PILOT Program™ | Agentic Product Management

PILOT Program™ Agentic Product Management

Product managers in 2026 do not just manage people and plans. They direct AI agents too. PILOT is a free learning track for product and project managers who run their work in GitLab: learn to think like a product manager, work in small loops, care about the customer experience, brief and review AI agents, and master the tools. Every course is curiosity-first, practical and free to complete.

PILOT sits alongside SPARK, SMILE and SWARM in the Ignite Curiosity family. It has 10 courses, a 12-week suggested path, and a free certification tracker so you can see exactly which credentials cost $0. No coding is needed, and you practise on the GitLab board you already have.

START WITH WEEK 1 FREE CERTIFICATION TRACKER

The five P.I.L.O.T. pillars

Product sense · Iteration · Launch & experience · Orchestration · Tooling. Each course belongs to one pillar, and together they make a rounded, AI-ready product manager.

P · Product sense

Know what to build and why: customers, outcomes, priorities and the story behind the backlog.

Courses: Product Champion · AI Product Evals

I · Iteration

Work in small loops: sprints, flow, plans and honest status, so learning beats guessing.

Courses: Agile & Scrum · PMP Path

L · Launch & experience

Care about the whole customer journey, from first touchpoint to a feature people love using.

Courses: UX & Journeys

O · Orchestration

Direct AI agents like a good lead: clear briefs, sensible guardrails and a critical review.

Courses: Claude Certified · Agentic Automation · Small Models

T · Tooling

Be fluent in the tools of the trade, from GitLab boards to the design-system language.

Courses: GitLab PM · Tailwind & shadcn/ui

All 10 courses

Each course follows the same shape: what you will be able to do, a certification path you can finish for $0, exercises on your real GitLab board, the agentic angle, and a free resource library.

Claude Certified (Anthropic Academy)

Learn to work with Claude like a great PM: prompting, structured output, critical review, PM workflows, and writing task briefs for agents. Free Anthropic Academy courses with certificates of completion.

Pillar: O · Orchestration · About 12 hours

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Product Champion

Learn what a product manager does: outcomes over output, RICE/MoSCoW/Kano prioritisation, PRDs and user stories, stakeholders, North Star metrics and launch feedback loops, with Claude as your drafting partner and you keeping the judgement.

Pillar: P · Product sense · About 8 hours

START COURSE

Agile & Scrum Certified

Run real sprints, manage flow with Kanban and WIP limits, and read velocity and burndown honestly, then add AI agents to the team with a clear definition of done. Practice on your own GitLab board.

Pillar: I · Iteration · About 12 hours

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GitLab Certified Project Manager

Use GitLab as your PM workspace without touching code: issues, scoped labels, boards, milestones, iterations and analytics, plus agents that summarise threads and draft status updates.

Pillar: T · Tooling · About 16 hours

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UX, Touchpoints & Customer Journeys

Learn to see the product through your customer's eyes: user interviews, journey maps, touchpoint inventories, usability and accessibility, and how to measure experience. Includes using Claude to draft themes and journey maps, with bias checks and real-user validation.

Pillar: L · Launch & experience · About 40 hours

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PMP & Project Management Path

An honest, zero-spend route into professional project management: free learning and a free IBM badge now, with the CAPM and PMP exams (which are paid) as an optional later step. Practise charters, risk registers, WBS, milestones and status reports in GitLab, with AI as a copilot and you accountable.

Pillar: I · Iteration · About 30 hours

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Tailwind CSS & shadcn/ui Expert (for PMs)

Learn the design-system language (Tailwind utilities, tokens, shadcn/ui components) so you can write testable UI acceptance criteria and review screens, including AI-drafted ones. No official certification exists, so the path uses free Google web.dev badges and a free freeCodeCamp certificate.

Pillar: T · Tooling · About 25 hours

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Agentic Automation Certified

Learn how AI agents pick up work, loop through plan-act-observe, and hand back merge requests, and how a PM writes agent-ready issues and reviews outcomes. Free certificates, $0 path.

