Connect.AI — Sessions 25–28

Sessions 25–28 · Movement 04

Buffer
& Close

Held in reserve — then review, present and grade

Sessions 17–28 · The engagement

Twelve sessions. One real deliverable.

17–19

Scoping the Engagement

Scope with the business and lock the plan.

20–22

Building

Sprint the build; adjust as reality lands.

23–24

Training & Handoff

Test it, train them, and set it up in their accounts.

25–28

Buffer & Close

Held in reserve — then review, present and grade.

Sessions 26–28 · Week 14

A demo — not a book report.

What the sprint taught about Fridays

The bootcamp won because it replaced claims with artifacts and made the demo a decision event. So: present the working deliverable and the evidence — eval results, the signed acceptance, and the pre/post assessment delta (the baseline from Rotation Day, re-measured) — then the ask: the year-3 path.

The strongest move in the room

In the bootcamp motion, the customer’s own team demos the build.The strongest week-14 presentation has the owner’s operator in it — a quote, a clip, or live: “Dana runs it now.” The champion converts the room; you just built the champion.

Mechanics: 15 minutes + 10 of Q&A per team, roster order, sessions 27–28 — the partner, the CTSBDC advisor and the graders in the room; deck + live URL submitted by session 26. Structure: answer first (class 11). And the decision you hand the room on your last slide: the owner picks the year-3 path — retain, regenerate, or sunset.

Compendium Part II — the sprint’s Day-5 mechanics · clinical pedagogy on practitioner feedback

Sessions 26–28 · The contract

Sixty percent settles this block.

20%Final Consulting Presentation — the week-14 demo itself

20%Participation — client-facing weeks made presence non-negotiable

20%Peer Evaluation — structured, across the build and the consulting

(the other 40% — the week-4 exam and the week-8 build presentation — is already banked)

The rubric, with citations

Presentations are scored on the four traits Ramp (the fintech, from its public FDE hiring rubric) screens for — drive · fundamentals · empathy · communication — plus the eval check: the judge you validated in block 23–25 is re-scored against the instructor’s labels, and that agreement is part of the grade. No method claim without a measurement.

Before the graded room: a formal partner-feedback session — the business tells the team what landed and what didn’t. Practitioner feedback is a distinct learning input, not a courtesy; it’s also your last chance to fix the demo.

Syllabus grade table · compendium — Ramp’s FDE traits · Education Sciences 2023 (practitioner feedback)

Sessions 26–28 · The moment real firms miss

The ask exists.

The documented best time to convert a client to a retainer is immediately after a successful first project — the moment trust peaks. And only about 13% of consultants ever ask. The rest walk out of their best meeting having sold nothing.

Your version of the ask: you hand the partner the year-3 plan written in block 23–25 (retain · regenerate · sunset — with this tool’s real numbers) instead of an invoice. Free program, real lesson: when you run this play for pay, know that the moment exists, and use it.

Compendium Part II — “The Playbook Evidence,” the retention playbook

Sessions 26–28 · What you leave with

The semester compounds.

Week 14 is an FDE interview

Ownership, ambiguity tolerance, executive communication — testable at student level, tested today. Each partner deliverable is a portfolio line-item that maps to a real job posting’s requirements — the wall of listings from class 02 was always the destination.

The firm’s flywheel — you built it

The retrospective question that separates a practice from a job: what did this engagement teach us that makes the next one cheaper? Your templates, eval harnesses and intake checklists become the program’s accelerators — this cohort’s artifacts seed Fall 2027’s, and the door stays open: alumni return as mentors.

One semester ago the question was “what is software development?”Your answer, in evidence: you found the real problem, walled the scope, shipped verified work, and handed it over owned — for five real businesses that still run it without you (their keys, their runbook, a January check-in on the calendar). Real artists ship. You did.

Compendium Part II — the FDE career market · the feedback-loop test

Connect.AI

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