PLANARA LEADERS · A SAMPLE PROGRAM
Every cohort is shaped by the team interviews in Step 2 of our approach. The program below is representative, not prescriptive — a view of the shape, not the specifics.
Every program runs eight weeks. One live session per week, two to three hours, with an applied assignment in between tied to each participant’s real work. The cohort sizes from fifteen to twenty-five. The program opens with an in-person kickoff where possible, and closes with a capstone presentation to leadership.
Four modules. In order: Foundation, Software & Digital Product, AI & Agentic Systems, Commercialization. The order matters — each module earns the next. We do not reshuffle them.
This is the skeleton. It is the same across every program we run, regardless of sector.
The sequence is deliberate. Each module prepares the ground for the next.
Module 01
What a product actually is — whether it’s a machine, software, a process, or an agentic workflow. Desirability, feasibility, viability. Why emotional value is where durable profit lives. How to discover what people actually need before committing resources to building it.
Module 02
How software product development works — and how it differs from physical product. Discovery through delivery. Roadmap and prioritization. Working effectively across engineering, design, and business. Physical-digital product design where hardware and software meet.
Module 03
What AI changes about product development — and what it doesn’t. The two questions that separate leaders from followers right now: how do new tools change what we already deliver, and what categories of value can we unlock that weren’t possible before. Which principles bend, which break, and which matter more than ever.
Module 04
Business case, market understanding, stakeholder communication, product narrative. Each participant presents a concept they have built during the program. This is the competency demonstration that earns the certificate.
THE SAMPLE JOURNEY
THE SAMPLE SYLLABUS
One live session per week (two to three hours, virtual). One applied assignment between sessions, tied to a participant’s real work. The following week opens with a readout and peer critique. Approximately three to four hours of total engagement per week.
Experience, desirability/feasibility/viability, emotional value. In-person where possible.
Applied assignment
Map the emotional and functional value of a product you manage.
Observing and interviewing to find what people actually need. Opens with Week 1 readout.
Applied assignment
Two user interviews on a real challenge from your work.
From insight to opportunity. Generating many concepts before committing. Opens with Week 2 readout.
Applied assignment
Three product opportunity statements drawn from your interviews.
How software product differs from physical product. Discovery, roadmap, working with engineering teams.
Applied assignment
Map the development process for a current software initiative you touch. Where are the gaps?
Where products sit at the hardware/software intersection. Sector-specific case examples.
Applied assignment
Identify a physical-digital integration challenge in your world. What would the ideal product experience look like?
Generative design, digital twins, agentic workflows. What is real now and what is coming.
Applied assignment
Three places in your workflow where AI could compress time or improve quality.
What changes when AI agents participate in product workflows. Where human judgment is still the bottleneck.
Applied assignment
Identify a process where agentic AI could scale human judgment. What is the leader’s role in governing it?
Business case, product narrative. Each participant presents. Certificate ceremony.
Applied assignment
Final presentation: a human-centered concept, an AI-era opportunity identified, a business case framed.
The eight-week shape is stable. So is the module order, the pedagogical spine, and the applied-work-between-sessions rhythm. These are load-bearing — changing them would defeat what makes the program effective.
Everything else is shaped around the team that will attend it, based on what we hear in the interviews we conduct before the program begins.
OPTIONAL EXTENSION
For teams that want to go further — a hands-on extension where a subset of the cohort actually builds with the agentic tools covered in Module 3, against a real problem from their organization.
A self-selected subset of the cohort — typically 8 to 12 participants — who want to move from understanding agentic systems to prototyping with them.
Four to six additional weeks after the core program ends. Hands-on build sessions. A working prototype against a real organizational challenge. Led by James Haliburton alongside Matt Kressy.
Pricing and format are scoped separately, based on the use case. No decision needed during the core program — this is a natural follow-on if and when it makes sense.
Every participant who completes the program — including the capstone presentation — receives a Planara Leaders certificate grounded in the IDM methodology. It is appropriate for LinkedIn, for a resume, and for internal professional development records.
The certificate is not the product. The capability is. But the credential is real, and it travels with the participant.
We do not sell a catalog. The sample above is a reasonable starting point — but the program your team receives will be shaped by the interviews we conduct with your people in the first week of our engagement. That is how we make sure the examples land, the assignments matter, and the time is spent where it creates the most leverage for your specific organization.
The first step is a thirty-minute call.
A thirty-minute call. No prepared deck. No sales pitch. Just a conversation about your team and what you’re trying to build.