CMMC Readiness for Defense Contractors: Get Audit-Ready Before the Contract Demands It
Signature Course No. 409 — A Signature AI Socratic Coaching Course.
No experience needed — your coach starts where you are.
A New Kind of Learning
Socratic coaching, delivered by an agentic AI coach.
Not a course you watch. An AI coach you work with.
The Lighthouse Coach begins by discovering how you think about the subject, teaches what is missing, and gives you realistic practice before asking you to prove that you can use it. You may test out of concepts you already understand, while capstones turn the learning into a practical plan, decision, conversation, or other real-world result.
The curriculum is deliberately authored; the AI delivers it through coaching. It is not an AI randomly generating lessons.
A coach that teaches by asking — not by lecturing
The Lighthouse Coach is an AI Socratic coach built on Cognosco Learning's CMMC Readiness for Defense Contractors: Get Audit-Ready Before the Contract Demands It course, in the Risk, Safety & Compliance category. It does not play videos at you. It holds a conversation: it asks you a question, listens to your answer, names the misconception it hears, affirms what you got right, and asks the next question — the way a great coach works in the room.
A contractor fails this regime the way unprepared defendants fail in court — not on effort, but on not knowing what the charge actually is. Before any control is chosen, someone must know which level of the regime the company stands under, what information created that standing, where that information lives, and what the full requirement list actually asks. This course teaches you to be ready before the solicitation arrives: your boundary drawn and defended, your requirements honestly scored, your plan written, your evidence in order.
It starts with the information. The regime sorts contractors into three levels, and the sorting key is never the size of your company or the value of your contract — it is the information. Level 1 protects Federal Contract Information. Level 2 protects Controlled Unclassified Information, with the 110 requirements of NIST SP 800-171 Revision 2 as its substance. Level 3 stands on top of Level 2 against the most capable threats. You will learn to tell the two kinds of information apart in the documents on your own desk, marked and unmarked alike, and to state what marks each.
It works in two movements. First, Module 1 — Know What the Regime Asks and What You Hold — work through Concepts 1–9, finishing with The Boundary and Baseline Pack; then, Module 2 — Prove It, Score It, and Stay Ready — work through Concepts 10–18, finishing with The Readiness File.
Both capstones produce real artifacts — a boundary and baseline pack for Sedgemoor Precision Systems, the course's running contractor: its information inventory, its defended boundary, its full asset sort, and its honest baseline against the 110; and a readiness file for the same company — its plan extract, its evidence index, its computed score, its milestone plan, its assessment-route decision, and its flow-down record — defended in writing.
The honesty standard is part of the course. This course promises readiness, never a result: readiness means ready to be assessed — an assessor decides, and a contracting officer decides. CMMC lives in federal rulemaking that moves, so the course teaches the regime's durable structure as fact and flags every rulemaking-sensitive specific for checking against the rules in force on the day you act. This book is information about a compliance regime, not legal advice.
The course is self-paced and always on — roughly 30 minutes per concept, about 9 hours in full, taken in as many sittings as you like. You can type your answers, or talk out loud: the Voice Coach speaks its questions and listens to your spoken replies. Learners who already know the material can test out concept by concept.
CMMC Readiness for Defense Contractors: Get Audit-Ready Before the Contract Demands It is part of The Lighthouse Signature Series — the online counterpart to the one-day, in-person learning Cognosco Learning has delivered since 2002.
Course Facts
One full concept, coached end to end — free: verify your email and we’ll send you a link to start.
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Diagnose → Learn & Practice → Prove → Capstone
Every learner moves through the same discipline a Cognosco instructor would insist on in the room.
Diagnose
The Coach starts where the course starts: with the information. Think of the most sensitive government information your company handled in the last year — where it came from, and whether anyone ever said out loud which kind it was; say what exactly you would show a customer who asked for your CMMC status tomorrow, and which of those things the regime itself counts; and find the moment in your company where a new contract's information requirements first become visible, and who owns the question there. Every concept opens with three questions that locate where you actually stand, and your answers shape how deeply the Coach works the concept with you. Everyone begins with Module 1 — no skipping the foundations you only think you have.
Learn & Practice
Work each concept in conversation with the Coach — spoken or written — then practice it against realistic situations until it holds up.
Prove
Every concept ends in proof: answer the check cold and demonstrate the skill. Know it already? Test out and take credit immediately.
Capstone
Finish with two capstones — The Boundary and Baseline Pack for Module 1 and The Readiness File for Module 2 — that pull the whole course together, and earn the certificate.
What You'll Learn
The information decides everything — in that order, every time. The level, the boundary, the requirement set, and the assessment route all follow from one prior question: what information is at stake, and which kind is it? Get the information wrong and every later artifact is precisely, confidently wrong. Proof beats assertion, and honesty beats optimism — this course grades readiness the way an assessor will: on evidence, on arithmetic that recomputes, and on gaps written down where everyone can see them.
