AI: Org Chart Structure From HR Dump

I was working with a client recently who could not get an up-to-date org chart from their HR system, so I got AI to do it for us.

NOTE: I've explained the fun bit here, but as you can see, these numbers and names are all fictitious. As per my article on avoiding privacy and security issues with AI products, I sanitised the data before I sent it to AI for help. What you're seeing here is the same as what I uploaded.

I wanted to look at this data as an indented hierarchy (like a text version of an org chart) so that I could get a feel for where the main groups of workers were concentrated. This relates to my previous writing on impact measurement using the org chart.

Here is a sanitised example of the information we grabbed from the HR system:

And here is the result after a couple of clarifications:

If you look at the full transcript, you can see that AI did a whole bunch of stuff, all I had to do is make a couple of follow-on clarifying requests. Genius!

It's a great example of how much work you can save yourself if you have an assistant who can write code and run it for you. I'll do a follow up and see if I can create an actual diagram from it.

Here are my inputs as text. If you've never derived value from AI, looking at these might be useful to reinforce how easy it is to nudge the machine into doing what you want:

starting with the executives, can you make me an indented org chart from this using empno and manager empno for the structure?

perfect, now convert that to csv, moving each level of indent to a new column

no need to repeat manager names in subordinate entries, just leave those cells blank

AI is incredibly tolerant of typos, misspellings, and far-less-than-perfect grammar. This feels strange at first, and then you quickly get used to just asking for what you want without any polish or pretence.

This approach aligns with my Flintstones methodology for rapid, low-cost pilots to demonstrate value quickly.

Andrew Walker
Technology consulting for charities
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-walker-the-impatient-futurist/

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