Bringing innovation and AI to everyone
Learn, innovate, succeed: Access tested tools, learn from our mistakes, and master specific tasks and AI. While we can't make you an expert innovator or AI master in a few hours, you'll leave with practical tips to enhance your everyday practice.
What we offer
Choose a course that suits you, or have one tailored specifically to your needs. We will adjust the schedule to fit your requirements.
AI minimum
How to use AI in your daily life
AI fundamentally changes the work and lives of a multitude of people, especially those who make their living as "heads". In our training we will explain in an easy-to-understand way what is good to know about AI and introduce the tools and techniques we've tested in our projects.
Duration: 4 hours
Capacity: maximum 10 participants
Date: 21. 11. 2024, 30. 1., 13. 2., 27. 3., 10. 4., 15. 5., 5. 6. 2025
Time and venue: from 1 to 5 p.m., Direct People
Price: 3 900 CZK without VAT / participant
Instructor: Filip Valíček and Barbora Neumannová
- Introduction – what is and how AI works
- Tools for everyday use – their strengths and weaknesses for working with text and images
- How to prompt – how to practically get the most out of AI
- What to watch out for – the safety of working with data and other potential risks
- Discussion and other resources
- Understanding how AI works, what it’s good for and what it’s not yet good for
- A list of the most useful tools and practices
- Tips and tricks on how to prompt
- Practical experience and inspiration on how to make your job easier
- A list of useful resources that are worth following
AI advanced
For those who want to get more out of AI
A deep dive into AI issues. We will focus on the technical aspects of generative AI, including internal use for companies. We will look at advanced prompting methods (e.g. Chain of Thought and Tools of Thought) as well as practical programming modules (using Stack AI, Azure AI studio) and experimenting with AI tools on real projects.
Duration: 4 hours
Capacity: maximum 10 participants
Date: 6. 2., 3. 4., 29. 5. 2025
Time and venue: from 1 to 5 p.m., Direct People
Price: 4 900 CZK without VAT / participant
Instructor: Josef Dvořák and/or Filip Valíček and/or Barbora Neumannová
- Introduction – brief recap what is and how AI works
- Advanced prompting methods – introduction and application of advanced prompting techniques with concrete examples
- Practical programming modules – introduction and testing of Stack AI and Azure AI Studio
- Ethics and safety when working with AI – important aspects of ethics and safety when using AI
- Discussion
- Resources for further Study
- A more detailed understanding of how AI works and what it enables
- Guidance on how to use advanced prompting techniques to achieve the desired result
- Hands-on experience with the most widely used tools
- An overview of useful resources that are worth following.
Automate and modernise HR with AI
How to use AI in recruitment, retention and employee development
AI is increasingly changing the HR landscape and the way HR professionals work. Thanks to this trend, you can save a sea of time by automating routine tasks, giving you more time for strategic tasks or your own self-development. We'll teach you to think quite differently about organizing your work, give you practical practices and introduce you to the best existing tools.
Duration: 4 hours
Capacity: maximum 10 participants
Date: 27. 2., 20. 3., 22. 5. 2025
Time and venue: from 1 to 5 p.m., Direct People
Price: 3 900 CZK without VAT / participant
Instructor: Josef Dvořák and/or Filip Valíček and/or Barbora Neumannová
- Introduction – what is and how AI works
- How to get the most out of AI – prompting based on real-life scenarios
- The best tools for everyday use – what to use in employer branding, onboarding, EX, retention, etc.
- What to watch out for – data security and other potential risks
- Practical exercises – how to solve the most interesting use cases for HR with AI
- Discussion and other resources
- Understanding how AI works, what it’s good for and what it’s not yet good for
- A list of the most useful tools and practices
- Tips and tricks on how to (un)prompt
- Practical experience and inspiration on how to make your job as a recruiter easier
- A list of useful resources that are worth following
How to sell more with AI
Greater efficiency of business activities not only in B2B
AI can save you a lot of time by automating everyday tasks, giving you more capacity for strategic tasks or personal client care. We'll teach you to think quite differently about organizing your work, impart practical practices, and introduce you to the best existing tools
Duration: 4 hours
Capacity: for whole teams only
Date: according to agreement with the client
Price: contact us, depends on the number of people and requirements
Instructor: Josef Dvořák and/or Filip Valíček and/or Barbora Neumannová
- Introduction – what is and how AI works
- How to get the most out of AI – prompting based on real-life scenarios
- The best tools for everyday use – what to use for leadgen, understanding customer needs, automating processes or communication.
