In this episode of AI Today, host Kathleen Walch sits down with CP Richardson — co-founder of Agile in Color, Agile Alliance Board Member, and PMI CPMAI-certified professional — for a candid conversation about bringing AI into your work with discipline and the right framework. CP brings 15 years of experience across software development, operations, marketing, and AI — including early machine learning work in fraud detection — plus a hands-on side hustle as a wine importer running real AI experiments as a two-person shop — and that small business context turns out to be the episode's richest source of practical lessons. His CPMAI certification gave formal structure to what he'd learned through years of practice — a common language and repeatable framework for practitioners navigating AI on instinct alone. The clearest example comes from his wine import business: an outbound email tool that scanned restaurant menus, identified portfolio gaps, and generated personalized outreach. It worked exactly as designed — and got a near-zero response rate. Zero business value. The lesson: building the right thing is not the same as building the thing right. Without CPMAI's phase one Business Understanding and the AI go/no-go checkpoint, teams risk investing in solutions that technically work but commercially don't. From there, Kathleen and CP explore stakeholder engagement, the PMI M.O.R.E. vision pushing project managers beyond outputs to outcomes, and how agile principles combined with a data-centric methodology enable faster, smarter iteration. You'll hear insights on: Why Business Understanding is the most important phase of any AI project How the go/no-go checkpoint surfaces critical questions before a line of code is written What a real-world AI failure teaches about context, behavior, and business objectives Why agile practitioners need "chops" — and how AI raises the ceiling for those who have them How small businesses can punch above their weight with AI, if they're disciplined about it Practical, grounded, and anti-hype — for project managers, agile coaches, engineers stepping into AI leadership, or founders figuring out what AI can do for their business. Today's episode is brought to you by PMTraining.com. From live virtual classes to on-demand courses, PMTraining prepares students for popular PMI certifications, including the Project Management Professional or PMP. Behind the scenes, the PMTraining team is also actively applying AI across their organization, from learning development to customer support, helping them deliver training at scale. PMTraining.com is the world's largest provider of live classes for the Project Management Professional certification, running up to 35 classes every month for every schedule, with a free 30 PDU course included with your enrollment, so half of your continuing education requirement is already met once you are certified. They offer live and on-demand courses for all kinds of PMI certifications, with schedules and formats designed for working professionals. For AI Today listener discounts, visit PMTraining.com/aitoday.

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