A Monthly Diagnostic for Engineering Leaders

You Know Something Is Off. This Is Where You Figure Out What.

Three hours. Twelve peers from different companies. Six patterns that explain most of what you’re already seeing.

You leave with clarity on what’s breaking, perspective from leaders navigating the same pressure, and one peer-tested change you’re making in the next 30 days.

Not a framework. A specific move.

Join the Waitlist

Inaugural cohort July 2026. Seats are limited.

Early validation

Pressure-tested in working conversations with VPs and directors of engineering who are accountable for AI adoption and delivery outcomes.

  • Enterprise retail
  • Digital commerce
  • Global platform orgs

You Already Know Something Is Off

You can feel the gaps. Engineers producing more output while losing the skills that made the output worth anything. Metrics that look healthy while delivery confidence erodes. A rollout that generated compliance instead of buy-in.

You’ve been thinking about this mostly alone. Inside your org, raising these concerns means navigating the org chart. So the conversation stays at the surface level.

What you need is a room where other leaders say “same” … and then help you figure out what to do about it.

Ready to hold a seat for July? One click, no procurement.

Join the Waitlist

Engineering Leaders. Six Patterns. Zero Politics.

The AI Leadership Audit is a diagnostic framework built around six patterns that show up in every engineering org navigating AI adoption. In this monthly cohort, you work through all six patterns alongside engineering leaders from different companies.

You leave with three things. Clarity on which patterns are most acute on your team. Perspective from peers navigating the same challenges at their companies. And a concrete plan for the one thing you’re going to change when you walk back into your org on Monday.

Nobody is managing their reputation. Nobody is packaging the problem for a skip-level audience. Everyone is there because they felt something was off and wanted to figure out what it was.

What We Diagnose

Six patterns that show up in every engineering org navigating AI adoption. On this page: the names and the diagnostic questions. The full story lives in the corporate workshop framework.

01

The Mandate Problem

Did your team adopt AI because someone showed them where it helps, or because they were told to?

02

The Judgment Decay Problem

When was the last time you touched the system you’re making decisions about?

03

The Measurement Problem

Are you measuring what AI actually changed, or performing productivity for a dashboard?

04

The Atrophy Problem

If AI stopped working tomorrow, could your team still do the jobs they were hired for?

05

The Recovery Problem

Where in your team’s day is nobody asking them to evaluate anything?

06

The Culture Problem

Does your team have a shared framework for when and how to use AI, or did everyone just figure it out on their own?

Read the full framework (PDF, opens in new tab)

Who Facilitates This

Jono Herrington

Jono built and led Converse’s global digital engineering org at Nike, scaling the team across North America, Europe, and Asia. He’s spent 15+ years building platforms and the teams behind them.

He still writes code. He still reads pull requests. He still prototypes before he promises a timeline. He led AI adoption across a distributed engineering team without a single mandate ... and watched 500+ engineers in an online thread describe what happens when their leaders chose mandates instead.

Every diagnostic pattern in this cohort comes from a failure he experienced first or documented from the front lines of engineering leadership during the AI transition.

Peer diagnosis beats solo worry. Add your name for the July cohort.

Join the Waitlist

The Cohort Experience

Before

Read the audit

You receive The AI Leadership Audit, a diagnostic document that walks through all six patterns with real stories, diagnostic questions, and weekly action items. Read it before the session. Come in having already sat with the uncomfortable parts.

Hour 1

The Diagnosis

Facilitated self-assessment. You identify which patterns are most present in your own org. The room gets honest fast because nobody shares an org chart.

Hour 2

The Peer Diagnostic

Small group work. You hear how other leaders are experiencing the same patterns at their companies. What they’ve tried. What failed. What actually moved the needle. This is the part you can’t get anywhere else.

Hour 3

The Action Plan

You build a concrete action plan for one pattern you’re going to address in the next 30 days. Not a roadmap. Not quarterly milestones. One specific change. The room pressure-tests it before you leave.

After

30-day check-in

Follow-up with Jono. Did the thing you committed to actually happen? What changed? What didn’t? The audit doesn’t end in the session. It ends when your team notices something is different.

What You Get Here That You Can’t Get Anywhere Else

Honesty without career risk.

Inside your company, admitting “I don’t know if our AI adoption is working” has consequences. In this room, everyone is there because they’re asking the same question. The vulnerability is the entry fee.

Multiple perspectives instead of one.

You’ve been diagnosing your org through your own lens. Hearing how other leaders see the same patterns at their companies changes what you notice at yours.

Benchmarking against reality.

Not against a McKinsey report or a conference talk from a company with completely different constraints. Against peers who are navigating the same challenges in real time with real teams.

A network that lasts.

The leaders in your cohort are facing the same problems you’ll face next quarter. That relationship is a phone call away instead of a conference away.

What You Walk Away With

01

Clarity on what’s actually breaking.

You’ve been carrying a vague sense that something is off. After three hours with the diagnostic and a room of peers, you’ll know exactly which patterns are hurting your team. That changes how you lead the following week.

02

Faster pattern recognition.

Hearing how other leaders handled the same rollout challenges and measurement traps compresses weeks of solo diagnosis into one session. You stop diagnosing the symptom and start seeing the pattern.

03

One peer-tested change you can make in 30 days.

Not a generic framework. One specific intervention built from your own context, challenged by peers who have no reason to be polite about it.

04

More confidence in what to fix first.

After working through the six patterns, you’ll walk into your next leadership meeting and say exactly what’s happening with your AI adoption … and what you’re doing about it.

Who This Is For

  • VPs of Engineering, Directors, and Senior Engineering Managers who want to invest in their own development

  • Principal and Staff Engineers who are leading AI adoption or moving into leadership roles

  • Tech Leads responsible for how AI tools land on their teams

  • Any engineering leader who feels something is off with their AI adoption and wants to figure out what it is alongside peers who feel the same way

Investment

One conference ticket gets you a hallway conversation. This gets you three hours of structured diagnosis, twelve peers under the same pressure, and one concrete change you’re making in the next 30 days.

Inaugural pricingSave $500

Inaugural cohort (July 2026)

$1,500

$2,000

Small group. Limited seats.

  • Pre-session AI Leadership Audit document
  • 3-hour facilitated virtual session with Jono Herrington
  • 30-day follow-up check-in
  • Access to the cohort peer network

Monthly cohorts (August 2026 onward)

$2,000

Standard rate. Same format.

  • Pre-session AI Leadership Audit document
  • 3-hour facilitated virtual session with Jono Herrington
  • 30-day follow-up check-in
  • Access to the cohort peer network
  • New cohort every month
  • The next cohort is always less than 30 days away

No procurement process. No manager approval needed. This is a personal leadership investment at a price point you decide on yourself.

Next Step

Join the Waitlist

The inaugural cohort runs in July 2026. Seats are limited. Once they’re filled, the next cohort opens in August. Drop your email and you’ll be the first to know when registration opens.

Want to Bring This to Your Whole Leadership Team?

The AI Leadership Audit also runs as a private workshop for your engineering leadership team. Same diagnostic framework. Deeply specific to your company’s org, codebase, and AI rollout.

Learn about the corporate workshop