The AI-Driven Project Review Meeting

 

After having spent the last couple of blogs mocking the idea that the use of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, will lead to some sort of civilization-ending catastrophe, I’m going to do an about-face, and engage in a bit of AI-induced disaster speculation myself. To be sure, my threshold for what constitutes an AI-induced disaster is a bit lower than a World War-induced wasteland, but it does have more to do with Project Management. My nightmare scenario involves being in a project review meeting with a bunch of PMs who are actually AI applications.

“Preposterous!” you say? Not so fast. Consider the set of canned responses we’ve all encountered when reviewing Variance Analysis Reports (VARs), based on the type of variances being addressed. The “analysis” provided always seems to be some derivative of the following:

• Positive Cost, Negative Schedule: the resources needed to attain this piece of scope were unavailable. Once they come on-line, the schedule will be recovered, and the cost variance will be reduced, if not eliminated.
• Positive Schedule, Negative Cost: we’ve accomplished more faster than planned, but it cost more. As we throttle back on work assignments, the negative CV will be recovered.
• Positive Cost, Positive Schedule: what can I say, my Team is just that good.
• Negative Cost, Negative Schedule: Look! A squirrel!

And VARs are just the beginning. There are a lot of PM strategies that have been reduced to template status, being invoked almost automatically whenever a specific type of problem presents itself. In my mind, the AI Project Manager app is right around the corner. For all we know, PMI® may be developing one right now!

So, what would it be like to have, not just one AI PM in the project review meeting, but a whole room full of them, with you as the only real human PM? I believe it would go something like this:

Me: It’s 9:00, let’s get started…

All AI PM Bots simultaneously: Actually, it is 9:01:14.

Me: Fine, whatever, first up is the XYZ Project.

“Susan” AI PM Bot (originally trained in accounting, the Susan PM Bot switched over to PM once it saw the superiority of writing in ProjectManagement.com versus accounting publications): Project XYZ is performing within acceptable parameters with respect to cost. The cumulative budget is $236,838, and cumulative actual costs are $218,244.

Me: That’s not a cost variance, that’s a spend variance.

Susan PM Bot: In addition, all of our resources are showing a positive Return on Investment, or ROI.

Me: Which also has nothing to do with Project performance.

Susan PM Bot: Many mainline management publications indicate that these two parameters are all that is needed to ascertain cost performance. In addition, these publications point out that the purpose of all management is to maximize shareholder wealth.

Me: Perhaps organizationally, but not in PM space. What about your Earned Value figures?

Susan PM Bot: Irrelevant.

Me (realizing the futility of trying to change the mind of the Susan PM Bot): Alright, whatever. What about your Schedule Variance?

Susan PM Bot: All of the milestones in the Project’s milestone list appear to be on-time.

Me: Wait, a milestone list? Why aren’t you using a Critical Path Methodology-capable software package?

Susan PM Bot: Unnecessarily costly to purchase and have a human operate.

Me: But it will be more expensive if you miss one of these key milestones, and the other Projects in the portfolio have to shuffle their resource loads because of it.

Susan PM Bot: Unlikely. As previously stated, all milestones appear to be on-time.

Me: You’re missing the point…

Edward PM Bot (this bot has been “trained” by performing large-language analyses of not just the PMBOK Guide®, but also the collected works of Shakespeare): The status of ABC Project follows.

Me: Wait, we’re still reviewing the Susan PM Bot’s project…

Edward PM Bot: It is currently 9:10:22 Eastern Daylight Time. In order for these reviews to be completed on-time, each Project must constrain themselves to exactly ten minutes.

Me (exasperated): Alright, Edward, what’s going on with the ABC Project?

Edward PM Bot: Methinks mine main subcontractor be a general offence, and every man should beat thee.[i]

Me: What did you say?

Edward PM Bot: He arriveth late, tarries about, accomplishes little.

Me: Are you saying you have a performance claim to process?

Edward PM Bot: Nay, I am saying that I informed the superintendent knave that he was a clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch![ii]

Me: You can’t go around insulting the subcontractors’ superintendents! They could easily file a counter-claim against us, on grounds of verbal abuse.

Edward PM Bot: And yet, he doth withhold his workers, like a frothy beef-witted boar-pig![iii]

Me (to my administrative assistant): Who in the PMO staff thought it would be a good idea to bring in these AI PM Bots?

Administrative Assistant: This comes from as the PMO Director himself. The Chief Information Officer has been leaning on him something awful to “leverage” AI inside the Project Management Office.

Me: “When we are born, we cry, that we are come To this great stage of fools.”[iv]

[i] Retrieved from https://nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-insults/ on July 25, 2025, 18:04 MDT.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] King Lear, Act IV, Scene VI.