An optional challenge for MGT 360 — outside class, at your own pace.
Some of you use AI every day. Some of you have been told for two years that using it is cheating, and you’re not sure what’s allowed anymore. Wherever you’re starting from, this one starts easy on purpose: thirteen short exercises across five rungs, each rung setting up the next.
Why this order? Maybe you’ve never tried AI before, or have been scared away from using it by instructors, etc. That’s why we are starting on the first rung of the ladder — play!
| # | Exercise | What you turn in | What you judge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rung 1 — PlayNothing on the line. Build fluency. | |||
| 01 | Turn whatever you are reading into song lyrics | The lyrics, plus a paragraph on what the song had to drop. | What the song left out — and whether that was the filler or the point. |
| 02 | Make a concept explain your own job | The explanation, plus a paragraph on where it fits your job and where it does not. | Whether the concept actually fits your work, or only sounds like it does. |
| Rung 2 — DirectYou steer. The answer depends on you. | |||
| 03 | Make it argue against itself | Both answers — original and rebuttal — plus your verdict. | Which side actually won. |
| 04 | Rewrite the prompt, watch the answer change | Both prompts and both answers, plus what your edit changed. | What your edit caused — and what stubbornly did not move. |
| 05 | Have it quiz you until you find your gaps | Your list of the gaps it found — not the quiz — plus what you did about one. | Where your own understanding actually ran out. |
| Rung 3 — ApplyReal managerial work. And the first sign of thinning. | |||
| 06 | Rehearse a hard conversation | The ten strongest lines, not the whole thing, plus what you’d do differently. | Your own performance, not the AI’s script. |
| 07 | Drill into a question you actually care about | The last exchange of the drill, plus whether the extra depth was real. | Whether the depth is real or just more words. |
| 08 | Push until the answers thin out | The exchange where it started repeating itself, plus where it stopped adding anything. | The point where it stopped adding anything — and why. |
| Rung 4 — InterrogateExamine the limits you just found. | |||
| 09 | Compare two AIs on the same question | The two answers side by side, plus the one disagreement that matters. | Where they disagree — and which disagreement matters. |
| 10 | Have it argue the side you reject | The strongest paragraph it produced against you, plus whether it moved you. | Whether the case against you was stronger than you expected. |
| 11 | Mark the line: its recommendation, your judgment | Your annotated copy — its recommendation marked one way, your judgment another. | Exactly where the AI stopped and you started. This is the point of the rung. |
| Rung 5 — VerifyIndependence. Check it, then check the check. | |||
| 12 | Fact-check the AI — then check the checker | The claim, the first check, and the check of the checker. | Whether the second pass was any more trustworthy than the first. |
| 13 | Trace a claim to its original source | The source — or “no source found” and where the trail died. | Whether the source exists and says what the claim says. “I couldn’t find a source” is a passing answer. |
No schedule, no chapter tie-in. Nothing here depends on what a given chapter is about or where the class happens to be — where an exercise needs course material, use whatever you’re reading. The order is a suggestion; it exists only because each rung assumes the one below it.
From writing song lyrics to checking whether a cited study actually exists. That distance is the lesson. Start wherever you are — and welcome to the Ladder.
All thirteen Nazarian undergraduate majors. In every one of them the same thing is happening: the production step gets cheap and the judgment step gets valuable. What differs is which judgment.
Reconciliation, classification and first-pass sampling are automating quickly.
Yours: Exceptions, materiality, and defending a position to a regulator who asks why.
Building the model got cheap. Framing the question did not.
Yours: Choosing which question is worth answering — and saying when the data cannot answer it.
Drafting and clause comparison compress hard.
Yours: Spotting the clause that actually allocates risk, and arguing it with someone across a table.
Data wrangling and literature scanning compress.
Yours: Identification — knowing whether a relationship is causal or just present.
Model scaffolding and comps assembly get faster every quarter.
Yours: The assumptions inside the model. They are yours, and you will be asked to defend them.
Portfolio math and scenario projection automate well.
Yours: Trust, life circumstances, and talking someone out of a decision they would regret.
Forecasting, routing and scenario planning are improving fast.
Yours: Supplier relationships, and the call you make at 2am when the plan breaks.
Code generation is changing the shape of the job, not deleting it.
Yours: Requirements, integration, security — and knowing what is worth building.
Underwriting and claims triage automate.
Yours: Novel and correlated risk, where there is no history for a model to learn from.
Coordination overhead drops. Supervising intelligent tools while owning the decision becomes the job.
Yours: Judgment — which is the whole point of this course.
The cost of producing content is collapsing toward zero.
Yours: Positioning, taste, and knowing which audience actually matters. Volume is no longer a moat.
Valuation comps and market scanning compress.
Yours: Local knowledge, negotiation, and structuring a deal that survives contact with reality.
Process optimisation and scheduling keep improving.
Yours: Redesigning how work flows around the new tools — which is where the measured gains actually land.