Day 01 Foundations

AI Product Fundamentals for PMs

What PMs need to know about machine learning without becoming data scientists. Model types, training data, evaluation metrics, and the product decisions that hinge on understanding the technology.

~1 hour Intermediate Hands-on Precision AI Academy

Today's Objective

What PMs need to know about machine learning without becoming data scientists. Model types, training data, evaluation metrics, and the product decisions that hinge on understanding the technology.

01

Why AI Changes Project Management

The bottleneck in most project management isn't judgment — it's documentation. Writing the WBS, drafting the charter, updating the status report, reformatting the schedule. AI can handle the documentation so you can focus on stakeholders, risks, and decisions.

02

Generating a Work Breakdown Structure

Give Claude your project objective, key deliverables, and constraints. It will generate a draft WBS faster than any template.

Prompt — WBS generation
You are a project management expert. Generate a detailed Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for the following project.

Project: [Project Name]
Objective: [One sentence description]
Key deliverables: [Bullet list]
Constraints: [Budget, timeline, team size]

Structure the WBS with:
- Level 1: Project phases
- Level 2: Major deliverables per phase
- Level 3: Work packages (tasks) per deliverable
- For each work package: estimated effort in person-days

Format as a nested numbered list.
03

Timeline Estimation Prompts

Prompt — Timeline with dependencies
Here is my project WBS:
[paste WBS]

Team: [size and roles]
Working hours: [hours/day]
Known dependencies: [list]

Generate a realistic timeline:
1. Identify critical path tasks
2. Flag any unrealistic sequence assumptions
3. Add 15% contingency buffer automatically
4. Output as: Task | Duration | Dependencies | Start | End | Owner
💡
Use Claude Projects for ongoing projects. Store your WBS and charter in the project context so every planning conversation starts with full context.
04

Scope Gap Detection

Prompt — Find missing scope
Review this project scope and identify what's missing.

Scope document:
[paste scope]

For each gap you find:
- What's missing
- Why it matters
- Recommended addition
- Risk level if left unaddressed (High/Medium/Low)

Also flag any scope items that seem ambiguous or open to interpretation.
Day 1 Exercise
Generate a Full Project Plan
  1. Pick a real or hypothetical project
  2. Use the WBS prompt to generate a 3-level breakdown
  3. Feed the WBS back to Claude for timeline estimation
  4. Run the scope gap detection prompt on your results
  5. Revise based on the gaps Claude identifies

Day 1 Summary

What's Next

The foundations from today carry directly into Day 2. In the next session the focus shifts to Building AI Product Roadmaps — building directly on everything covered here.

Day 1 Checkpoint

Before moving on, verify you can answer these without looking:

  • What is the core concept introduced in this lesson, and why does it matter?
  • What are the two or three most common mistakes practitioners make with this topic?
  • Can you explain the key code pattern from this lesson to a colleague in plain language?
  • What would break first if you skipped the safeguards or best practices described here?
  • How does today's topic connect to what comes in Day 2?

Live Bootcamp

Learn this in person — 2 days, 5 cities

Thu–Fri sessions in Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Dallas. $1,490 per seat. June–October 2026.

Reserve Your Seat →
Continue To Day 2
Day 2: Status Reports and Stakeholder Communication