
Project managers have always valued tools that save them time and help them become better professionals. From the well-known document templates for starting a project, status reports, risk register, change log, etc., to more sophisticated tools to manage resource capacity, simulate “what if” scenarios, calculate the probability of finishing on time and under budget, etc. Good project professionals have always been supposed to have these hard-skills. For example, in many job interviews, candidates were asked if they are proficient in Microsoft Project, and those who used Excel to schedule and control dates were not well regarded.
Project work has changed. Requirements are usually not clear enough, and project scope has to be progressively elaborated. Controlling changes, time and cost is less important than value delivery and meeting business goals. Managers need to make informed real-time decisions, anticipating issues while there are still options to correct project performance, and they don’t have time to read comprehensive documentation from dozens or hundreds of projects. Just one person to manage the whole project is not effective: collaboration is needed because the best solutions may come from one of many stakeholders.
Nowadays, project managers increase their productivity by using tools to be more effective in three areas: personal, team, and organization. As we move up from person to organization, hard skills become less important, and communication, interpersonal, soft skills, or power skills, become more important. In this hyperconnected digital society, hard and soft skills are enhanced by technology. Applying technology to projects is becoming increasingly important. Project managers will not be replaced by artificial intelligence, but project managers who master tools may replace those who do not.
You may not be replaced by AI as a project professional. Other professionals who are more proficient in technology may take over.
Last March, Microsoft unveiled 365 Copilot, the new version of Microsoft Office powered by GPT-4, with the promise that it will revolutionize knowledge work. We will be able to ask Word to draft a document, PowerPoint to prepare a presentation, Excel to analyze some figures, Outlook to respond to emails, Teams to summarize the decisions made in the meeting, etc., considering the specific worker’s context within the organization, corporate policies, information confidentiality, etc.
Every day there are more and more projects needing quick effective decision making from a big number of decentralized active stakeholders. Stakeholders create, access, and share big amounts of data, from any device, everywhere, any time. We can see a trend in project management “socialization” producing more and more project related data in the cloud, getting to the levels required by AI.
How will project teams work in an AI world? Dreaming is free. Let’s imagine…
AI applied to a single project
Let’s see how AI enhanced PPM systems will help manage a single project:- A chatbot helps initiate new projects, pending to be approved. It asks questions to set the exit criteria, dependencies with other projects, access levels, etc. AI calculates the relative project priority within the business unit, program, or portfolio.
- Program managers and portfolio managers use AI recommendations to approve the most value adding project set.
- AI recommends the available fittest project manager to manage the project.
- PM’s planning work is effective: AI proactively proposes requirements, work packages, deliverables, durations, milestones, team members, material resources, costs, etc. Reusing data from past projects, AI can initiate stakeholder register, risk register, assumption log, etc.
- AI sets up software tools for the project team with the right security levels.
- AI enhances project management team register project performance data in real time. It also updates lessons learned and other relevant knowledge management information while the project is running.
- AI optimizes elaboration of status reports. Project managers talk with a chatbot to get aid on performance assessment and decide corrective and preventive actions.
- Stakeholders are aware of project status real time. They can use their mobile phones to send comments, project feedback, people feedback and change requests. AI optimizes communications to stakeholders. AI ensures critical communications are timely received. AI prevents unnecessary communications to stakeholders.
- AI continually measures stakeholder satisfaction, expectations fulfillment, etc.
- AI assesses stakeholder engagement level –unaware, resistant, neutral, supportive, leading– and proposes alternatives for improvement.
- AI helps monitoring and controlling risks, changes, resource planning, etc.
- AI coaches project managers. Performance background is analyzed to help project managers achieve professional development results.
- AI helps ensure contract terms are fulfilled. It can automate payments to contractors via smart contracts.
AI applied to many projects
Let’s see how AI enhanced PPM systems will help manage a megaproject:- One tool can manage hundreds of projects grouped into business units. Users can only access those projects they are granted.
- Most projects –predictive, agile or hybrid– belong to programs and portfolios. One program may belong to one or many portfolios. Programs and portfolios may belong to one or many business units.
- Contractors can also use the same PPM system to manage their projects, programs, and portfolios.
- Each project is managed by a value driven professional project manager. Each program is managed by a professional program manager focused on program benefit delivery. Each portfolio is managed by a professional portfolio manager focused on portfolio strategy realization.
- Throughout the several years the megaproject is open, hundreds of people enter data as team members, and many more use the role of stakeholder.
- Team members submit time sheets and expense sheets. They can use their mobile phones to send comments, risks, etc. They use collaborative tools to manage tasks and communications.
- Stakeholders can supervise status reports. They can use their mobile phones to send comments to the project manager, but also change requests, project feedback, people feedback, etc.
- The tool is quite effective at quantitative analysis, classifying and clustering thousands of projects. AI saves a lot of time generating performance reports, assuring quality standards, etc. It can answer questions like: What are the odds this project will finish on time? What is the value of this deliverable? What projects should be re-baselined? What teams should be restructured? What contractors should be replaced?