The world of project management is a dynamic one: an ever-changing landscape that continually looks to develop alongside new technologies.
As the technology we regularly use continues to evolve around us, we can be sure that the necessity of having collaborative tools to achieve the deadlines we face in business will never change.
There’s nothing more challenging than ensuring that workers from different sections of an organisation are all pulling together achieve their goals. With the increasing power and prevalence of Artificial Intelligence, the job of ensuring complex collaboration could be made significantly easier. So what will project management look like once this new wave of technology begins to make its presence felt? Let’s take a look:
The Arrival of AI
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As the data shows, funding in Artificial Intelligence has grown exponentially over time, and the effects of this large-scale support can already be found in the quality of tools we have in the realm of project management.
When it comes to Project Management assistance, AI is gradually being unleashed within the industry to aid users in a series of fronts. Today, Artificial Intelligence can effectively pick up the slack for us when it comes to scheduling, reminders and follow-ups without the need for human input at all.
Despite the vast majority of AI within Project Management currently focussing more on administrative tasks, Cognilytica estimates that managers who adopt Artificial Intelligence solutions can expect to see a 20% boost to productivity.
The efficiency of AI really becomes prevalent when it comes to predictive analytics. Human error’s one thing, but few employees will have the ability to take a step back from their single role within a project to observe the bigger picture and formulate estimates based on how the said project is moving.
AI has the ability to bring mechanised efficiency into significant Project Management calculations relating to budgeting, deadlines, and performance – and it’s only just warming up.
Emerging Trends
In the Association for Project Management (APM) report, Projecting the Future, readers are boldly told that a fourth industrial revolution is underway. John Broome Chair of APM’s Contracts & Procurement Special Interest Group says that he First draft programme schedules and risk registers will be created by AI using hard data.
Michael DePrisco, Vice-President of Global Solutions at the Project Management Institute (PMI) agrees that a future driven by AI will bring sweeping change: While traditional project management roots focused on tasks like scheduling and tactical planning, AI will likely automate much of that functionality thereby shifting the Project Manager’s core focus to understanding how to leverage this technology to deliver more value for customers.
There has been no better way of freeing time for individuals within Project Management operations than through the excellent time-saving approaches of AI, and 2019 will see this degree of automation extend way beyond mechanised administrative practices.
Project Management in the Next Decade
The arrival of AI has coincided with that of big data. Both of these innovations can work together effectively in Project Management to bring even more valuable insights to managers.
Cognilytica founder, Ron Schmelzer has explained to Forbes that a prospective advantage that AI could bring can be found in its ability to monitor and make predictions based on human behaviour. AI systems can observe projects and individual team member behavior, and can pick up on certain habits and nuances with team members that might be otherwise overlooked. This makes it possible for artificial intelligence to recognize when something is occurring that is likely to lead to scheduling conflicts and makes it possible to offer up suggestions on alternate completion dates if the scheduling is off track, states Schmelzer.
Moving into the next decade, we could see the advent of Artificial Intelligence that’s so intuitive that team members could ultimately be automatically coached without the need of any human input. In the same way AI can identify a user profile for a shopper and act accordingly, these systems can help provide customized aid to employees working on a project, as well as project managers, summarises Schmelzer.
The next decade will one of the most significant ones for Project Management principles and practices. The arrival of AI will certainly be a welcome one, and its potential to analyse deep data and focus on ensuring productivity within individuals could lead to hours saved for project leaders and clients alike.
