Task Pre-Screening
The capstone requires a real recurring work task. Run it through this checklist:
Three-question check:
- ✅ Do I do this task at least weekly? (Monthly tasks don't generate enough familiarity for meaningful comparison.)
- ✅ Does it take 15+ minutes? (Quick tasks like scheduling don't have enough substance for the full diagnosis cycle.)
- ✅ Does it produce a written deliverable? (Emails, reports, proposals, summaries, briefs, presentations — something you can save and compare.)
If all three are yes: You have your capstone task. Move on.
If any answer is no: Select from the scenario bank below.
Scenario Bank
If you don't have a suitable recurring task (or if you're between jobs), choose one of these pre-built scenarios. Each includes all the constraints you need:
- Office Admin: Draft a weekly vendor update email. You manage 3 active vendor relationships. This week: Vendor A delivered materials 2 days late (again), Vendor B sent an invoice with a pricing discrepancy, and Vendor C is requesting a meeting to discuss Q3 contract renewal.
- Marketing Coordinator: Write a monthly social media performance summary for your manager. Last month: LinkedIn posts up 23% engagement, Instagram down 8%, one paid campaign exceeded target ROAS by 40%, one underperformed by 60%. Include a recommendation for next month's budget allocation.
- Project Manager: Create a weekly client status update for a software implementation. This week: Sprint 12 completed on time, 2 of 14 user stories deferred to Sprint 13, the client's IT team hasn't provisioned the test environment (3 days overdue), and a new regulatory requirement may impact the data migration timeline.
- HR Coordinator: Draft a response to an employee who asked about the company's policy on using AI tools for work. Your company doesn't have a formal AI policy yet. You need to acknowledge the question, explain what is and isn't allowed currently, and note that a formal policy is being developed.
- Sales Representative: Write a follow-up email after a product demo with a mid-size financial services firm. The demo went well, but the prospect raised concerns about data security compliance (SOC 2) and asked for a reference customer in their industry.
- Operations Manager: Summarize last week's warehouse metrics for the regional director. Three locations with different formatting. Key issues: Location A had a 12% increase in return processing time, Location B hit record throughput, Location C had two safety incidents requiring investigation.
For regulated-role learners (healthcare, legal, finance): Use an anonymized version of your actual task. Replace real names with fictional ones, change specific dollar amounts, and remove any information that could identify clients or patients. The data sensitivity section of your capstone becomes especially important — you'll document what you anonymized and why.
Set Your Baseline
Before starting the capstone:
- Time your manual process. How long does this task take you without AI? (If you can't time it live, estimate from recent experience. Be honest — overestimates make the comparison less useful.)
- Save a recent manual version. If you have a previous version of this deliverable done without AI, save it for your before/after comparison.
What's Next
You're ready for the capstone. The full instructions are there — you'll produce a 6-section document that demonstrates every skill from this course on a task that matters to your work. Take your time — it's splittable across 2-3 sessions. You've rehearsed every piece.