Deliver Breakthrough Product Ideas Using Structured Frameworks With GenAI

New
·

10 Days

·

Cohort-based Course

Utilize proven creative thinking techniques with GenAI as a catalyst to overcome mental blocks and constraints to build robust product plans

Previously at

Apple
Amazon
Best Buy
RealNetworks
Discovery

Course overview

Use GenAI for strategic product thinking, not just your tasks and busy work.

WHY TAKE THIS COURSE?

Although prompt engineering is suitable for personalized productivity tasks, such as writing PRDs, and clearly defined problems, like conducting a competitive analysis, it isn't the path to thinking big. Structured creative thinking techniques, like the ones we'll focus on, work best for generating product concepts, exploring ambiguous problem spaces, building resilient strategic plans, and navigating future uncertainty. Students gain proficiency in applying six discrete, structured creative thinking techniques with Generative AI as a collaborative partner.


After more than 25 years leading product teams across different industries, I know that product management fundamentally requires non-linear thinking to navigate complex market dynamics and user needs. Breakthrough thinking requires unconventional approaches.


This interactive course, based on my award-winning new book CREATIVE VELOCITY: PROPELLING BREAKTHROUGH IDEAS IN THE AGE OF GENERATIVE AI (WILEY, MAY 2025), demonstrates the power and immediate actionability of frameworks like SCAMPER, Generic Parts Technique, and Contradictory Thinking, to uncover unexpected approaches, manage risk, and overcome functional fixations to effectively address major business challenges and improve strategic thinking.


We will use our live sessions to workshop your application of these frameworks to a real-world problem you'll be presented. And, in our last session, I'll offer coaching on how to apply them to a current problem you may be facing.


THIS COURSE IS FOR YOU IF YOU FACE THESE CHALLENGES:

➡️ Revenue challenges – you need to refine or reinvent value capture.

➡️ Information gaps – making critical product decisions without sufficient data or precedent

➡️ Growth plateaus – needing to discover untapped market segments or expansion opportunities

➡️ Market disruption – responding to aggressive competitors or emerging threats in your space

➡️ Operating constraints – working within tight budgets, regulatory requirements, or resource limitations

➡️ Leadership expectations – demonstrating strategic thinking skills to advance your product management career


THIS COURSE IS NOT FOR YOU IF YOU WANT TO:

❌ Learn to automate processes and offload tasks to AI

❌ Engineer better prompts

❌ Automate content creation


WHAT MAKES THIS COURSE UNIQUE? IT OFFERS A PLAYBOOK YOU CAN ACTION IMMEDIATELY TO ACCELERATE BETTER OUTCOMES.

By the end of this course, you will learn how to apply six discrete, structured techniques in partnership with Gen AI to tackle challenges at every stage of the product lifecycle.

Who this course is for

01

Product leaders who need practical, repeatable techniques to tackle operational constraints, market disruption, or growth challenges.

02

Startup Founders looking to build resilient plans while navigating limited resources and funding, information gaps, and product-market fit.

03

Senior leaders who want to empower employees to leverage AI to imagine innovative solutions, accelerate growth, & improve customer outcomes

What you’ll be able to do after taking this course

Apply frameworks immediately to problems you face at various stages of the product lifecycle.

Choose the best techniques for discovery and ideation in early stages, strategic pivots and optimizations during growth phases, and competitive responses in mature markets.

Use GenAI to overcome hurdles like lack of data, resources, and time that stall creative thinking.

Navigate ambiguous problem spaces, constraints, and future uncertainty to discover novel approaches.

Create resilient plans by revealing hidden or faulty assumptions that could undermine success, especially in dynamic markets.

Apply contradictory thinking to stress-test strategies, run pre-mortems, and identify potential failure points before they become costly mistakes.

Discover unseen patterns and connections while exploring unexpected sources for solutions to demonstrate strategic thinking.

Utilize Generative AI to find analogic solutions from other industries and domains that can transform your product approach.

Ideate like a zero gravity thinker to build a pipeline of innovative ideas.

Break free from the anchor of existing data, conventional wisdom, and stakeholder consensus to generate breakthrough product concepts.

Leverage AI as a strategic thinking partner to broaden your field of vision.

Generate dozens of creative options quickly, explore multiple perspectives simultaneously, and push beyond your initial thinking patterns.

What’s included

Leslie Grandy

Live sessions

Learn directly from Leslie Grandy in a real-time, interactive format.

A copy of my award-winning new book

Creative Velocity: Propelling Breakthrough Ideas in the Age of Generative AI (Wiley, May 2025), winner of five awards for non-fiction

Discount on the Product Management Leadership Accelerator

Get a discount code for an upcoming cohort of the University of Washington Foster School Product Management Leadership Accelerator

Lifetime access

Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.

Community of peers

Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.

Certificate of completion

Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.

Maven Guarantee

This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.

