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AI is one of today’s hottest hot topics for PMs and PMOs and the enterprise. It is consuming endless cycles and vast mind share.
The 2023 @Garner hype cycle suggests AI (GenAI and PredAI) is currently at the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” with another 5-10years before it crosses that ever challenging Trough of Disillusionment and we have all navigated back to achieve mature productive value. What does that mean for hard working PMs who are driving today’s projects. It means there’s a lot of excitement, interest and headlines focused on AI in project management that needs to be considered and managed.
A useful strategy when new developments are at the peak of inflated expectations is caution and realism. It is important to understand the potential benefits and possible risks of the technology and to keep personal investment aligned.
Some standard tips to manage this peak in the hype cycle are:
Keep the radar active and do the research.
Continue to learn and stay informed about the technology, its potential applications, and its limitations.
Where possible talk to experts in the field and if there’s time read industry reports.
Identify your own priority needs.
Consider your own specific gaps and needs and always keep thinking how the technology could benefit you, your project management performance and your organisation.
Keep the expectations realistic and pragmatic.
Expecting the technology to be a magic bullet only risks building a greater level of disillusionment, making it harder to recover and re-chart the route to maximise mature productive value from AI.
It will inevitably take time for the technology to mature and deliver its full promise.
Start small.
Don't jump in with a big personal (or business) investment in the technology right away.
Start with a smaller, trial workstream or to experiment and see how it works out and adds value for your projects and delivery performance.
Be flexible.
The landscape is constantly changing, strategies are evolving and value propositions are continuing to mature.
Be prepared to refine your own paradigms about AI (and even about Project Management) and change strategies as GenAI and PredAI for Project Management develop and mature.
There are numerous forecast benefits from using AI in project management. For example, GenAI can help to automate tasks, identify risks, and PredAI can make predictions. However, it is also very important to remember that AI is still in its early stages of development, and it is not a replacement for human project managers.
In the next 5-10 years, we can expect to see AI being used more and more in project management. However, it will be important to be realistic about the expectations that are put on AI as it starters to slip into that inevitable Trough of Disillusionment. AI cannot solve all of the problems that project managers face, but it can still be a valuable tool for project managers to use.
There are some really helpful curated lists of training in generative AI that have been shared by @Ricardo Viana Vargas including a @PMI produced complementary course Generative AI Overview for Project Managers
At this stage in the lifecycle of AI it is particularly important to understand where GenAI and PredAI can be helpful (to invest your very precious time) and where it cannot be helpful. Can you trust AI for reliable coaching support and information? A pair of recent posts by @Jonathan Passmore provide some valuable insights into the best and safest ways knowledge workers can use of AI while it is maturing.
First @Jonathan and his colleague @David Tee evaluated the coaching capability of GenAI (GPT). The work assessed if GPT responses can achieve at least a minimum entry level of standard coaching practice. The findings were (perhaps not unsurprisingly) that the AI tool failed to reach that minimum standard. However the more critical finding was that responses provided by the AI tool were actually poor at identifying risks of harm. For PMs experimenting with the tool who may be “relying” on its responses for coaching inputs to help building emotional maturity or suggest ways to fill PM process gaps the results may be substandard. Adopting the GenAI tool as a surrogate support coach may increase project performance risks and reduce service quality.
Second, the research considered if the GenAI tool could accurately synthesise knowledge. In March 2023, a team of researchers from the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law and the legal AI company Casetext had announced that an AI system (GPT-4) had passed the Uniform Bar Exam for law students. The assumption was that answers from the GenAI tool were produced by a student under time pressured exam conditions. But if the same results were evaluated by a journal editor, then a critical problem was revealed; answers by GenAI can sometimes be made-up, or invented just to provide a response. This highlights its critical to always remember GenAI is just a door to “The Library of Babel”. That’s a reference to the famous short story published in 1941 by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges. For busy PMs, PMOs and their organisations who may be sampling and testing the use of GenAI tools to help with knowledge management, it is vital to be careful, to verify against the source and to never assume the GenAI output is actually factually correct.
As AI develops, it will undoubtedly disrupt and transform a variety of knowledge-based sectors, including PM performance and EQ coaching. Innovation is never something to ignore, but as innovations mature into productive value solutions we must follow along the journey in a way that safeguards today’s project performance from the dangers of higher risk practises or exposure to disruptive or damaging assertions.
Are you a PM or PMO leader who’s not sure how best to learn and apply AI best practice while fixing gaps of low Emotional Maturity? Are you an enterprise leader, directing a Digital Transformation or a complex ICT Transition or a strategic CiP program and you're unsure how to build the emotional maturity that will assure project performance and incorporate quality AI practice? A vertical development coaching program integrated with existing project performance supervision can be a simple, reliable way to achieve that goal.
If applied EQ is too often missing from projects and there’s interest in improving the quality and success of ICT project activity while we all follow the AI journey, please contact @Applied EQ Services to discuss bespoke online coaching, mentoring and consultancy services. We optimise skill sets and deliver a sense of assurance for Project Managers to confidently conduct the "orchestra" for their own projects.
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