Hey,

This page is your prep guide for the AI workshop. Whether a colleague sent you here or you found it on your own — everything you need to know is below.

There isn’t much to do. But the difference between a prepared and unprepared attendee is huge. Prepared people leave with a working workflow. Unprepared ones spend the first hour installing things.

One week before

1. Get the Claude MAX plan

This is the single most important item. Without it, you’ll be watching others work while you wait for rate limits to reset.

Claude offers several plans. For the workshop, you need MAX ($100/month). Why not the cheaper PRO plan? Because PRO has message limits that run out quickly during intensive work. At the workshop, you’ll be working nonstop — and that’s exactly when you want to focus on learning, not staring at a cooldown timer.

2. Install Claude Code

Claude Code is the terminal tool we’ll be working with. Installation is one command:

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

On macOS, you can also use Homebrew: brew install --cask claude-code

Then verify it works:

claude --version

3. Prepare a real project

This is what makes my workshop different from a lecture. We don’t work with demo projects. You work on your code, on your problems.

You need:

A repository you can access from your laptop
A project you can run locally (build, tests, dev server — whatever’s relevant)
3 tasks of varying difficulty:
- Easy — something you’d normally finish in 15 minutes (refactor, new test, copy fix)
- Medium — something that takes an hour or two (new feature, integration, migration)
- Hard — something you’ve been putting off because it’s complex or boring

“
The more real your project, the more you’ll take away from the workshop. Demo projects teach demo skills.
”

Why three tasks? Because you don’t know in advance which one will be best for learning. The easy task is a warm-up. The medium one is practice. And the hard one — that’s the moment you see what an AI assistant can really do.

4. Read the AI cheat sheet

I have a free AI cheat sheet with essential techniques, commands, and patterns for working with Claude Code. It’s not required reading, but it’ll save you questions like “how do I run this” so you can focus on the advanced stuff at the workshop.

Want to know how AI-ready your team is? Try the AI readiness quiz.

Day of the workshop

What to bring

Laptop with Claude Code installed and your project working
Charger — we’ll be working hard, your battery will notice
Headphones — if you tend to think out loud, your neighbors will appreciate it.
An open mind — this matters more than any technical preparation

What to expect

The workshop isn’t a lecture. I won’t show you slides for two hours. You’ll be working on your project from minute one. I walk between attendees, solve problems 1:1, and demonstrate techniques directly on your code.

Common concerns

“I’m not technical enough.” — If you write code (even occasionally), you’ll be fine. Claude Code is a tool for developers of all levels.

“What if the AI generates garbage?” — It will, sometimes. That’s part of the process — you’ll learn to recognize when AI is wrong and how to steer it back on track.

“What if I can’t keep up?” — You set your own pace. Nobody’s rushing you. Better to do one task well than three superficially.

After the workshop

This is where the real learning begins. The workshop is a launchpad. What you do in the next two weeks determines whether AI transforms your workday or becomes another forgotten tool.

The two-week rule

Use AI on every task for at least two weeks. Every single one. Even the ones where you think you’d be faster on your own. Why?

Because you need to discover where AI helps and where it gets in the way. And you only figure that out by trying. Not once — systematically.

“
AI is like a new teammate. The first two weeks feel weird. Then you realize you don’t want to work without it.
”

If you attended the workshop solo — bring insights back to your team. Do a quick demo for your colleagues. Show them what you built. Not slides — a live demo.

One person’s impact is linear. A whole team’s impact is exponential. That’s exactly why I offer workshops for entire teams — check the offerings.

Revisit the cheat sheet

The AI cheat sheet gets regularly updated with new techniques and patterns. Bookmark it. After the workshop, things that seemed abstract before will suddenly click.

Curious about the concrete productivity impact AI could have on your team? Try the ROI calculator.

Mistakes to avoid

Don’t try to learn everything at once

You’ll leave the workshop with a bunch of techniques. Don’t pick five. Pick one. The most useful one for your daily work. Use it until it’s automatic. Then add the next one.

Don’t give up after the first bad result

AI isn’t magic. Sometimes it gives a wrong answer. Sometimes it misses context. That doesn’t mean it’s broken — it means you’re still learning how to communicate. Like with any new colleague, you need to figure out how to give instructions that produce the results you want.

Don’t keep it to yourself

I’ve seen it many times: one person on a team starts using AI, becomes 2x more productive, but tells nobody. Why? Because they’re afraid of looking weird. Or that others will feel like they’re “cheating.”

One more thing

If you have questions about preparation, email me. Seriously. I’d rather solve an installation problem over email the day before than on-site, when you could be working on your project.

Looking forward to the workshop. It’ll be worth it.

— Jirka

How to Prepare for an AI Workshop (And Get the Most Out of It)