Artificial Intelligence in Project Management Tools
As IA has already transformed the digital advertising industry, we believe it can also plan projects, elaborate reports, assign tasks, automate notifications and recommendations, evaluate people’s performance, discover issues, analyze trends, and so on. However, it is still too early to talk about artificial intelligence in the field of professional project management. In order for software to assist us in planning baselines, tracking progress, suggesting actions, anticipating issues, evaluating performance, etc., it is essential to have a historical database of projects within the organization’s context, on the organization’s private servers.
The Future of Work (in Projects)
The presentation of Microsoft 365 Copilot made us imagine a future with AI assisting knowledge workers. Will project teams work with AI in the future? If you are a project professional, don’t be afraid: AI will not replace you. However, another professional who are more proficient in technology may take over. In the future, PPM tools will include AI. In the meantime, as a project manager, you should master tools for 1) self-organize; 2) team collaboration; 3) schedule and control time and costs; and 4) manage multiple projects with many people.
AI applied to Project Management
Year 2030. PPM tools include AI features. People can talk to a chatbot to initiate new projects, prioritize them, or approve the project set adding the most aggregated value. AI can help on technical tasks related to planning, controlling, knowledge management, etc. AI helps mentoring project managers throughout their professional careers. AI is effective classifying and clustering thousands of projects belonging to business units, programs, and portfolios. AI saves a lot of time generating reports, assuring quality standards, etc. AI 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 contracts should be canceled?
What is Artificial Intelligence?
As in every area of the economy, digital transformation has disrupted project management. In order to manage projects professionally, we do not need paper documents anymore. We do not need to work from specific locations, neither. Project data, essential for business management in the Project Economy, is growing exponentially. More and more people collaborate on projects, sharing more and more technical and management data, and organizations are executing more and more projects. With so much project management data available, could algorithms manage projects automatically? What will be our role as project management professionals?