Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Special Agent
David Schmaltz is a project manager in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Most project management books and training focus on instilling capability through diligent repetition. But whether capability ever leads to results depends upon something more. Let’s call it Agency — instinct and knowledge embodied in the moment into productive action. The difference between agency and capability is the difference between fact and theory, reality and projection.
Kirk had been attending his local Project Management Institute chapter’s PMP certification preparation course for weeks. A group comprised of eager young practitioners and older, experienced managers met Thursday nights for three hour, full immersion sessions, where a certified PMP poured through endless PowerPoint slides. Kirk sat near the back of the dimly lit room, reading a recent Projects@Work article while the proctor droned on in the front. Everyone else seemed sluggishly attentive. The session felt serious, bordering on comatose, with everyone focused on absorbing as much of the information as possible in preparation for the big test. Everyone, that is, except Kirk. Kirk was giggling — not disruptively or derisively, but quietly to himself.
Kirk’s behavior surprised him. He didn’t usually giggle in class. Kirk is a dedicated, disciplined, and only slightly unconventional student. He’d served in the military before taking his Engineering degree, and had …
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Cyberspace: A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation - William Gibson |