FOR DISCUSSION - A POTENTIAL AI WORKSHOP PROGRAMME STRUCTURE & APPROACH

Introduction

The purpose of this ‘light touch’ workshop programme is to reduce AI fear and anxiety among newcomers, introduce rigour and discipline among dabblers and recent adopters and create an environment / provide a platform for intermediate and more advanced users to combine and expand their knowledge and share it with others in the business.

We will be looking for approaches that benefit the company as well as the individuals and teams participating.

We view ourselves more as enablers, guides and facilitators than instructors.

We propose a programme in four parts:

  1. a preparatory 60-min session with HR, relevant seniors and department heads and ‘AI champions’, primarily intermediate and more advanced users, to set the project’s overall goals and parameters

  2. a 90-min session for participants from all departments within the business, to dispel fear and anxiety among newcomers, surface how AI is actually being used across the business, how confident people feel about AI and its use and what support or learning they want next

  3. a set of up to nine 60-min department-specific guided, interactive Base-level sessions, to increase overall AI knowledge levels, introduce AI ‘tool kits’ and galvanise teams

  4. a set of up to nine 90-min participant-led, department-specific, Intermediate-level sessions to accelerate learning, uncover synergies and explore how AI can be used more and more effectively across the business

1 - Preparatory session

The purpose of this session is to establish what the company wants to get out of this exercise by consulting with the group of people in the business who know most about AI and how it might be used.

We would draw on their experience and use their advanced knowledge to set the project framework, identify the tools the company already uses or want to use and set realistic goals for those at different skill levels to achieve.

Key to this will be to encourage, though not require, intermediate and more advanced users to support their less knowledgeable colleagues throughout the programme.

2 - Cross-company AI readiness & culture mapping workshop

Format: Three overlapping segments designed to inclusively layer participants by comfort level and use-case familiarity, while producing actionable insights for HR, department heads and relevant senior managers.

Structure: This session begins with a 15 min introduction to AI for beginners. Then, recent adopters and dabblers join for a 35 min section where use cases and departmental applications are looked at. Intermediate / confident users join for the remaining 40 mins, to surface deeper insights, encourage more and better use and begin the process of uncovering synergies and bringing more people up to their level of knowledge, confidence and use.

Output: HR and senior management receive baseline data on confidence, sentiment and cross-department overlaps.

3 - Department-specific Base-level workshops

These are for everybody in the department to attend, but are aimed at those with less AI knowledge and a need to understand how AI tools can help them both individually and to ease the department’s overall workload, freeing them up to concentrate on more valuable, important tasks.

  • Development - How AI can support the spark of an idea and turn it into a pitch-ready format, inc. idea generation, audience analysis, pitch materials and market research

  • Pre-production - Exploring AI’s role in scheduling, budgeting, casting, scripting, storyboarding, risk assessment and logistics

  • Production - On-set and in-studio efficiencies made possible by AI, inc. on-set tools, camera planning, continuity, live translation, health and safety

  • Post-production - How AI augments editing, sound, VFX, graphics and compliance, inc. editing assistance, roto, upscaling, clean plate generation, audio correction

  • Delivery - How AI accelerates QC using automation, generates metadata and global localisation, automates subtitling, translation and dubbing, generates promo clips ...

  • Marketing & Distribution - Using AI to listen, learn, and build stronger connections with audiences, including. data analysis, sentiment analysis across platforms, iterative development

  • Business Affairs / Legal - How AI helps get content to the right screens and audiences at speed, accelerates contract reviews, summarises documents, supports rights management, monitors compliance with broadcast regulations ...

  • Finance & Strategy - How AI supports smarter budgeting, forecasting and decision-making, models ‘what-if’ scenarios, analyses market data, detects financial anomalies and risks ...

  • HR & Learning - How to brief, refine and collaborate with AI tools for better creative results, inc. CV handling, skills gap detection, incisive hiring support, staff retention, wellbeing and career progression analysis

Output: Base-level users and newcomers gain more appreciation of what their Intermedia-level and more advanced-level colleagues know and how they use AI, enabling them to contribute more in the participant-led Intermediate-level sessions and get more out of them.

4 - Department-specific Intermediate-level workshops

These are for everybody in the department to attend, but are aimed at those with more AI knowledge and a wish to combine and expand the department’s overall understanding and appreciation of how AI can be used to streamline its processes and workflows.

The sessions would nominally be divided into two tracks to reflect a department’s structure and individual’s roles. Each track would have a facilitator.

Ahead of each department’s session, participants would be invited to submit questions they would like to be answered, points they would like to raise and areas they would like to explore. The facilitators would structure their session tracks using facilitation styles that match each element introduced by the participants, following an unconference-style format.

Outputs: Base-level users’ knowledge and appreciation is accelerated as they are stretched and tested more than they were in the Base-level sessions.

Intermediate users are given a platform and an environment that enables them to begin to work more closely, to identify synergies and overlaps in their knowledge and use cases and spot and begin to fill gaps in their and their department’s knowledge and skill sets.

By the end of the programme, HR and senior management have a much more rounded and detail understanding and appreciation of where management, staff and freelancers are with their AI knowledge so they can put further programmes into place to fill important gaps.

The technical and finance departments can better judge and assess which tools to invest in, which supplier relationships and partnerships to nurture and develop and what budgets need to be allocated to bring the business up to the right level of preparedness for future AI use.