AI for Everyone: Engage for Leaders

Project Overview

AI for Everyone: Engage for Leaders is a leadership enablement course designed to help Cisco leaders guide their teams through the early stages of generative AI adoption. The course focuses on helping leaders communicate Cisco’s AI strategy, align AI initiatives with business goals, and model responsible AI practices within their teams. Leaders learn how to support employee adoption, facilitate conversations about AI, and embed AI tools into everyday workflows.

The course is part of Cisco’s broader AI learning program and introduces leaders to the 4E AI Adoption Methodology: Engage, Explore, Experience, and Embed. Through scenario-based decision points, guided leadership activities, and downloadable facilitation tools, learners practice assessing their team’s readiness for AI adoption, aligning AI strategies with organizational priorities, and supporting employees as they begin integrating AI into their work.

Instructional Design Strategy

The course was designed as a short, applied leadership experience rather than a traditional informational course. The instructional strategy focuses on practical leadership behaviors that drive AI adoption inside teams.

Scenario-based leadership simulations allow learners to practice decision-making in realistic situations, such as supporting a hesitant team member or aligning AI strategy with business goals. Activity-based learning provides structured guides and downloadable facilitation tools that leaders can use in real meetings with their teams. Performance-support resources extend learning beyond the course through the Leader AI Adoption Toolkit, which helps leaders diagnose their team’s AI adoption stage and identify actions to advance adoption.

The design also emphasizes strategic leadership behaviors including communicating AI vision, addressing employee concerns about automation, modeling responsible AI use, and guiding teams in identifying workflows where AI can add value. These elements position leaders not only as learners but as facilitators of organizational change.

Design Process

The course development followed an iterative instructional design process focused on translating enterprise AI strategy into actionable leadership behaviors.

First, I reviewed Cisco’s AI strategy documentation, leadership enablement goals, and internal guidance on responsible AI practices to identify the core leadership capabilities the course needed to develop. From this analysis, I structured the course around three primary leadership actions: grow AI adoption, share the AI vision, and lead by example.

Next, I designed the course architecture in Rise 360, organizing content into a progression of short learning segments that combine scenario interactions, reflection prompts, and downloadable leadership activities. Interactive scenarios were created to simulate real leadership conversations, requiring learners to choose responses that demonstrate effective AI adoption support.

I then developed practical activity resources, including leadership discussion guides and strategic planning exercises that leaders could use with their teams to facilitate AI adoption conversations and planning sessions. These activities help bridge the gap between learning and real-world application.

Finally, I integrated reference tools such as the Leader AI Adoption Toolkit to reinforce ongoing application of the learning after course completion.