Creating an AI-Friendly Project Environment

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  

As artificial intelligence continues to expand into more project-related use cases, and as more organizations embrace the idea of AI-enabled tools within their project delivery environments, project managers are increasingly finding themselves with an AI team member. How do they manage that? And particularly, how do they ensure that other team members embrace the benefits of AI rather than fear the implications?

AI as a colleague
I know it may seem a bit weird to think of AI as a colleague, but don’t think in terms of a person sitting round the table or dialing in to the video call. Rather, think in terms of helping to get the work done. That’s happened in the past with things like automated workflow to reduce administration, and even the advancements in project management software that have reduced the need for manual work. But AI takes things to a new level.

That’s partially because of the number of ways that AI can potentially support project execution, and partially because of the nature of that support. The fact that AI takes us from the realm of limited, defined processes to a more freeform type of contribution to the project makes it potentially harder to understand (and, by extension, manage)—and harder to accept by team members who are worried about the implications for their careers.

To address that, AI needs to be given a defined …

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