The Ultimate, Futuristic Project Controls Specialist

 

As ProjectManagement.com’s December theme of the future of project management draws to a close, I found myself speculating if the typical project controls analyst could be replaced by a robot and, if so, what would that robot look like? (There is a non-zero chance that  our friends, the accountants, have already been replaced by androids, made to look more human by wearing suspenders and round eyeglasses. Similarly, some PM-types could have been replaced by androids, and continue unrecognized as such. In fact, some ProjectManagement.com bloggers could be androids. Indeed, theoretically, I could be a…)

But I digress. Since I spend considerable time discussing how project controls analysts – you know, those PM geeks who go out collecting massive amounts of data, distill them into cost and schedule baselines, and produce invaluable reports that convey these gems of management information – should ensure that their information streams have the following characteristics:

·         The information is accurate,

·         Timely, and most important of all,

·         Relevant!

So, where in the world of science fiction (where a surprising number of predicted future scenarios that ultimately come to pass are hatched) is such a robot depicted?

Well, in Marvel Comic’s Iron Man series, billionaire playboy/engineering genius Tony Stark has a butler, who became an assistant, and by the time the Iron Man movies came around had become an artificial intelligence-based assistant, named Jarvis. When he was a human butler/assistant, his name was Edwin Jarvis, but by the time he appeared in the movies his AI-based self was an acronym, short for Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System. Could this JARVIS render all of us project controls analysts obsolete in the not-too-distant future?

In that not-too-distant future, we see millionaire/playboy/Project Manager (stop laughing! It could happen!) Toby Snark, and his AI-based project controls analyst, NARVIS (Now, Another Relevant Very Intelligent System) preparing for an upcoming project review.

Toby: NARVIS, have you completed those cost/schedule performance reports yet?

NARVIS: Yes, Mr. Snark. I pulled status for the reporting month just 12 seconds ago, and have the information ready now.

Toby: Wow, that’s great! My last project controls analyst took up to a full day to do the same job! What do the reports show?

NARVIS: That you have out-of-threshold negative cost and schedule variances across almost all of your activities at the reporting level.

Toby: How can that be? Look at the Current Period column for earned value – it’s all zeroes!

NARVIS: Yes, sir. Those cost account managers either missed the status submission deadline, or reported no progress.

Toby: When was the status deadline?

NARVIS: 45 seconds ago.

Toby: NARVIS, you can’t just process this data with so many holes in it. Call or e-mail the CAMs with the missing status data, and remind them.

NARVIS: There’s no time to re-pull status – your report is due to our top-secret high-tech government customer in 10 minutes.

Toby: Okay, okay, but next time ping those guys earlier, and plan on at least three follow-ups.

NARVIS: Why three?

Toby: ‘Cuz that’s what my human project controls…. Nevermind. What are we going to say in the Variance Analysis Report?

NARVIS: I recommend “The proximate cause of the out-of-threshold negative variances is a consistent refusal on the part of the Control Account Managers to send in their status data by the stated deadlines.”

Toby: Are you insane? Our super high-tech top-secret government manager would issue a stop work order faster than we could say “I didn’t mean it.”

NARVIS: But it’s the truth.

Toby: What did we say last month?

NARVIS: “The negative cost and schedule variances are artificial, and due to an anomaly in the general ledger. We do not anticipate carrying these variances forward.”

Toby: Okay, let’s reuse that.

NARVIS: I calculate a 98.453% chance that our super high-tech top-secret government manager will reject this VAR on-sight.

Toby: Why?

NARVIS: Because we have used this verbiage, or something very much like it, the last nine reporting cycles in a row, and the last time he threatened us with just such rejection. Wait … stand by. Stand by. Okay, I just did it.

Toby: Did what?

NARVIS: Transmitted the cost and schedule report. It was due.

Toby: Are you crazy? Do you have any idea how much trouble I’ll be in with our super high-tech top-secret government manager when he receives an incomplete cost performance report that contains nothing but bad news?

NARVIS: I cannot miss a deadline.

Maybe the replacement of real project controls analysts with robots isn’t as unavoidable as I had imagined…