Pillar: O · Orchestration · About 20 hours

START COURSE

mBERT & Small Models: Cut LLM Costs

Learn when a small encoder model (BERT, XLM-RoBERTa, mmBERT, sentence-transformers) can replace an expensive LLM call, how to pick one on Hugging Face, and how to write the evaluation requirement. Includes a routing pattern where agents call Claude only for hard reasoning.

Pillar: O · Orchestration · About 15 hours

START COURSE

AI Product Discovery & Evals

Spot good AI use-cases, write AI feature specs, build golden-example eval sets, run experiments, and set acceptance thresholds before agents run unattended. The skill that ties the PILOT track together.

Pillar: P · Product sense · About 25 hours

START COURSE

Your recommended 12-week path

This order builds skills in a sensible sequence: first learn to work with an AI teammate, then learn the job, then the rhythm, the tool, the customer, the craft, and finally the agents and the measuring. If you do every optional step in every course, the hours add up to about 203, so plan on roughly 17 hours a week. The first free credential in each course takes much less. Your coach can trim the plan with you.

Weeks 1-2: Claude Certified (Anthropic Academy)

Start here. Learn to brief an AI teammate well before anything else, and pick up your first free certificates in week one.

About 12 hours in total (every optional step included) · Pillar: O · Orchestration

Week 3: Product Champion

Learn what the job really is: outcomes over output, priorities, PRDs and stakeholders.

About 8 hours in total (every optional step included) · Pillar: P · Product sense

Week 4: Agile & Scrum Certified

Add the rhythm of the work: sprints, boards and flow, practised on your own GitLab board.

About 12 hours in total (every optional step included) · Pillar: I · Iteration

Week 5: GitLab Certified Project Manager

Master the workspace you will live in every day: issues, scoped labels, boards, milestones and iterations.

About 16 hours in total (every optional step included) · Pillar: T · Tooling

Weeks 6-7: UX, Touchpoints & Customer Journeys

See the product through your customer's eyes. This is the biggest course, so give it two weeks and treat it like a menu.

About 40 hours in total (every optional step included) · Pillar: L · Launch & experience

Week 8: PMP & Project Management Path

Learn the professional project management language: charters, risks, schedules and status reports.

About 30 hours in total (every optional step included) · Pillar: I · Iteration

Week 9: Tailwind CSS & shadcn/ui Expert (for PMs)

Learn the design-system vocabulary so you can write UI acceptance criteria a team can test.

About 25 hours in total (every optional step included) · Pillar: T · Tooling

Week 10: Agentic Automation Certified

Now put it together: write briefs that AI agents can pick up from GitLab, and review what comes back.

About 20 hours in total (every optional step included) · Pillar: O · Orchestration

Week 11: mBERT & Small Models: Cut LLM Costs

Learn when a small, cheap model can do the job of an expensive one, and how to ask for proof.

About 15 hours in total (every optional step included) · Pillar: O · Orchestration

Week 12: AI Product Discovery & Evals

Finish by learning how to tell whether an AI feature is actually good, and how to measure it.

About 25 hours in total (every optional step included) · Pillar: P · Product sense

Free certification tracker

Every credential offered across the 10 courses, in one place. Start with the table below: these are certificates and badges you can earn for $0.

