Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a strong emphasis on organizational transformation, portfolio management, and PMOs. Andy is an in-demand keynote speaker and author who delivers thought-provoking content in an engaging and entertaining style and is also an instructor in project management-related disciplines, including PMO and portfolio management courses on LinkedIn Learning.
I can’t think of anything in my career that has been as disruptive as artificial intelligence (AI). I’ve managed projects through Y2K and helped clients deal with the pandemic, but AI in project management is different. It’s not a one-off event or a temporary change to how things get done – it’s a complete reimagining of projects’ delivery.
AI in project management as a team member
For many roles and functions in an organization, AI-enabled software provides an additional tool to assist in completing the work. That might mean reporting analytics, workflow automation, or even help in resolving an operational issue. The use cases of AI in project management are limitless.
When I work with organizations to help them embrace generative AI for project management, I encourage them to view AI as an additional team member. Used effectively, AI can be assigned much of the administrative overhead of the project, freeing people up to focus on higher-value activities. The project manager still needs to oversee and validate that work, but that’s no different than if the work was delegated to a human team member.
I also find that this approach helps those human team members be more accepting of generative AI in project management. When they consider AI as a team member assigned the menial tasks that no one wants to do, there is less concern that the technology will replace them, at least in the immediate term. I have even seen team members actively lobby for AI to have a more significant role in their projects because they believe it can remove more administrative overhead from them.
Making the most of an AI team member
In my experience, there is another crucial advantage to viewing AI tools as project team members – it changes how people interact with them. Interaction with traditional software applications tends to be transactional. This includes running a report, triggering a workflow, conducting an analysis, etc. However, with people, it’s different.
Project managers know they must develop strong relationships with each team member and create an environment where they develop strong relationships. That approach ensures trust and respect and encourages communication and collaboration. These relationships drive interactions – discussions, debates, working together to solve problems and develop solutions, and so on.
To optimize the benefits of AI in project management, it is necessary to have more of a relationship-based connection rather than a transactional one. The project manager or team member who only asks a single question about an AI project management solution and then uses the information returned is limited in the benefits they can achieve. When that exchange becomes more of a conversation, the benefits increase dramatically.
Follow-up questions improve the quality of responses. They eliminate some of the uncertainty and reduce the chances of mistakes being made by the tool. Those questions also identify potential errors or limitations in the information provided, helping to improve both that interaction and future interactions as the tool ‘learns’ how to deliver more relevant insight just as a human team member would.
Learn more by reading the article “Will AI replace Project Managers?”
The future of AI team members
One question that project managers ask is what the future of AI will look like in project environments. There is a sense that while today’s AI project management solutions may be valuable team members, tomorrow’s versions may threaten to replace human colleagues. While there is no doubt that AI tools will continue evolving at breakneck speed, making them more sophisticated and powerful, I don’t share that fear.
Projects have never been about simply following tasks on a plan or completing work from a backlog. They have always required a nuanced, considered approach, adjusting what is delivered to align with what an organization needs. AI just won’t be able to do that in the foreseeable future. It will always rely on the historical data it has been trained on, and it will always lack that human ability to apply subjective interpretation on top of objective analysis.
The bottom line is – perception matters
AI is disruptive, and AI can also be divisive. However, whether people feel positive towards or threatened by the technology, AI is here to stay. The best AI for project management isn’t about selecting a particular tool. It’s about how that tool is perceived and integrated into people’s work.
When AI is viewed as a valuable team member, taking on the administrative work no one wants to do, it adds tangible and immediate value. When project managers and human team members interact with the tool as part of a relationship – through ongoing conversations and collaboration- that value is optimized.