop insights into polished brand playbooks?

Of course, Parker and Jarren were already using chatGPT for parts of this process, BUT they found it lacking:

• Not enough humanity
• Too much AI whack-a-mole.

It wasn’t the magic that AI promises.

Together we designed an AI system where they use their custom GPTs more like workstations and less like an intern that runs around in circles.

• Now they’re spending 70% less time on documentation and have more creative energy for the facilitation work only they can do.
• ChatGPT handles the heavy lifting while their human magic runs the show.

Positive Outcomes

• 70% reduction in post-workshop documentation time: What used to take 8+ hours now takes 2-3 hours
• Better quality AI outputs: Strategic direction gets reviewed first, so the process rarely goes off the rails
• More creative energy for facilitation: Time spent on documentation dropped, time available for actual workshops increased
• Reduced cognitive load: No more trying to remember workshop details weeks later—10-minute audio debriefs capture everything fresh
• Eliminated “AI whack-a-mole”: Clear structure approval before any prose gets written

The Challenge

Harc Creative runs transformational brand workshops. The kind where people cry, laugh, and finally understand their own voice.

Six hours of deep facilitation magic.

Then comes the documentation phase: recapturing all of that into the playbook.

The Harc team works intentionally to stay out of the “busy trap,” so they recognized a pattern worth addressing: hours reviewing whiteboard photos and notes, trying to capture the emotional journey section by section. The longer they waited to document, the harder it became to recall the nuanced moments that mattered.

The specific opportunities they identified:

• Post-workshop documentation required significant focused time—time that could be spent on facilitation
• Every day of delay made the playbook less accurate, less connected to what actually happened
• Working with AI tools often meant approving one section, only to watch the AI change three others
• The process felt circular: review values, write values, review tone, oh wait now the values don’t match

The core insight was simple: why repeat yourself when the repeatable parts could flow more easily? This wasn’t about fixing something broken—it was about honoring the “do-not-repeat-yourself” principle and creating space for more of what matters.

The Harc team approached AI implementation with openness and curiosity, while thoughtfully naming the vulnerability that comes with bringing automation into deeply human work.

Our Approach

Here’s the thing about AI implementation that most people get wrong: you don’t need one super-smart AI doing everything. You need clear stations with different tools doing different jobs.

The challenge wasn’t about AI capability—it was about asking a single tool to simultaneously:

• Outline the structure
• Write the prose
• Capture voice and tone
• Stay strategically coherent
• Remember context from 20 exchanges ago

That’s like asking someone to frame a house, wire the electricity, and pick paint colors at the same time.

What we designed together:

Harc’s appreciative-inquiry approach and human-centered philosophy guided how we structured the AI workflow. The tools were designed to meet their process, not the other way around.

Stage 1: The Outlining GPT

To start, we create structured bullet points for each playbook section—the skeleton, not the prose

For example:

• What the client actually said in the workshop
• What that means for their brand strategy
• What to do about it (next moves, tactics)

Why this matters: Parker and Jarren can review and approve the strategic direction before anyone writes a single paragraph. No more discovering in section 8 that the whole document went sideways back in section 3.

This was huge in creating a linear workflow and putting the game of whack-a-mole to rest.

Stage 2: The Writing GPT

Job: Take approved outlines and flesh them into full prose in Harc’s voice.

This bot gets trained specifically on:

• Past brand playbooks
• Harc’s blog posts and writing
• Their philosophy of “appreciative inquiry”
• Examples of their actual tone

The barely-AI Improvement—10-Minute Audio Debrief

Right after each workshop, while energy’s still fresh, Parker and Jarren record a quick conversation:

• What lit them up?
• What were the client’s sparkly breakthrough moments?
• What next steps feel obvious?

That transcript feeds both GPTs with context before memory fades, and helps focus it as it navigates a sea of workshop information.

Why this works:

Harc’s magic isn’t in the documentation—it’s in the facilitation. The emotional attunement. The appreciative inquiry questions that unlock clarity.

That’s wisdom work. AI can’t touch it.

But structuring insights? Maintaining a consistent voice across 20 pages?

That’s knowledge work. And AI’s pretty damn good at it… when well set up.

Implementation Process

Together we spent one 4-hour session mapping the entire workflow and building the first GPT.

What we focused on:

Mapping the Actual Process

We used Miro to diagram every step from “workshop ends” to “playbook delivered.”

This revealed that the post-workshop debrief—though valuable—was often skipped due to energy levels, which meant trying to remember details weeks later.

Co-Designing the Outlining GPT

Harc invited us to explore how custom GPTs could streamline their process.

We built this one together, with their appreciative-inquiry philosophy and human-centered approach shaping every design decision. We:

• Asked ChatGPT to critique its own prompts
• Broke down each section’s requirements
• Trained it to understand “appreciative inquiry” as a design principle
• Tested outputs and refined iteratively

Parker’s reaction when we tested it: “This is so useful, like 10 out of 10 useful.”

Designing the Handoff Points

We explicitly mapped where humans review and approve before moving to the next station. No mousetraps. No elaborate automation chains. Just:

1. Outlining GPT creates structure
2. Humans review and approve
3. Writing GPT creates prose
4. Humans polish and publish

Honoring the Human Element

Throughout this process, we worked with the natural tension of bringing automation into deeply creative, human-centered work.

The breakthrough wasn’t technical—it was recognizing that you’re not losing the magic by streamlining the repeatable parts. You’re creating more space for it.

How did it turn out?

In Their Words:

“The [work] station thing is huge for me… breaking it down a little bit instead of trying to build this elaborate mousetrap. I was stuck in mousetrap thinking—imagining all these connected tools. But one GPT outlines, we review, another writes, we polish. That’s it. Four steps.”

 — Parker McLean, Harc Creative

“I love that you shared some tools and programs. I’m really excited about the Notebook LM and thinking about this in stations. The way you’re working with GPT, treating it like a conversation with another person—I can do that.”

 — Jarren MacDougall, Harc Creative

The Bigger Shift:

They’re not just saving time. The Harc team described feeling more creative energy for facilitation.

That means more time spent on the thing only they can do: creating conditions for breakthrough in a room.

The playbook documentation?

That’s the knowledge work AI can handle.

The facilitation? The moment they notice a client’s voice shift when they hit on their real value?

That’s wisdom work. And no AI’s touching that.

P.S. Having experienced their Shine Bright workshop myself, I can tell you: Harc Creative is the real deal. If you’re looking to understand how you connect with your audience and your own brand, they’re exceptional at what they do and I strongly recommend them.