6 Predictions for the Future of Project Consulting

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.

  Artificial Intelligence   Career Development   Consulting  

What’s the future of project consulting? Who knows? I certainly don’t, but let’s have some fun pondering what may be possible.

1. Artificial Intelligence will not replace consultants
Let’s deal with the elephant in the room first: Project consultants are not going to be replaced by AI. I’m not just saying that because I don’t want to be rendered obsolete; I genuinely believe it to be true.

Consulting is a nuanced discipline, especially in project environments. There are an (almost) infinite number of ways to apply the different project delivery approaches, to plan and distribute work, to leverage resources, and so on. Understanding what works best for different organizations, departments, teams, and individuals comes down to more than just data and algorithms.

It requires experienced professionals with an appreciation for how people work together, how to get the most out of environments, and how to balance the numerous priorities involved in every unique initiative.

That’s always going to require experienced business leaders, highly skilled project managers, and consulting services that can be the difference in securing those extra few percentage points of performance.

I will willingly embrace AI where it can help organizations and individual consultants—planning work, defining scope, establishing metrics, etc. But…

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