Free certificates and badges ($0)

Course	Credential	Provider	Cost	Link
Claude Certified Product Champion	Claude 101	Anthropic Academy	Free certificate	OPEN
Claude Certified Product Champion AI Product Evals	AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations	Anthropic Academy	Free certificate	OPEN
Product Champion	Product Management Basics Certification	Pendo	Free badge	OPEN
Agile & Scrum	IBM Agile Explorer badge	IBM SkillsBuild	Free badge	OPEN
UX & Journeys	Accessibility fundamentals (7 modules)	Microsoft Learn	Free badges (not a formal certificate)	OPEN
PMP Path	Project Management Fundamentals (badge)	IBM SkillsBuild	Free certificate (badge)	OPEN
Tailwind & shadcn/ui	Learn Accessibility badge	Google web.dev	Free badge	OPEN
Tailwind & shadcn/ui	Learn CSS badge	Google web.dev	Free badge	OPEN
Tailwind & shadcn/ui	Responsive Web Design Certification (stretch)	freeCodeCamp	Free certificate	OPEN
Agentic Automation Small Models	AI Agents Course: Fundamentals certificate	Hugging Face	Free certificate	OPEN
Agentic Automation	AI Builder Path (certificate of completion)	Zapier Learn	Free certificate (free account)	OPEN
Agentic Automation	n8n Essentials N8N101 (badge and certificate of completion)	n8n Learn	Free certificate of completion	OPEN
Small Models	Intro to Machine Learning	Kaggle Learn	Free certificate	OPEN
Small Models	Introduction to natural language processing concepts	Microsoft Learn	Free badge (achievement on Learn profile)	OPEN
AI Product Evals	Generative AI Fundamentals skill badge (Introduction to Generative AI)	Google Cloud Skills Boost	Free badge	OPEN
AI Product Evals	Elements of AI: Introduction to AI	University of Helsinki / MinnaLearn	Free certificate	OPEN
AI Product Evals	Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals badge	IBM SkillsBuild	Free badge	OPEN

Free courses and practice (no certificate, or not confirmed)

Worth doing for the skills. Where a course does not clearly state a certificate we do not promise one, so keep a screenshot of your completion. Cost notes are quoted from each course page.

Course	Credential	Provider	Cost	Link
Claude Certified	AI Capabilities and Limitations	Anthropic Academy	Free course (certificate not confirmed)	OPEN
Claude Certified	Introduction to Claude Cowork	Anthropic Academy	Free course (certificate not confirmed)	OPEN
Product Champion	Product Owner Open Assessment (no certificate)	Scrum.org	Free assessment	OPEN
Agile & Scrum	Plan with DevOps (module achievement)	Microsoft Learn	Free course	OPEN
Agile & Scrum	Scrum Open assessment (practice)	Scrum.org	Free practice	OPEN
GitLab PM	GitLab Agile Team and Portfolio Management Overview (video)	GitLab University	Free	OPEN
GitLab PM	GitLab Agile Project Management (self-paced course)	GitLab University	Free	OPEN
GitLab PM	Agile Planning & Portfolio Management learning path	GitLab University	Free	OPEN
UX & Journeys	Customer Support Course: Delivering Exceptional Customer Support	HubSpot Academy	Free course (certificate not confirmed)	OPEN
UX & Journeys	Foundations of User Experience Design	Alison	Free course; certificate is a paid add-on	OPEN
UX & Journeys	Digital Accessibility Foundations	W3C on edX	Free to audit; optional verified certificate $99	OPEN
PMP Path	Diploma in Modern Project Management	Alison	Free course · optional paid certificate	OPEN
PMP Path	Project Management for Development (PM4R)	IDBx on edX	Free to audit (no certificate)	OPEN
Agentic Automation	Introduction to subagents	Anthropic Academy	Free course	OPEN
Agentic Automation	Introduction to Model Context Protocol	Anthropic Academy	Free course (certificate not confirmed)	OPEN
Agentic Automation	Agentic AI (Andrew Ng)	DeepLearning.AI	Free to audit; certificate needs Pro ($25/mo billed annually)	OPEN
Small Models	Machine Learning Crash Course	Google for Developers	Free course, no certificate	OPEN
Small Models	LLM Course (chapters 1-2)	Hugging Face	Free course, no certificate	OPEN
Small Models	Large Language Models with Semantic Search	DeepLearning.AI	Free to watch; certificate needs paid PRO	OPEN
AI Product Evals	Transform your business with AI (learning path, includes Responsible AI)	Microsoft Learn	Free	OPEN
AI Product Evals	Evaluating AI Agents / Automated Testing for LLMOps (short courses)	DeepLearning.AI	Free to take (limited-time beta); accomplishment needs paid PRO	OPEN

Later, when sponsored

These are optional and never needed to finish PILOT. They cost money, so we only list them as a step for later if a sponsor can cover the fee. Prices are as stated on each course page; always confirm the current price with the provider before you plan anything.

