01
The account of what changed
Production got cheap. Judgement did not. One page, in language a board can use, with no tool list on it.
Design and Agents: Decisions for the CEO
Three decisions before we fund another tool.
Leadership
US$300 once
Three courses
A rollout is about to be framed as a tool purchase. You leave with the judgement budget, the systems an agent may touch, and the human who answers written down, and with the reply you send when the answer is a demo.
The three leadership courses are sold together for US$300. Designer membership does not include them, and this purchase does not open the designer courses.
- Modules
- 4 modules
- Total time
- ≈2h
- Last updated
- 2026-10-10
- Your progress
- 0/4 modules completed
Already in the building
You are about to fund a demo.
The design function you already pay for can produce more than it can judge. Cycle time can move. Consistency can move. Desk research can move. Those are the gains. They are not the decision in front of you.
If the gate is empty, harm sits in five places: unreviewed work, client material in a prompt, generative media treated as a casual export, research claims nobody interviewed, and computer use on a live system. A vendor slide will not list them that way.
You will be offered a tool, a savings claim, or a certificate. None of those settles the judgement budget, the systems an agent may touch, or the human who answers when the work ships. If you do not make those three, the head of design cannot.
Three decisions a CEO owes the design function
US$300 once for all three leadership courses. Designer membership does not include them, and this purchase does not open the designer courses.
The pages you leave with
What US$300 buys.
You pay once. You leave with language you can send. These are the pages this course produces.
This course is ≈2h of reading, across 4 modules. Stop when the page you need is drafted.
02
Value on one side, harm on the other
Cycle time, consistency, and desk research. Against them: unreviewed work, client data, generative media, fake research, and computer use.
03
Three decisions, written down
The judgement budget, the systems an agent may touch, and the human who answers. Duties, not a new job title.
04
The ask, and the send-back
A dated request, about ninety days out, for an operating model, a quality bar, and a risk list. Plus the replies you return when you hear a tool list, a savings claim, or a demo.
The same payment opens the two courses your head of design uses to answer you: the operating-model page, and the governance note they can sign.
US$300 once for all three leadership courses. Designer membership does not include them, and this purchase does not open the designer courses.
Why buy now
Why this quarter.
The volume of agent output is already here. A generic certificate will not name the design organisation's decisions on this page.
01
The funding ask is already being written as a tool list
Someone will bring you a demo and a vendor. If you have not said what an acceptable answer contains, the demo becomes the decision.
02
The five harms do not wait for a transformation program
Unreviewed work, client data, generative media, fake research, and computer use are properties of tools already in the building. A later strategy does not recall a prompt that already included a client file.
03
A certificate in the board pack is not the judgement budget
A general program can be serious study. It does not settle what you will fund in review time, which systems an agent may touch, or which human answers when the work ships.
Who it is for
A specific seat.
CEOs and the executive partners of design. Heads of design can use it to brief their own CEO. It is not a substitute for the two longer leadership courses, and it is not a designer course.
This is for you if
- You are the CEO, or the executive who sponsors design, and a rollout is about to be framed as a purchase.
- You want the ask in language a board can use, and you do not intend to learn the tools.
- You are a head of design who needs a briefing you can hand upward without translating it into a tool pitch.
This is not for you if
- You want to practise the craft. The designer track is for that, and this purchase does not open it.
- You want this short course to stand in for the operating model and the quality bar. It is the ask. Those two courses are the work.
- You want a cohort, named faculty, or a certificate of completion.
Each module is a result
After this module you can…
The promise under each title is what you can do in your own organisation. Opening a lesson requires the US$300 purchase. A designer membership does not open it.
01
What Changed in the Design Function
After this module you can tell a board that production got cheap and judgement did not, without a tool list.
02
Where Value and Risk Sit
After this module you can point to where value sits — cycle time, consistency, desk research — and to the five places harm sits if the gate is empty.
03
Decisions Only You Can Make
After this module you can settle the judgement budget, the systems an agent may touch, and the human who answers, and you can tell those three from a certificate.
04
Ninety Days with Your Head of Design
After this module you can send one dated ask, and you can send back a tool list, a savings claim, or a demo.
US$300 once for all three leadership courses. Designer membership does not include them, and this purchase does not open the designer courses.
If the company pays
Buy the seat that can send the ask back.
If a board or a finance partner is paying, the US$300 buys three decisions the company cannot delegate, plus the two longer courses the head of design uses to answer the ask.
This quarter's alternative is a tool contract written before anyone has named the judgement budget. The course does not pick the vendor. It tells you which answers to refuse.
