Why People Will Always Matter
Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.
To start this article, I want to recount a couple of stories that have absolutely nothing to do with project management. I recently received an alert on my phone from my bank asking me if I had made a purchase that was out of my usual spending habits. I hadn’t. When I responded advising them of that, the software algorithm immediately froze my credit card and asked me to call my bank’s fraud prevention number.
I called, expecting to speak with an automated system, likely powered by AI these days. But instead, I got straight through to a person after the usual warnings about recording the call and selecting my preferred language.
That individual made sure that I wasn’t worried about my credit card number being compromised, arranged to issue a replacement card, and reminded me to update any standing payments that I had connected to the old card. It was simple, straightforward, and quick. Technically, it could have been handled by AI.
I couldn’t help but contrast that with another recent exchange that I had around a package that was shipped to me and got lost. The website encouraged (read: forced) me to use its AI assistant to raise a concern. That just led to a loop of the tool trying to tell me what the last update was, and that I would be informed when it was being delivered. The tool couldn’t comprehend that a parcel “out for …
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"I'm not saying anything. There is no message." - John Lennon |