- What to watch out for – data security and other potential risks
- Hands-on exercises – try solving the most interesting use cases for business with AI
- Discussion and other resources
- Understanding how AI works, what it’s good for and what it’s not yet good for
- A list of the most useful tools and practices for business
- Tips and tricks on how to (un)prompt
- Practical experience and inspiration on how to make your job as a marketer easier
- A list of useful resources that are worth following
Successful AI adoption
Turn your AI vision into action
Discover the key challenges organizations encounter when aligning people, technology, and processes for effective AI adoption. This workshop provides proven principles and actionable methods to help you create a plan that addresses critical adoption factors, ensuring your AI initiatives are successfully implemented and impactful.
Duration: 4 hours
Capacity: 8 to 20 people or for the whole teams
Date: 29.1., 13.2., 27.2. 2025
Price: contact us, depends on the number of people and requirements
Instructor: Daniel Franc and Josef Dvořák or Filip Valíček
Context – How it works in companies now
Issues – reasons why adoption fails at the people level and how this is addressed by linking “centralised” and “decentralised”, “top” and “bottom”, “planned” and “organic” approaches
Principles for adopting, leveraging and sustaining transformation based on grassroots engagement and direct peer-to-peer networks of collaboration, support and learning
Methods applicable to each of the phases of adoption – from idea adoption and support, to knowledge and competency creation, to sustaining and scaling
Implementation – What to choose and how to roll out against the specific realities of organisations, how to use a modular approach and link to existing resources and functions in the company
Understanding the needs of the “human side” of adoption and how to meet them for successful transformation
Identifying parallels between adoption needs and community tools and approaches and how to apply them to corporate realities
Knowledge of techniques for each phase of adoption, based on grassroots collaboration
Understanding of possible modular linkages with other corporate functions
Steps for implementation in both small and broader strategies
AI course for management
How to bring AI into your business and attune employees to it
How to work with AI in your company and how to teach your employees how to use it and increase the efficiency of their work without reducing its quality? Come to our course where we will show you, among other things, how market leaders are already working with AI and how they are struggling with adoption in other companies.
Duration: 4 hours
Capacity: for whole teams only
Date: according to agreement with the client
Price: contact us, depends on the number of people and requirements
Instructor: Josef Dvořák and/or Filip Valíček and/or Barbora Neumannová
- Introduction – what generative AI is and is not, how it is created, how it works, what it is and is not suitable for
- How to use genAI in the most beneficial way – a practical exercise on basic prompting techniques based on real-life scenarios (according to the client’s brief)
- Examples of the most common uses of genAI in companies – examples of specific applications and uses of genAI from other companies from real projects
- Legal, security and other essential aspects of using genAI in companies – licensing terms, data privacy, security, cloud vs on premise, HW, pricing, regulation
- Adoption and governance of AI in companies – implementation strategies and most common barriers
- Discussion and conclusion of the course
- Understanding how generative AI works, what it’s good for and what it’s not (yet)
- Inspiration on how other companies are implementing AI
- Advice on how to set up an AI culture in your company and continuously educate your employees
- Insight into what companies are struggling with when adopting AI and how who is tackling it
Introduction to HCD
How to make the most from human-centered design
How to make successful products and services, minimise the risk of investing in innovation and make decisions based on evidence, not assumptions. For all those who create new things, no matter for whom.