Module 1 establishes the ground. The Regime at a Glance; The Running Contractor — Sedgemoor Precision Systems in Full; Federal Contract Information; Controlled Unclassified Information; Scoping the Assessment Boundary; The 110 Requirements; Access and Identity at Depth; Configuration and Protection at Depth; and Assess Your Own House First — the level structure, the classification work the whole regime stands on, the defended boundary, and the honest internal review.
Module 2 turns ground into proof. The System Security Plan; Evidence That Proves a Requirement; SPRS Scoring; The Plan of Action and Milestones; Assessment Routes; Facing the Assessors; Flow-Down; Staying Ready; and The Readiness Owner's Standard — the plan an assessor can test, evidence that proves a requirement is operating, a score computed honestly from your own gaps, the route a contract demands, and the standard behind the signature.
And it holds its boundary throughout. This course owns one named regime end to end — CMMC as a contractor lives it — not a survey of security frameworks. A neighboring course in this library maps security frameworks generally as a program discipline, and another teaches the manager's general compliance playbook. Where a framework name appears here, it appears only because the regime itself points at it.
What you will learn
- Explain the CMMC level structure and match each level to the information it protects and the assessment it requires
- Distinguish Federal Contract Information from Controlled Unclassified Information in real documents, and state what marks information as each
- Scope an assessment boundary — systems, people, places, and services — and defend what is in, what is out, and why
- Read the 110 requirements of NIST SP 800-171 Revision 2 as a working list, and judge what meeting a requirement actually takes
- Build and maintain the System Security Plan, and assemble evidence that proves a requirement is operating
- Compute a Supplier Performance Risk System score from your own gaps, and run a Plan of Action and Milestones inside the rule's limits
- Choose and prepare for the right assessment route, flow the obligation down to subcontractors and providers, and sustain readiness between assessments
Everything in the course
- All 18 concepts of CMMC Readiness for Defense Contractors: Get Audit-Ready Before the Contract Demands It, in 2 modules
- A starting-point check first — the Coach finds where you actually stand before teaching
- Learn, Practice, Prove for every concept — no passive video watching
- A test-out on every concept: prove you know it and move on
- The Voice Coach: talk with the Coach out loud — it speaks, listens, and replies
- A personal Learner Record of your work across the course
- Two capstone exercises: The Boundary and Baseline Pack and The Readiness File
- A printable session summary whenever you pause
- The Lighthouse Coach completion certificate (Signature Series)
- Your progress is saved as you go — stop anytime, resume where you left off
Built for the people who carry a contractor's readiness
Owners and executives of small and mid-size defense contractors — who sign affirmations, carry the contract risk personally, and need to know what their signature attests; and contracts and compliance leads who read solicitations, answer customer flow-down questions, post scores, and own the readiness file day to day.
IT and security staff at contractor firms — who run the systems inside the boundary and must turn requirements into working controls and findable evidence.
Program and operations managers — whose delivery work creates, receives, and moves the information the regime protects, and who must know which of their habits put it at risk. This course assumes you work in or around a business that holds, bids for, or supplies into United States Department of Defense contracts. It does not assume a security background, and it never asks you to configure a system.
Prefer to learn live and in person? The same material anchors Cognosco's one-day programs — browse the in-person catalog.
Start with The Regime at a Glance
$195 — introductory price. One payment. No subscription, no password to manage.
Here is exactly what happens when you enroll:
- Pay securely with Stripe — you are taken straight into the course
- Create your learner profile and begin the Module 1 starting-point check
- Save the access key you are given — it restores your enrollment on any device
- Learn at your pace; your progress is stored in your browser on your device
For the full voice experience, use Chrome and allow the microphone when asked. Typing your answers works everywhere, all the time. Questions before you enroll? Email hello@cognoscolearning.com.
Before you enroll
What is a Socratic coaching session?
A conversation, not a video. Your coach asks a question; you answer — out loud by voice, or by typing — and the coach responds to what you said: naming the misconception it hears, affirming what you got right, and asking the next question. You advance only when you have mastered each concept, so a finished course means the learning held.
How long does it take — and how long do I have?
About 30 minutes per concept. Learn in sittings of any length; your progress is saved as you go. You have a full year from purchase to finish, and you can revisit and retake within that year.
What does the certificate verify?
That you completed every concept and both capstones of this course. Anyone can confirm a Cognosco certificate online — enter its certificate ID on our verification page.
What if it isn't for me — what are the refunds?
If you have not started, cancel for a full refund within seven days of purchase. Once you have started, there is no cash refund — stop before finishing and we credit the full amount you paid toward any other course in the library (credit valid one year from your original purchase). Once you complete the course, no refund or credit applies.
More Signature Courses are coming
CMMC Readiness for Defense Contractors: Get Audit-Ready Before the Contract Demands It is Signature Course No. 409. Leave your email and we'll send you news of future Signature Courses and Lighthouse updates as they are announced — nothing else.