Pre-work audio
Three short mission briefings established the Admin Tax, the Watermelon Project, and the Refinery before the simulation began.
Applied work / Risk, evidence and decisions
From governance ideas to decisions leaders can examine.
Michael’s current work applies integrated planning and risk analysis to a synthetic capital-delivery case. It builds on the questions developed in his books and on earlier executive workshops and teaching simulations.
Current applied work / Project Mesquite
Risk analysis in service of the next capital decision.
Project Mesquite applies the questions in Michael Kaplan’s books to a fictional 56 MW modular data-center commitment. It connects factory production, site construction, long-lead procurement, utility power and commissioning to the dates, financial exposure and decisions leadership must own.
Examine the Mesquite case →Earlier executive education / AW–RRI25
A four-hour workshop became a self-paced product.
The Sentient Architect began as a live Executive War Room built around the fictional Project RRI’25. After the first two workshops, Michael converted the experience into the paid Black Box Edition, then translated the same curriculum into an interactive terminal-style teaching simulator.
Product lineage
The workshop was encoded twice.
The Black Box preserved the workshop as a governed file package. The terminal preserved it as an interface. Neither changed the central teaching rule: the model examines evidence; the participant owns the verdict.
- 01
Facilitator-led experience
The Executive War Room
LIVE WORKSHOP
A four-hour forensic simulation built around Project RRI’25. Participants used their own AI tools to examine a fictional distressed project, test the evidence, record four human verdicts, and finish with a Decision Memorandum.
- 02
First product conversion
The Black Box Edition
PAID / SELF-PACED
After the first two workshops, Michael converted the facilitator’s materials into a paid file-based product for solo operation. A Stripe-enabled checkout delivered the evidence, audio, field manual, prompt library, answer reveals, and reference material as one controlled learning sequence.
- 03
Interactive translation
The Sentient Architect Terminal
TEACHING SIMULATOR
The later terminal encoded the same curriculum into an immersive, self-paced interface with modules, audio briefings, scenario telemetry, evidence prompts, decision points, and staged artifact reveals. It remains a teaching simulator—not deployed enterprise governance software.
Post-workshop signal
The work was pointing beyond the PMO.
A private workshop response helped clarify the method’s relevance to executive risk and capital decisions.
The response connected the method to hidden risk, the cost of silence, and the need to move from status reporting toward decision-making.
That observation helped shape the subsequent research into evidence, executive risk, and capital decisions.
Black Box Edition / Inventory
The product was the sequence—not merely the files.
“There is no facilitator. It is just you, the evidence, and the AI.”
The edition was released through a Stripe-enabled checkout as a paid, self-paced product for solo operation. This record documents that productization milestone; it is not an active sales offer.
RRI’25 evidence
A fictional and sanitized case file used dated source material, project constants, contracts, transcripts, reports, and financial signals to create a chronological evidentiary record.
Field manual and prompts
The manual controlled the four-hour sequence while the prompt library instructed the participant when to anchor, ingest, interrogate, and record a verdict.
Reveals and reference library
Sealed answer artifacts, the Sentient Lexicon, the book, and supporting audio allowed participants to compare their reasoning with the designed learning outcome.
Instructional control
A closed learning loop.
Each phase limited the available context, required a defined analytical protocol, and forced a human judgment before the participant could see the designed answer.
- 01Anchor
Load the fixed project context before asking the model to interpret evidence.
- 02Ingest
Introduce only the evidence authorized for the current stage of the case.
- 03Interrogate
Use a defined protocol to test claims, contradictions, and missing proof.
- 04Verdict
Require the participant—not the model—to record the governing judgment.
- 05Reveal
Open the staged artifact and compare the participant’s reasoning with the designed answer.
Leadership evidence
What the work demonstrates.
The record demonstrates how Michael structures an ambiguous problem, establishes evidence boundaries, creates an executive learning experience, and carries an original method into a deliverable product.
Curriculum architecture
Converted an original governance method into a four-hour sequence with defined inputs, decisions, artifacts, and completion criteria.
Executive translation
Turned contracts, transcripts, project reporting, technical signals, and financial exposure into an experience leaders could interrogate.
AI and human authority
Designed the AI to prepare and challenge evidence while preserving verdicts and decision rights for accountable people.
Productization
Moved from live facilitation to a paid self-paced package and then to an interactive teaching prototype.
One continuing body of work
The research lineage
Each stage changes the governing question while preserving the concern underneath it: what evidence should people trust before authorizing what happens next?
- 01Manual-era foundation
SoftPMO
Execution methodology, governed records, reusable work products, and a working PMIS.
Open record → - 02Published December 2025
The Sentient PMO
AI-assisted context and evidence without transferring human authority.
Open record → - 03Workshop to self-paced product
The Sentient Architect
The RRI’25 Executive War Room, paid Black Box Edition, and later teaching simulator.
Open record → - 04Governing the Funded Belief
Volume I
What leadership must see before the next commitment of capital.
Open record → - 05Forensic Governance OS
Volume II
How the governed record carries evidence into accountable decisions.
Open record → - 06Synthetic case / In progress
Project Mesquite
Applying schedule risk analysis, contingency and traceable evidence to a capital-delivery decision.
Open record →
Current professional focus
Applied work in service of senior leadership.
The workshops, learning products, and teaching simulator demonstrate applied leadership and the development of a practical governance method. Michael is seeking a full-time delivery leadership role.