What Artificial Intelligence Can Do for the Future of Project Management (And What It Can’t Do)11/5/2017
Article link: https://www.itproportal.com/features/will-ai-replace-the-project-manager/ In the Information Technology field, there is a huge demand for project managers, as organizations implement new technical innovations to improve the way they conduct business. The article I am responding to addresses how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will offer a supporting role to project managers, rather than replacing them. While I agree with the takeaway message of this article, I am suspicious of the more specific details this article discusses. The article starts out by defining just what AI is. AI is not a bunch of robots that are outsmarting humans like what you would see in a sci-fi movie. Rather, AI (as it exists today) is made up of computers being utilized for advanced tasks, beyond that of traditional calculations. Think analyzing voices, faces, and text to find discernible patterns; that is what modern day AI is.
With regard to how AI could be applied to project management, the article first discusses portfolio planning. Essentially, an AI assistant within project management software would be able to go through a manager’s entire portfolio in order to suggest more realistic timeframes for a projects duration. The AI assistant would know through experience how long certain project tasks would take to complete, which is how it is able to form its own project timeframe. This however, is where I’m suspicious of this article’s information. No two projects are alike, so how exactly does an AI assistant form an accurate timeline that deals with tasks it’s never encountered before? This to me is the inherent issue with AI, it learns from experience, so it can only be so helpful when it is dealing with things it has never experienced before. Perhaps the most substantial benefit AI will have for project management is with objective reporting. The article discusses how humans are fallible, and all too often the biases of a project manager lead to inaccurate reporting about a projects progress. An AI based project management tool could provide an objective, matter-of-fact report of a projects progress. This would give the rest of the business a more accurate view of a project and could warn project managers well in advance of potential project risks/hazards. Artificial Intelligence has the ability to make project managers much more efficient. While AI is still very much under development, it can speed up project management by handling some of the more tedious and mundane tasks that project managers often have to deal with. However, project managers must be careful with how they utilize AI further down the road, as it can assist them, but not make decisions for them. (persuasion) Comments are closed.
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AuthorChristopher Silverwood ArchivesCategories |