Duration: 8 hours
Capacity: maximum for 10 participants
Date: 6. 3., 24. 4. 2025
Time and venue: from 9 a.m.to 5 p.m., Direct People
Price: 5 900 CZK without VAT / participant
Instructor: Michaela Stránská and/or Petra Kalousková
- Principles – what is Human-centered design and what are the principles behind most innovation methodologies
- Process – how to properly formulate the brief and plan the entire process to the outcome
- Empathy – gaining customer understanding and how to conduct conversations
- Opportunities – how to uncover and articulate needs and where to focus
- Ideas – techniques on how to quickly generate a large number of radically different ideas
- Prototyping – how to quickly and inexpensively test the functionality of a solution
- Understanding why it makes sense to innovate with HCD
- Hands-on experience of the whole process through an example
- Feedback at points where you are unsure
- Materials that can be used at each stage on your own projects
How to turn idea into a business model
Lean Canvas in practice
How to bring your idea, product or startup to life and find a working business model for it. A practical, multi-project and Ash Maurya-tested guide to increase your potential to succeed.
Duration: 4 hours
Capacity: for whole teams only
Date: according to agreement with the client
Price: contact us, depends on the number of people and requirements
Instructor: Tomáš Bartl
Recommended preparation before the course – filling in the Lean Canvas of the existing/planned product.
- Introduction – business model vs. business plan, alternatives to Lean Canvas and basic procedure for working with it
- Leaner Canvas – problem and target segment tuning
- Business model – consistency of proposition, solution and relevant path to customers given the pricing model
- Sustainability of the model – viability of the model and measurement of its functionality
- Validation – ways to verify the model
- You will try out the process of how to work with Lean Canvas
- A checklist on how to spot potential problems in the model
- Lots of insights and stories from our innovation practice
Experimentation as a way out of uncertainty
Learn by making mistakes, but not expensive ones.
How to spot blind alleys, or gain confidence that you're going the right way? Experiment at every stage of product development. We'll teach you the basic Ashe Maurya techniques that you can start using immediately.
Duration: 4 hours
Capacity: for whole teams only
Date: according to agreement with the client
Price: contact us, depends on the number of people and requirements
Instructor: Tomáš Bartl
- Introduction – principles and process of experimentation
- Defining assumptions – how to formulate and prioritise them
- Types of experiments – for the most common assumptions, examples of experiments from our projects
- Verification management – defining test parameters, metrics and minimum success criteria
- Checklist of well-defined assumptions and experiments
- Overview of experiments of varying degrees of complexity and informational value
- Knowledge of how to foster a culture of experimentation and maintain direction when things go wrong
- Hands-on experience with the entire experiment from prototype design to evaluation
From action to traction
Principles of successfully bringing products and services to market.
How to ensure that your startup, product or service thrives? How to do the right things at the right time and get to your goal as efficiently as possible? A practical workshop focusing on the different stages of development for all leaders where you will get a clear roadmap for successful traction and scaling of your startup, product or service.
Duration: 4 hours
Capacity: for whole teams only
Date: according to agreement with the client
Price: contact us, depends on the number of people and requirements
Instructor: Petr Šídlo and/or Josef Dvořák
- Discovering Purchasable Demand – Verifying Market Needs, Importance of Willingness to Pay (WTP)
- Raising first capital – pre-seed strategy
Building the minimum viable product (MVP) and testing it in the market - Acquiring first customers – the importance of scalability and traction and how to present it to investors
- Growth and expansion – product and process optimization, development strategies and planning for broader market expansion
- Team building – recruiting talent and developing team infrastructure
- A brief guide for each stage of startup development
- Case studies and real-life examples of successes and failures
- Tools and strategies for building traction and scaling your business
Customized course
Discover a personalized learning experience tailored to your interests. Contact us today, and let's create a customized course just for you.
Do you need advice on which course is the right one for you? Want more information about team courses and price?
The courses take place either at our location or at your place. Depending on the agreement and the number of participants.
Meet the experts behind our courses
Petr Šídlo
Petr started out in IT, but since he didn't want to do projects in a drawer, he started an innovation company. In 13 years of existence, the company has completed more than 650 projects and is the oldest of its kind on the domestic market. Petr led hundreds of successful projects, has built a number of startups, and changed the lives of many companies thanks to the innovation culture he helped establish in them. He is a mentor and a certified trainer of the LeanStack methodology.