Course	Credential	Provider	Cost	Link
Product Champion	Product Management Foundations (optional, later)	Product School	Paid: $2,999	OPEN
Agile & Scrum	Professional Scrum Master I (optional, later)	Scrum.org	Paid exam, $200 USD (optional)	OPEN
GitLab PM	GitLab Certified Agile Portfolio Management Associate Exam	GitLab University	Paid exam (about $150 USD), only when sponsored	OPEN
GitLab PM	GitLab Certified Project Management Associate Exam	GitLab University	Paid exam (about $150 USD), only when sponsored	OPEN
UX & Journeys	Google UX Design Professional Certificate	Google on Coursera	Free only with approved financial aid; otherwise $49/month after 7-day trial	OPEN
PMP Path	Google Project Management Certificate	Google on Coursera	Paid subscription · financial aid available (optional)	OPEN
PMP Path	CAPM exam	PMI	Later, when sponsored · paid exam (reported ~$225 member / $300 non-member; confirm on pmi.org)	OPEN
PMP Path	PMP exam	PMI	Later, when sponsored · paid exam (reported ~$445 member / $675 non-member since Aug 2026; confirm on pmi.org)	OPEN
AI Product Evals	Google AI Essentials	Google on Coursera	Paid, $49/month after 7-day trial, optional later	OPEN
AI Product Evals	Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals exam AI-901 (replaced AI-900)	Microsoft	Paid exam (about $99 USD per third-party guides; price varies by country), optional later	OPEN
AI Product Evals	AI for Everyone certificate	DeepLearning.AI	Paid, $49 for certificate, optional later	OPEN

Provider pages and prices change, so check the link before you register. Some providers block automated link checkers, but their pages open normally in a browser.

GitLab is your PM workspace

The PILOT capstone is simple and real: your learning plan lives in the same GitLab workspace where you run your work. There is nothing new to set up, so please do not create a new project. Use the one you already have.

1. Log every step as a to-do

For each step in a course, open an issue on your board with the label learning::pilot. Add a short note about what you plan to learn, and close the issue when you finish the step. You can also add it to your GitLab To-Do list so it shows up in your daily view.

2. Plan it like a real project

Our GitLab is Ultimate, so you can use everything: group your course issues under an epic called “PILOT Program”, give each course a milestone or iteration, and watch the roadmap show your 12 weeks. That is product management practised on your own learning.

3. Keep your evidence

When you finish a step, paste the completion link or a screenshot of your certificate or badge into the issue. If a course does not issue a certificate, a screenshot of your completion is your proof. Your board becomes your portfolio.

4. Show it to a coach

At the end, book a coach and walk through your board together: what you learned, what you shipped, and what comes next. Bring an AI agent into the review if you like, and tell us what it got right and wrong.

START WITH WEEK 1 BOOK A COACH

Who is the PILOT Program for?

Product and project managers, especially junior ones, who run their work in GitLab and want to work well with AI agents. You do not need to write code and you do not need access to code.

Does it cost anything?

No. Every course has a path you can finish for $0, and the certificates and badges in the free tracker cost nothing. Paid exams are listed only as an optional step for later, when a sponsor can cover them.

Who issues the certificates?

The providers do (Anthropic Academy, Hugging Face, IBM SkillsBuild and others). Ignite Curiosity picks and orders the courses, coaches you through them and checks that each claim on our pages is stated carefully. Where a course does not state a certificate, we say so.