Strategic AI Project Selection - DEEP DIVE

7 Weeks

·

Cohort-based Course

Are your proposed AI solutions high-risk, impractical, or outside of today’s AI capabilities? Learn the right way to select AI projects.

Attendees who loved this course work at:

Adobe
Intuit
McAfee
MetLife
Nordstrom

Course overview

Flip your old project selection process on its head.

Every project team must answer two questions:

- What's the right thing to make?

- How do we make that thing right?


This course answers that first and most critical question for AI initiatives. Customer experience pioneer Kerry Bodine and Carnegie Mellon University professor Dan Saffer will pull back the curtain on all the AI hype — and share a powerful combination of research-driven methodologies so you can select successful AI-driven projects that advance your products, services, and experiences.


Please note:

This course will take you on an extensive AI project selection journey over 6 weeks. (We'll take a week off for the July 4th holiday in the US.) You’ll complete the videos and readings on your own time, then join Kerry and Dan for weekly 90-minute Q&A sessions and interactive exercises. You’ll also complete weekly homework assignments that are focused on a real-world challenge for your organization — culminating in a capstone project that combines all of your learnings from the course.


This cohort has limited spaces to ensure an engaging and interactive learning environment. It’s ideal for those who want to practice applying the key course concepts to the specific needs and constraints of their business — or who seek a more individualized experience.


If you're looking to build your strategic AI toolbox in a shorter time or with a limited budget, please check out our jumpstart cohort, which covers the same topics. https://maven.com/bodine/ai-project-selection-jumpstart

Who is this course for

01

Business leaders who want to understand the technical AI landscape and leverage AI to meet the accelerating needs of their organizations.

02

Product managers who want to include AI features in their roadmaps and avoid common pitfalls that lead to AI failures.

03

Customer experience & employee experience professionals who want to leverage AI to increase revenue, decease costs, and bolster brand image.

04

Designers who want to lead and collaborate with business and technical teams to develop AI products, services, and experiences.

05

Creative agency owners who are being asked by clients to recommend AI solutions — and need a solid foundation of AI technology & concepts.

What you’ll get out of this course

Distinguish reality from hype

Gartner predicts that we're just about at the top of the AI hype cycle — which means we're heading down into the trough of disillusionment. We'll cut through the hype so that you can approach your AI initiatives strategically and with clear, actionable steps.

Broaden your AI toolkit

With all the hype, it’s easy to assume that GenAI is the only type of AI that exists today. But "generation" is just one of eight AI capabilities that you have at your disposal. You'll explore how the full suite of AI capabilities can come to life to add value to your business.

Establish — and practice — a strategic AI project selection methodology

Throughout the course, you'll learn a set of new tools — and an end-to-end methodology — to find AI opportunities, de-risk your AI solutions, explore data requirements, and identify potential harms.

De-risk your AI initiatives

Research shows that traditional human-centered design methods for solution brainstorming lead to high-risk, low-value AI initiatives. The methods you'll learn will weed out these ideas early in your process.

Identify potential AI harms

We’ll take you through a two-part method to first identify unforeseen consequences (both the good and bad) and then resolve negative consequences where possible.

Build effective AI design teams

Design teams for AI include functional roles and expertise that designers and product managers don't normally interact with. Through course projects and discussions, you'll identify the key players.

This course includes

6 interactive live sessions

Lifetime access to course materials

53 in-depth lessons

Direct access to instructor

1 projects to apply learning

Guided feedback & reflection

Private community of peers

Course certificate upon completion

Maven Satisfaction Guarantee

This course is backed by Maven’s guarantee. You can receive a full refund within 14 days after the course ends, provided you meet the completion criteria in our refund policy.

