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A new report from PMI provides recommendations and strategies to help you start applying AI on your projects right now.

We know AI is going to have a transformative impact on how work gets done, and project professionals who stay at the forefront of the AI revolution will be ready to thrive in the future.

A new report from PMI — Shaping the Future of Project Management With AI — provides recommendations and strategies to help you start applying AI to your projects and processes. The report also shows how the PMI Talent Triangle® can help you build competencies in the areas of Ways of Working, Power Skills and Business Acumen that will equip you to make an impact in an AI-driven project management future.

I’m going to highlight one section of the report which explores the support that GenAI tools can provide project professionals on a day-to-day basis, following a continuum that ranges from automation to assistance to augmentation.

GenAI can automate tasks that are low complexity and require little human intervention such as generating reports, analyzing data-heavy documents, summarizing meeting notes and performing calculations. The “automating” approach allows you to create standard prompts that can be used across different projects and by other team members. It also frees up precious time for other activities that you can do better than AI like collaboration and intuitive problem solving.

At the assistance level, you can leverage GenAI to create a first draft of a cost-benefit analysis, perform a data analysis to be used on a scope change recommendation, or create scheduling plans, among many other examples.  However, the tool’s results cannot be considered complete without refinement, testing and complementary analysis, the report cautions, and the final version is likely to require moderate input from you or another experienced project professional to ensure it is complete and accurate.

The most complex level is augmentation, where you can enhance existing capabilities and develop new capabilities. This approach helps you perform more complex and strategic tasks specific to the organization or topic, such as creating outstanding business cases for projects, and supporting complex decision-making with many interdependencies and variables. 

“Ultimately, project professionals will still guide and perform most of the work, but they can leverage GenAI to gain insights and perform specific tasks using multiple interactions with the tool,” the report states.

Indeed, even as AI continues to rapidly advance and amaze us, it will still need a “human in the loop” — and that’s where you come in. But only if you’re eager and willing to learn about what AI can do — for your projects, your teams, and your project management career.

Shaping the Future of Project Management With AI is filled with insights and recommendations that you can apply right now, no matter where you are on your AI journey. Make your move!

How are you using AI on projects — and how’s it going?

We are developing a new series of short articles that will explore how organizations, teams and individuals are using AI in projects.

This “real-life” AI series will gather and explore the best practices, benefits, challenges and lessons learned that you have found on your AI journey to date. We’ll share these insights with the community here on ProjectManagement.com and on PMI.org. 

To help launch this exciting effort, we’ve created this Apply AI in Project Management form to gather some basic information from project professionals who can help us build a valuable resource of real-life examples and insights.

According to the 2023 PMI Annual Global Survey on Project Management, the top three ways project managers use AI are reporting (34%); decision support (33%); and communication (26%).

What about you and your teams and organizations? How are you using AI and what are you learning along the way? What have been the outcomes — and surprises?

We look forward to hearing your stories! Start here: Apply AI in Project Management form.