Course syllabus

4 live sessions • 7 lessons • 6 projects

Week 1

Sep 9—Sep 14

    Sep

    10

    Creative Thinking Foundations

    Wed 9/1012:00 AM—1:30 AM (UTC)

    The Creative Leader

    2 items

    The Benefits of Using Frameworks vs Engineering Prompts

    1 item

    The Human-AI Collaboration

    2 items

    Sep

    12

    Structured Frameworks - Part One

    Fri 9/1212:00 AM—1:30 AM (UTC)

    Constraint-based Thinking - Breaking Functional Fixations That Block Innovation

    2 items

    SCAMPER - A Toolkit for Perspective-Shifting and Transformation

    2 items

Week 2

Sep 15—Sep 18

    Sep

    17

    Stuctured Frameworks - Part Two

    Wed 9/1712:00 AM—1:30 AM (UTC)

    Combinatorial Thinking - When X meets Y Sparks Can Fly

    2 items

    Contradictory Thinking & The Premeditation of Evils

    2 items

    Sep

    19

    Wrap Up & AMA

    Fri 9/1912:00 AM—1:30 AM (UTC)

What people say about working with me

        Leslie created a supportive, creative environment where the UX team was encouraged to come up with bold ideas and complex user-experiences. Dream come true for any designer!
Gina Jeancharles

Gina Jeancharles

UX Leader at Google, ex-Discovery, ex-WWW, ex-A&E
        Leslie's leadership is transformative; her direct feedback and visionary goals not only fostered my growth as a leader but also propelled our team towards innovative, customer-centric solutions. Her ability to drive results and inspire innovation was pivotal in our success.
Brent Van Wieringen

Brent Van Wieringen

Senior Director, Experience Design, Best Buy
        Leslie was instrumental in advocating for a design-centered product development focus, and a consumer insight driven approach to innovation. Her coaching was profound, her vision ambitious, and her passion unmatched.
Robert Neer

Robert Neer

VP, Product & Design, ex- Amazon, ex-Walgreen's Boots Alliance, ex-Best Buy
        Leslie helped drive innovation in our organization with agile thinking and creative human centered design that used best practices but was a specific fit for us. She is highly customer centric and uses a systematic approach to drive scaled innovation.  
Sacha Weinberg

Sacha Weinberg

Head of Global Brand Marketing at Amazon Prime Video | Ex - Starbucks, Nike, Disney, Mattel

Meet your instructor

Leslie Grandy

Leslie Grandy

Leslie Grandy is a global, first-to-market product executive, award-winning author, and board advisor with a 25+ year career delivering game-changing products for top brands - Best Buy, Discovery, T-Mobile, Apple, and Amazon. Throughout her career, Leslie has been at the front end of innovation launching the first paid video streaming service, RealOne SuperPass with over 1 million subscribers after co-authoring a patent (currently owned by Intel) for a system that provides integrated media; delivering the first Android mobile device, the T-Mobile G1; and leading Best Buy’s Digital Innovation Lab. Leslie co-created and serves as the Lead Executive in Residence for the Product Management Leadership Accelerator at the University of Washington Foster School of Business.


Leslie's book, Creative Velocity: Propelling Breakthrough Ideas in the Age of Generative AI, was released by Wiley in May 2025.


Leslie is the founder of The Product Guild, a Product and Innovation Advisory Services company through which she has advised early-stage ventures and numerous publicly traded companies on innovation and new product development, including Starbucks, Oracle Power, and Red Robin Gourmet Burgers. A sought-after keynote, featured speaker, and lecturer on creative leadership, product and service design, and digital transformation, Leslie is an adjunct instructor at the Regis College Sloan School of Business and Communication, and the West Virginia University College of Creative Arts. Leslie is also an IDEO-trained leader in Design Thinking who inspires audiences to achieve their creative potential.


Fun Fact: Leslie worked for 13 years in Hollywood and became a member of the Directors Guild of America, before getting an MBA and pivoting to technology product management.

Apple
Amazon
T-Mobile
Best Buy
A pattern of wavy dots

Join an upcoming cohort

Deliver Breakthrough Product Ideas Using Structured Frameworks With GenAI

Cohort 1

$899

Dates

Sep 10—19, 2025

Payment Deadline

Sep 4, 2025
Get reimbursed

Course schedule

Four ninety-minute live events

  • Tuesday & Thursday

    5:00 pm - 6:30 pm PST

    Asynchronous lessons support project assignments which are discussed in the live sessions. Live events will recap the lesson, but will primarily focus on takeaways from the assigned project and the application of each of the frameworks to the same customer problem.

Free resource

Deep Dive on Supermind Ideator

Looking for an AI tool to help you explore problem schemas and uncover novel solutions? Listen to this short audio clip to learn more about an innovative AI-assisted tool designed to enhance creative problem-solving using structured methodologies.


The Supermind Ideator was developed by researchers at the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT.

Get this free resource

Learning is better with cohorts

Learning is better with cohorts

Immediately actionable tools

You'll be able to apply the techniques before the course is over!

Interactive and project-based

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

Group and Individual Exercises

Take this course with teammates and practice these techniques as group or go it alone and build creative self-efficacy.

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

Deliver Breakthrough Product Ideas Using Structured Frameworks With GenAI

Cohort 1

$899

Dates

Sep 10—19, 2025

Payment Deadline

Sep 4, 2025
Get reimbursed

$899

10 Days