GenAI for Business Leaders — Course Outline

A practical 60–90 minute workshop on what you can actually use today to improve your workflow, coaching, and decisions. No coding background required. No prior AI experience required.

• Executives and senior leaders who've read the hype and want the signal
• Product, marketing, ops, and data leaders who need their team to level up fast
• Boards and founders making AI strategy decisions with real dollars on the line
• Anyone tired of AI content that's either a TED talk or a vendor pitch

• A working prompt stack for your real, named job — not a template
• A personal AI fluency rubric for your team (adapted from Zapier's 4-tier model)
• A one-page governance framework with board-level questions
• Eight take-home prompts: Judgment, Slop Filter, Position Mapper, Tool-vs-Colleague, Correctness Contract, Instruction Sharpener, Tradeoff Forcer, AI Workflow Architect
• The March 2026 tool tier list — what's production-ready, what's hype

Module 1 — Context & Landscape (10 min)

From transformers to today. The current model leaders (GPT-5, Claude Opus 4.6, Gemini 3.1). The broader ecosystem — foundation models, platforms, vertical AI, wrappers. What 81,000 people actually want from AI. The 5-level maturity model (Answers → Daily Work → Prototyping → OS → Agentic).

Module 2 — Value vs Hype (12 min)

Horseless carriages: don't bolt AI onto the workflow, rethink it. What GenAI excels at vs where it falls down. The Governance Gap and the automation ceiling. Real ROI data (Ally $2.7M, BCG 1.5x, McKinsey 39%). The burnout paradox — why saving time doesn't always feel like it.

Exercise: The Judgment Prompt — challenge what you're about to build, before you build it.

Module 3 — Executive Use Cases (15 min)

Use cases organized by function: communication & coaching, research & analysis, operations, sales/marketing/HR/finance. Agentic workflow patterns. The meta use case: AI as thinking partner.

Exercise: Feedback Rewrite — turn a sharp Slack message into coaching language in two minutes.

Exercise: Position Mapper — see why your AI sounds generic and fix it.

Module 4 — CLI Tools & Agentic AI (12 min)

What CLI tools are and why they matter. Claude Code from file tool to operating system. What MCP actually means for business leaders. Agent taxonomy. The Control Plane: why governance is the product.

Exercise: Tool vs Colleague — a 5-dimension scorecard for when to delegate fully vs iterate.

Module 5 — Effective Prompting (RRIS Framework) (10 min)

Role, Requirements, Information, Style. Why “be more strategic” fails and what to say instead. The Instruction Sharpener. Advanced prompting: Skills and Agent configuration.

Module 6 — Evals: Quality Control (10 min)

The VACS framework (Verify, Assess, Check, Sense). Evaluating agent actions, not just outputs. The Slop Filter — a 30-second gut check on professional-looking nothing.

Exercise: Correctness Discovery — define “right” in six questions before you build.

Module 7 — What's Coming Next (8 min)

The five trends actually happening. The four things to ignore. What Anthropic's 81K study tells us about the trajectory. Where to place your bets for 2027.

Module 8 — Governance Framework (optional, 15 min)

The one-page governance framework. Five board-level questions every leader should be able to answer. Exercise: build your first Control Plane for a real use case.

The exercises follow a deliberate progression: Challenge → Apply → Personalize → Delegate → Define → Build.

#	Exercise	What It Teaches	Time
1	Judgment Prompt	Challenge assumptions before building	5-7 min
2	Feedback Rewrite	AI for coaching and communication	3-5 min
3	Position Mapper	Why generic prompts fail, and how to fix	7-10 min
4	Tool vs Colleague	How to decide delegation mode	7-8 min
5	Correctness Discovery	Define “right” before you build	10 min
6	Build a Website	Ship something real in 10 minutes	10 min (optional)

60-Minute Version — Conference Talk

Modules 1-4 plus wrap. Three exercises (Judgment, Feedback, Correctness). Best for kickoffs, all-hands, and exec primer sessions.

90-Minute Version — Workshop

All seven core modules. Five exercises. The default format. Best for leadership offsites, team onboarding, and board prep.

2-Hour Version — Extended Workshop

Everything in the 90-minute version plus the Governance Framework module, the full Website Mockup exercise, and the AI Workflow Architect deep take-home. Best for teams building an actual AI strategy.

Every attendee leaves with:

1. Full prompt library, organized by function
2. March 2026 tool tier list
3. Governance one-pager
4. RRIS framework card
5. AI Workflow Architect prompt (the deep take-home)
6. Slop Filter prompt
7. Tradeoff Forcer prompt
8. Instruction Sharpener prompt
9. Their own personalized outputs from the workshop exercises

Workshops run virtual or onsite. Virtual sessions work well for the 60- and 90-minute formats. Onsite is the right call for the 2-hour extended version and for team-specific applications.

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Taught by Kevin Holland — Data Product Leader, healthcare and beyond. 3+ years daily GenAI use, 800+ hours on Claude Code, 100+ executives trained.