Village Small Business CourseAgentic work, with your people in view
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Free self-paced course · CC BY 4.0

Agentic work is coming. Bring your people with you.

This course helps a small business decide which work agents should take, and how its people move up rather than out — using AI for effectiveness and innovation, not efficiency alone. It does not sell certainty: different circumstances need different solutions, much is shaped by forces outside your walls, and there are more unknowns on the road ahead than knowns. The aim is to develop judgment for the journey — not a forecast of it, and not a business case for approval.

Begin Module 1 → New here? Take the 5-minute primer first See the course map

Offered freely, in good faith

This course is shared freely and in good faith — no paywall, no obligation. In the spirit of koha — a gift offered in reciprocity — if it proves of value to you or your business, a contribution toward its continued development and running costs is gratefully received, in whatever measure reflects the benefit you've realised.

Leave a koha →

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Who this is for

This course is for anyone weighing what agentic AI means for a small business — whether you set its direction, run the change, lead a team, or do the work the change will touch. It is one course, read the same by everyone: no separate tracks, no gated sections.

The questions differ by role, not by rank — and in a small business those roles flatten, often onto one person. Wherever you sit, you are meant to read all of it. If you'd like to follow your own thread — or see what the others are being asked — the Role lenses page runs each role across every module.

Your progress

Progress is saved on this device as you complete each module. No account required.

Course completion

0 of 7 modules complete (0%)

Course map

An optional primer, six short modules, and a capstone. Each module pairs plain teaching with discussion topics, a short self-check, and — where it helps — a worked example. The posture throughout: people first, and no false certainty about an unmapped road. The discussion questions have no model answers — your own situation is the test; the course is built to catalyse your thinking, not hand you conclusions.

Module 1What "agentic" really means Module 2Which work is ready — and which stays yours Module 3The human place Module 4Pacing the transition Module 5Keeping humans in command Module 6The new shape CapstoneYour own next step

How the course works

Before Module 1 — the shift in five minutes

An optional primer. It frames the one change this course is about — not which AI tool to buy, but which work should stay human — so the ground is familiar when the modules begin.

Take the 5-minute primer →

The posture

  • People first — the human question leads; the technology serves it.
  • No false certainty — different circumstances, different solutions; more unknowns ahead than knowns.
  • Judgment, not a recipe — methods you run on your own business, not answers handed to you.
  • Questions over answers — the skill is asking the right question for your situation; we don't hand you one set of answers for every business.

What you'll leave with

  • A clear sense of what an agent can and cannot do.
  • A worksheet that triages your own processes — agent, augment, or human.
  • A way to move people up rather than out as routine work is taken on.
  • One reversible first step you can take, with your people in view.

Resources

Supporting materials for the course.

The Process Triage WorksheetRun it across your business — agent, augment, or human Role lensesFollow your role — direction, stewardship, frontline, or doing the work — across every module Course briefing (PDF)The whole course in brief — a printable summary to read or hand around Further readingOur essays & papers, the Governance Course, and external sources

When you're ready to act

This course is about the judgment. The sovereign infrastructure those judgments can run on — where your records and the AI that reads them answer to your own rules, on ground you control — is the Village.

Explore Village for business → See the live demos →