Josef Dvořák
Josef has extensive experience in healthcare innovation and introducing AI (applications) into companies. At Direct People, he led a project for Linet, which resulted in an alarm system that is now successfully sold in 34 markets worldwide, including the USA. Pepa is an innovator in mind and body, a conqueror of new territories and an expert in AI and other technologies.
Tomáš Bartl
Our Chief Innovation Methodologist, strategist, and innovation leader, who has been building products and services at Direct People for almost ten years. Tomáš is strict and follows methodologies and insights from respondents. And one more thing. Everyone is surprised by how he thinks. The most common reaction when meeting Tomáš? Why didn't I think of that too...
Michaela Stránská
Míša has been training since the first days she joined us. She has led workshops for Social Impact Award participants and has delivered numerous training sessions for clients. Thanks to her experience on projects for LMC, Anect, Česká spořitelna and Kooperativa, she can pass on practical tips and advice, both in the field of HCD and innovation culture and innovation management.
Petra Kalousková
Petra loves listening to people's stories and discovering their unspoken needs. She studied sociology at Charles University and has extensive experience in research, innovation and training. She is very good at using research results to create products and services that truly meet customer needs.
Filip Valíček
An AI enthusiast with a pro-business mindset. As an innovation designer, his projects focused on helping small and medium-sized businesses. His strengths include tracking technology trends and the ability to customize training to target audiences.
What participants say about the Academy
Satisfied clients
Have you made your choice? Write to us
Fill in the required data with your choice of course and date. If you didn't find what you were looking for or are interested in a different course/topic/date, please contact us. Together we will work something out.
Are you in hurry? Give us a call or send us a message directly
+420 724 048 808
academy@directpeople.com
FAQ
Our courses are not based on theory but on years of practical experience. We have completed numerous projects, which means we have a wealth of examples of both good and bad practices. We are skilled trainers because we have been doing it for over a decade. We don’t come to train you in what we’ve read on the internet but to pass on the best of what we ourselves have been using for years. Our training will be conducted by our most experienced partners and senior project leaders.
We are flexible. Get in touch with us, and we’ll figure something out.
For innovation managers, team leaders, business owners, product managers in large companies responsible for new products/services. These courses will also be beneficial for team leaders, senior employees in large companies expected to have a positive impact on improvement, as well as departments where innovation is not the primary focus of work, such as IT, operations, customer care, and others. Our courses are for people with an open mind who are not afraid to do things differently and engage in completely different tasks.
Yes, beginner-innovators are welcome, and the courses will be interesting for you, although they are primarily designed for more senior professionals.
Yes, Direct Academy is open to individuals and groups. The ideal maximum number is around 10 people. If your team is larger, the training can be divided or customized for more people.
Use the form above, leave us your contact details, and we will get back to you. If you’re in a hurry, you can use the contact information provided on the website – email: academy@directpeople.com, phone: +420 724 048 808.
Yes, if you order at least 3 courses, you will receive a 30% discount. Unfortunately, we do not offer group discounts. The price is set as low as possible to cover our organizational costs. We are not a training agency that relies on training as its primary source of income, but innovators who want to educate the market and spread the idea that it makes sense to create products and services that are beneficial to both customers and investors.
After finalizing the details, we will send you an advance invoice, which should be paid before the course takes place. If your company does not allow this, we will find an alternative approach.
All courses are conducted in Czech, but we can also provide training in English upon request.
If you notify us 48 hours before the course, you can reschedule it to another date or choose a different training for free. It is also possible to send a replacement. If you inform us less than 48 hours before the start of the course, the course fee will be forfeited.
If you are interested in further education, we can arrange an individual program. We are open to additional formats and courses that delve into greater detail.
Unfortunately, no. Each of our courses is unique, and the content is co-created by the participants, so we would have to record every course separately. Additionally, the information shared during the course may be sensitive for participants. Therefore, we always ask participants to keep the information they hear during the course confidential. However, after the course is completed, participants will receive the presentation and materials used during the course.
2023 Direct People
Created by Beneš & Michl