Course syllabus

Week 1

Jun 2—Jun 8

    VIDEOS: AI Models & Data for Non-Technical Folks

    3 items

    VIDEOS: Why Most AI Projects Fail

    5 items

    VIDEOS: The 8 Great AI Capabilities

    3 items

    READINGS & REFERENCES 📖

    2 items

    Jun

    6

    Live discussion & exercises

    Fri 6/64:30 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)

    Homework ✍️

    2 items

Week 2

Jun 9—Jun 15

    VIDEOS: Generating AI concepts

    4 items

    Jun

    13

    Live discussion & exercises

    Fri 6/134:30 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)

    Homework ✍️

    1 item

Week 3

Jun 16—Jun 22

    VIDEOS: Rapid Evaluation of AI Concepts

    4 items

    VIDEOS: Value to Users and the Business

    4 items

    Jun

    20

    Live discussion & exercises

    Fri 6/204:30 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)

    Homework ✍️

    1 item

Week 4

Jun 23—Jun 29

    VIDEOS: Identifying Unexpected AI Outcomes

    2 items

    READINGS & REFERENCES 📖

    5 items

    Jun

    27

    Live discussion & exercises

    Fri 6/274:30 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)

    Homework ✍️

    1 item

Week 5

Jun 30—Jul 6

Week 6

Jul 7—Jul 13

    VIDEOS: Ranking Your Top AI Concepts

    2 items

    READINGS 📖

    5 items

    Jul

    11

    Live discussion & exercisess

    Fri 7/114:30 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)

    Homework ✍️

    2 items

Week 7

Jul 14—Jul 18

    Jul

    18

    Capstone project delivery

    Fri 7/181:00 PM—2:30 PM (UTC)

Bonus

    Bonus #1

    1 item

    Bonus #2

    1 item

    Bonus #3

    1 item

    Bonus #4: Newsletters & Podcasts

    2 items

    Hire us to spark and guide your AI initiatives

    3 items

What people are saying

        In an ecosystem crowded with opinions disguised as facts, I sought a foundation in AI that could help me distinguish reality from hype. Kerry and Dan delivered. I learned a methodology that mitigates the risks so often inherent in AI projects, delivers meaningful value to organizations, and keeps user needs at the core of my work. Highly recommend.
Erin Eisinger

Erin Eisinger

Founder & CEO, FourByNorth Studios
        The course frameworks balance business impact, user value, and AI feasibility to create well-rounded AI solutions. Plus, the format was great — the right amount of content to review beforehand, followed by fun and interactive in-person discussions. Highly recommend it!
Manqian Qian

Manqian Qian

Product Design at Gem

Meet your instructors

Kerry Bodine

Kerry Bodine

CEO & Co-author of Outside In

Kerry Bodine took her first AI coding class in 1996. (Lisp, anyone?)


Kerry is the co-author of Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business, a seminal book in the CX space that helps business leaders understand the financial benefits of great customer experiences — and how their organizations must change in order to deliver them.


Her ideas, analysis, and expert opinions have appeared on sites like The Wall Street JournalHarvard Business ReviewFast CompanyForbes, and USA Today.


She holds a master’s degree in human-computer interaction from Carnegie Mellon University.

Dan Saffer

Dan Saffer

Dan is an Assistant Professor of The Practice at Carnegie Mellon University, connecting HCI and Design academia with professional work and vice versa. He was a professional designer for over 20 years, 12+ years of that managing UX teams for everything from robots to Twitter.


He's written four books on design, including the best-seller Microinteractions. He has a Master’s degree in Design from Carnegie Mellon, and has been honored with ten nominations for the National Design Award.

A pattern of wavy dots

Join an upcoming cohort

Strategic AI Project Selection - DEEP DIVE

June 2025

$1,499

Dates

June 2—July 18, 2025

Payment Deadline

June 2, 2025
Get reimbursed

Course schedule

3 – 4 hours per week

  • Videos & readings

    20 min - 2 hours on your own schedule

    We know you're busy! We assume that you'll have watched all of the videos (20-ish minutes) before each live session. You may also wish to spend more time on the additional reading.

  • Mondays: 90-minute live discussion & exercises

    12:30 - 2:00pm ET


  • Weekly homework assignments

    15 min - 2 hours per week

    After week 1, your homework will be tailored to a real-world challenge for your organization. Assignments will build on each other, culminating in a proposal for a low-risk AI initiative that drives value for your business. Your homework time commitment will increase each week.

Learning is better with cohorts

Learning is better with cohorts

Active hands-on learning

This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects

Interactive and project-based

You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams

Learn with a cohort of peers

Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you

Frequently Asked Questions

A pattern of wavy dots

Join an upcoming cohort

Strategic AI Project Selection - DEEP DIVE

June 2025

$1,499

Dates

June 2—July 18, 2025

Payment Deadline

June 2, 2025
Get reimbursed

$1,499

7 Weeks