AI Strategy & Governance for Business Leaders

Turn an AI idea into a bounded, evidence-backed internal pilot decision. Practice process selection, vendor questions, cost arithmetic, human oversight, and a reversible rollout through the fictional Harbor Pilot dossier.

What you'll be able to do

  • Select a pilot by workflow evidence rather than novelty
  • Map data movement and ownership before procurement
  • Turn vendor statements into testable questions
  • Calculate cost per usable result with review effort included
  • Design meaningful human review and stop conditions
  • Present a reversible rollout decision with explicit uncertainty

Before you start

  • Experience observing a team workflow; management title not required
  • A document editor and a basic spreadsheet or calculator
  • Use only fictional organizations, records, and budgets in the exercises

The curriculum

  1. Start with the Process, Not the Tool — Free preview

    Select a bounded workflow using evidence, reversibility, and consequences.

  2. Draw the Data and Accountability Map — Free preview

    Identify what enters the workflow, where copies travel, and who owns each control and decision.

  3. Turn Vendor Claims into Evidence — Sign-in access

    Ask precise security, service, and exit questions without confusing a sales response with a verified control.

  4. Measure Useful Work, Not Output Volume — Sign-in access

    Evaluate missing facts, unsupported claims, and reviewer burden against a baseline.

  5. Calculate the Cost of a Usable Result — Free preview

    Build a transparent cost model with human review, retries, setup effort, and explicit assumptions.

  6. Make Human Review a Real Control — Sign-in access

    Design review authority, evidence, workload limits, and escalation so approval is more than a checkbox.

  7. Roll Out with a Way Back — Sign-in access

    Plan a small, observable adoption sequence with staff training, feedback, rollback, and change control.

  8. Present the Harbor Pilot Decision — Sign-in access

    Assemble the evidence into an honest go, revise, defer, or stop recommendation that another manager can inspect.

Harbor Pilot

Prepare an internal decision dossier for a fictional operations team considering an assistant that drafts service-request summaries. The pilot uses synthetic tickets, human review, and no automatic customer communication.

Deliverables

  • Process-selection memo and baseline
  • Data-flow and responsibility map
  • Vendor evidence questionnaire
  • Evaluation and cost workbook
  • Human-review and incident playbook
  • Bounded pilot decision and rollout plan

Review your work

  • The pilot has a named accountable role and a stop mechanism
  • No unsupported vendor claim is marked verified
  • All cost inputs are labeled assumptions rather than current market prices
  • Quality, review burden, and safety failures are reported separately
  • The final decision can be defer or stop without treating that as failure