The What If Method: A Practical System for Turning Ideas into Action with GenAI
Leslie Grandy
First-to-market product exec; Author
Use GenAI for strategic thinking, not just your tasks and busy work.
This course is for you if you are stuck and need to break through the ambiguity or noise and take decisive action.
Students learn a repeatable method and six discrete, structured creative thinking techniques to solve problems with Generative AI as a collaborative partner.
This interactive course, based on my award-winning new book CREATIVE VELOCITY: PROPELLING BREAKTHROUGH IDEAS IN THE AGE OF GENERATIVE AI (WILEY, MAY 2025), unlocks the power and immediate actionability of frameworks like SCAMPER, Generic Parts Technique, and Contradictory Thinking, to effectively address major business, customer, and product challenges and improve strategic thinking.
When you ask "What If" in a structured way GenAI can help you:
➡️ Close information gaps – make critical decisions without precedent
➡️ Avoid growth plateaus – discover untapped expansion opportunities
➡️ Manage operating constraints – work within tight budgets or resource limitations
➡️ Mitigate risk - maximize preparedness by planning for vulnerabilities
➡️ Refine ideas - turn “What if?” explorations into tangible outcomes
➡️ Innovate for your customers - channel the flood of possibilities into structured exploration
What you’ll learn
Class projects will help you learn how to partner with GenAI to frame ambiguous problems, generate, and evaluate alternative solution paths.
Apply GenAI-assisted frameworks to reframe problems, generate alternatives, and select viable actions.
Utilize Generative AI to rapidly explore an unfamiliar or ambiguous problem-solution space
Apply contradictory thinking to stress-test strategies and run pre-mortems,
Identify potential failure points before they become costly mistakes.
.Creatively overcome hurdles like lack of data, resources, and time.
Assess your natural problem-solving tendencies
Demonstrate increased agency in advancing ideas from exploration to committed action
Master a practical playbook for getting unstuck and moving forward.
Learn directly from Leslie
Leslie Grandy
Global, first-to-market product exec; Author; Lead Executive in Residence
Who this course is for
Senior leaders who want to empower employees to leverage AI to imagine innovative solutions, accelerate growth, & improve customer outcomes
Product & Program leaders who need practical, repeatable techniques to manage risks and constraints, dynamic markets, or growth challenges.
Startup Founders looking to build resilient plans while navigating limited resources and funding, information gaps, and product-market fit.
What's included
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
5 live sessions • 7 lessons • 9 projects
Week 1
Jan
13
Creative Thinking Foundations
The Human-AI Collaboration
The Creative Leader
The Benefits of Using Frameworks vs Engineering Prompts
Jan
16
Structured Frameworks - Part One
Constraint-based Thinking - Breaking Functional Fixations That Block Innovation
Week 2
Jan
20
Structured Frameworks - Part Two
SCAMPER: A Toolkit for Perspective Shifting and Transformation
Jan
23
Structured Frameworks Part Three
Combinational and Combinatorial Thinking - When X meets Y Sparks Can Fly
Free resources
Schedule
Live sessions
2 hrs / week
Live sessions will be interactive discussions about the exercises.
Tue, Jan 13
1:00 AM—2:00 AM (UTC)
Fri, Jan 16
1:00 AM—2:00 AM (UTC)
Tue, Jan 20
1:00 AM—2:00 AM (UTC)
Projects
1-2 hrs / week
Projects are designed to give students a chance to apply the frameworks to a different problem each week. This material is the basis for our live event discussions.
Async content
1-2 hrs / week
Students should expect to read/watch the material in advance of the live sessions to maximize their learning experience.