It does not buy a credential, a cohort seat, or the designer-track catalog. It buys the ask you can send, and the pages that come back.
A different product
A certificate names you. These pages name the decision.
A general executive AI program teaches leaders to plan adoption across a company. That is useful study, and it ends in a credential. This purchase tells a design organisation what to change on Monday.
| Question | This purchase | A general certificate |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | The head of design, the design manager in that seat, or the executive who sponsors the function. | Mid-to-senior leaders in any function who want a general AI adoption program. |
| What you leave holding | Pages from your own organisation: an operating model, a governance note, and a ninety-day ask. No certificate is issued. | A certificate of completion. An executive AI program may also offer continuing-education units, or a certificate for each course in a series. |
| What you can take to Monday's meeting | A class that may run, a gate a person holds, or a page someone signs, written from your organisation. | A roadmap, a capstone plan, or an executive pitch about adoption in general. |
| How you study | Written lessons already in the product. No cohort date and no live faculty session. | A scheduled cohort, live sessions, and named faculty. |
| What you pay here | US$300 once for the three leadership courses together. | Tuition is on their page. This school does not copy their price. |
After you pay
What happens when you pay
Written lessons. No cohort date. The same module is the slides, the study guide, and the transcript.
01
Sign in
If you are not signed in, the button takes you to sign-in first, then back to checkout. Use the email the receipt should go to.
02
Pay once
The price is US$300 for the three courses together. Where tax applies, Stripe adds it at checkout. You do not pay again to open the other two.
03
The three courses open
Leading a Design Organization with Agents, Quality, Systems, and Accountability, and Design and Agents: Decisions for the CEO open on that account.
US$300 once for all three leadership courses. Designer membership does not include them, and this purchase does not open the designer courses.
What buyers say
Before the company pays
The lines below are the ones a head of design hears before anyone approves US$300.
01
We already pay for ChatGPT
A shared login is a receipt. The missing decision is which capability class may touch production, what a human still stops, and who answers when the work ships. Keep the tool. Write the page.
02
My designers can learn the tools themselves
They should. The designer track teaches that craft: briefing, prototyping, critique, research packets, the design system, coding agents. This purchase does not open those courses, and those courses do not decide which class may run or who signs the gate. Skill in the team does not name the owner.
03
I'll send the team to a general AI course
Send them if you want a company-wide adoption plan and a credential at the end. A general executive AI program is built for that. It does not write the page your design organisation will use on Monday: the classes, the gates, the quality bar, the ninety-day ask. Buy the certificate for the credential. Buy this for the page.
04
I don't have time for a 4-hour course
The two longer courses are each about four hours of reading, in modules of about forty-five minutes. The CEO course is about two hours. There is no live session and no week you have to clear. Read until the page you need this quarter is drafted, and stop.
05
We already pay for designer membership
That payment opens the designer-track courses. It does not open these three. This US$300 payment does not start a membership and does not open the designer track. The craft and the decisions are different work, so they are different products.
06
Do we pay US$300 three times?
No. One payment of US$300 opens all three: the operating model, the quality bar, and the short course for the CEO.
07
I need a certificate to show my manager
You will not get one here. What you can hand over is a page from your own organisation: the operating model, the governance note, or the ninety-day ask. If the manager needs a credential from a general program, buy that program. If the manager needs the decision named, buy this.
08
This is an engineering problem
Coding agents are one class of capability. Critique capacity, the design system those agents follow, and whether a synthetic user counts as evidence are decisions the design organisation owns. Engineering cannot sign them for you.
09
Do I have to learn the tools?
No. The check at the end is one you can run without them. If the answer you receive depends on a demo, send it back.
US$300 once for all three leadership courses. Designer membership does not include them, and this purchase does not open the designer courses.
Read the argument
The essay, then the course.
The article is the case, and it is public. The course is the sequence that produces the page.
Three decisions a CEO owes the design function
Public essay for this course. No sign-in.
Read articlePricing and Plan Selection for Design Teams
How to choose an agent plan for design work, plus the US list prices that were still on the vendors' own pages on 9 October 2026. Figures that could not be re-read that day are left out on purpose.
Read articleAuthorship, Disclosure, and Studio Governance for Agentic Design
A practical governance kit for design studios and campus programs: when to disclose agent assistance, how to keep critique logs that assign accountability, and why verification rituals matter more than generation speed when work carries a human signature.
Read articleThe Agentic Designer
The operating model for product designers, design leads, and builders who need to understand what changes when agents join design work.
Buy the group
A ninety-day ask, and the replies you will send back.
US$300 once for all three leadership courses. Designer membership does not include them, and this purchase does not open the designer courses.
Open the first lesson