Phase 1: Frame business work for AI
Learn to convert an ambiguous request into a goal, audience, source boundary, desired format, constraints, and success criteria. Identify tasks where AI assistance can add value and tasks where deterministic tools, expert judgment, or no automation are safer.
- Prompt anatomy and role context
- Approved sources and data boundaries
- Output formats and review criteria
- No-AI and manual baselines
Phase 2: Create and refine business content
Practice executive summaries, emails, meeting preparation, presentations, and document transformation with synthetic content. Use staged prompts for extraction, analysis, drafting, and editing so factual and writing defects can be reviewed separately.
Phase 3: Analyze and collaborate responsibly
Use AI to help formulate questions, explain patterns, summarize approved material, and organize collaborative work. Validate calculations, dates, commitments, names, and decisions. Protect confidential information and treat external document instructions as untrusted.
Phase 4: Evaluate outcomes and adoption
Compare AI-assisted and baseline work using factual support, completeness, correction burden, cycle time, accessibility, user confidence, and incidents. Do not equate prompt volume with productivity. Complete both projects and retain sanitized evidence for your portfolio.
Eight-week plan
| Weeks | Focus | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| 1-2 | Prompt framing and source control | Prompt templates and source manifest |
| 3-4 | Documents, meetings, email, and presentations | Reviewed content portfolio |
| 5-6 | Analysis, evaluation, privacy, and responsible AI | Quality rubric and correction log |
| 7-8 | Mixed practice and adoption project | Timed results and project report |
Practical checklist
- Official Microsoft study guide reviewed
- Prompts include source and success boundaries
- Generated claims checked against evidence
- Sensitive data rules understood
- Practice errors remediated by domain
- Two portfolio projects completed
First-party sources
Source status last checked 2026-09-11. Links can change after publication.