Overview
People Management: AI era is a hands-on crash course from Fwdays on managing people and teams systematically in modern IT. It is designed for team leads, engineering managers, tech leads, and other IT specialists who already work with teams or are preparing to move into management. The course walks through the full people management cycle, from grades, competencies, and motivation to delegation, one-to-ones, feedback, difficult conversations, personal development plans (PDPs), and performance reviews. A distinctive focus is how AI is changing a manager's job, including what can be delegated to AI, where human oversight is required, and which ethical risks must be considered.
The mentor is Andrii Labenskyi, Head of PMO at GameDev, with more than 10 years of experience across PC games, mobile games, and apps. He has worked on Warface, Shatterline, and Homescapes/Gardenscapes, implemented SAFe from scratch in a company, and built a system for developing and evaluating specialists.
Format
The course consists of 4 online sessions of about 2.5 hours each, held on Zoom together with a learning platform that provides recordings. The first session starts on November 17, 2026 at 7:00 p.m., and the course runs through November 26, 2026. The course is taught in Ukrainian, with slides in Ukrainian and English terminology. The approach is practical: participants work through real management situations, create their own tools, and rehearse difficult conversations that they can apply with their teams.
Agenda
Session 1: From specialist to leader: grades, competencies, and culture. Covers the shift from strong individual contributor to leader, grades and the competency matrix, how company culture shapes expectations, the dual career ladder for management and IC tracks, and new competencies in the AI era. Practice: building a skill matrix with AI and adapting it to your team's context.
Session 2: Motivation, leadership, and delegation. Covers understanding what motivates team members, situational leadership, delegation as a development tool, deciding what to delegate to people or AI and at what level of control, how AI changes roles for junior and middle specialists, and psychological safety, burnout, and the leader's role. Practice: Motivation Poker and Delegation Poker, with an AI agent as one of the performers.
Session 3: A leader's daily practice: 1:1s, feedback, and difficult conversations. Covers running effective one-to-ones, giving positive and corrective feedback with the SBI model, handling weak performance, conflicts, and bad news, and using AI to prepare for conversations and practice them through role-play. Practice: working through real scenarios and rehearsing difficult conversations.
Session 4: Growth and evaluation: PDP, performance review, and AI. Covers creating a PDP that supports real development, the evaluation process and communication, gathering facts for a well-founded rating, bias, calibration, and 360 feedback. It also explains why team-level DORA and SPACE metrics are risky to use for evaluating individuals, how AI can help with PDPs and reviews, and AI ethics in people management, including personal data, transparency, and manager accountability. Practice: creating a PDP and preparing for a performance review with AI.
What is included
Participants receive access to 4 online broadcasts (about 10 hours), the presentation and course materials, and lifetime access to the recording on the learning platform. There is also a chat in Telegram where the mentor answers questions. A participant certificate is issued subject to completing homework. Graduates receive a free month in Fwdays Club, and course participants get a 10% discount on Fwdays conferences.
Pricing and payment
Tickets start at 6 200 UAH (about €124). Higher tiers are listed at 7 800 UAH (about €156) and 9 600 UAH (about €192). Discounts are available for previous conference participants (10%) and full-time students (30%, with a promo code after verifying a student ID). Special conditions apply for military personnel and members of the defense and security forces, and group discounts are available for companies. Payment in installments is offered through Monobank and Privatbank.
FAQ
Can I get a refund? Yes. If after the first lesson your expectations do not match the course, the fee is refunded in full. Will I be able to watch the lessons later? Yes. The recording stays available on the learning platform permanently. How can I contact the organizers? Write to academy@fwdays.com for questions about discounts, group pricing, or other details.
