AI Essentials for Business

AI Essentials gives professionals a practical, confidence‑building introduction to AI—showing how to think strategically, use AI effectively in daily work, and turn insights into action. Learn to treat AI like a capable team member and start delivering real business value right away.

Details

Curriculum

Session 1: AI Strategy Development

This session establishes the foundation for understanding AI’s role within an organization and begins the process of identifying high‑value opportunities. Students explore AI types (automation, insight, creation, and decision support), distinguish where each type is most useful, and define what ‘success’ means in their context—outcomes, metrics, and guardrails.

Session 2: AI-Powered Business Professional

During the session, students will develop and test multiple AI prompts tailored to their roles and responsibilities. They will practice evaluating AI outputs for accuracy, tone, audience, and risk, including ethics and hallucination detection. Students will also begin building their personal Prompt Playbook, experimenting with prompts for summarizing, rewriting for an audience, generating options, creating outlines, and extracting actions.

Session 3: Onboarding your AI Team Member

Students define AI roles and responsibilities, align contributions with workflows and culture, and design role‑specific prompt patterns with accuracy and confidentiality guardrails.

Session 4: AI SWOT & Action Planning

Apply strategic and operational insights to assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats around an AI implementation. Teams convert insights into an action plan with quick wins, foundations, and risk‑reduction steps—each with ownership and metrics—and finalize their Prompt Playbook

Who Should Enroll

This course is designed for learners who are new to AI, or have a little exposure and are just beginning to explore how it can support their work and professional lives. It’s ideal for curious, motivated business professionals who want an accessible, practical foundation and the confidence to start using AI right away—helping them work more efficiently, make better decisions, and contribute to meaningful improvements in their teams and organizations, regardless of industry or technical background.

Instructor

Raymond Sheen, PMP®, LSS BB

Raymond Sheen, is president and founder of Product & Process Innovation, Inc. He is a veteran business leader with over 35 years of executive, functional, and project management experience working in government, industry and as an independent consultant. Ray is author of the book, Guide to Building Your Business Case, published by Harvard Business Review Press and is a co-author of the books Digital Transformation Demystified and Guide to Project Management. Ray was a member of a select committee that drafted the Digital Transformation Manifesto. Ray is currently an adjunct professor with Worcester Polytechnic Institute where he teaches systems thinking and project leadership in the MBA program. In addition, he teaches and consults in process improvement, digital transformation, project management, product development, strategy development, and risk management.

Ray received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Air Force Academy and his M.S. in Astronautical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He has recently completed a graduate certificate in Digital Leadership and Strategy from Boston University and graduate certificate in Business Leadership and Strategy from Liberty University. Ray is a Fellow at the Institute for Digital Transformation, a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP®) with the Project Management Institute and a certified Scrum Master with Scrum Alliance. Ray has also earned the Black Belt certification with the International Association for Six Sigma Certification.

Location

Online

Overview

Live & Online Virtual Class