Will the widespread adoption of prompt engineering commoditize project management skills, or can it help PMs differentiate themselves and command higher value?
Director, Learning Design & Development| PMIAsheville, NC, United States
Hi PMI Community! I’m Sarah Philbrick, and I work as a Product Manager at PMI with a focus on our learning offerings. As we go on this skill-building journey together, I’m excited to engage in meaningful conversations, explore trending topics, and learn from each other.
Reflecting on one such topic, GenAI and prompt engineering, I am interested to hear your perspective on commoditization vs. differentiation.
Will the widespread adoption of prompt engineering commoditize project management skills, or can it help PMs differentiate themselves and command higher value?
Yes,
strongly feel that prompt engineering can commoditize parts of project management that require accuracy and repetition, and especially accuracy in their repetition for efficiency purposes Saving Changes...
I think project managers who have an English major background, or anyone who speaks and writes clearly and grammatically, will have a leg up in creating effective AI prompts.
Those who are non-native English speakers may have more difficulty in engineering AI prompts.
The concept of creating AI prompts as "word coding" is appealing to me. Saving Changes...
!--StartFragment --In my opinion, the widespread adoption of prompt engineering will enhance project managers’ ability to gain a broader vision of all the different stages and tasks they may face. This will give them better control over their objectives, the challenges they will need to overcome, and will help them anticipate and safeguard their projects in times of uncertainty. With tools for monitoring and feasibility assessment, the project manager will be able to make decisions calmly, confident that they are on the right path!--EndFragment -- Saving Changes...
Anonymous
!--StartFragment --In my opinion, the widespread adoption of prompt engineering will enhance project managers’ ability to gain a broader vision of all the different stages and tasks they may face. This will give them better control over their objectives, the challenges they will need to overcome, and will help them anticipate and safeguard their projects in times of uncertainty. With tools for monitoring and feasibility assessment, the project manager will be able to make decisions calmly, confident that they are on the right path!--EndFragment -- Saving Changes...
I think Project Managers will always be differentiated in the industry by skills, years of experience etc. However, with the introduction of prompt engineering or AI, Project Managers are likely to come at a higher demand because with AI, they can now work faster and be efficient; creativity will increase, after all, no one wants to create prompts that do nothing (to keep simple, you give AI garbage, you get garbage). When PMs create or write quality prompts, the LLM will produce quality output. There is no getting rid of PMs anytime soon. Saving Changes...
Omar Usman UppalDirector Quality, Reliability and Documentation| PLC GroupEspoo, Finland
Tools whether LLM based or not are as good as the user who can take benefit out of it. These tools may help Project Management community in certain areas like creating project charter, performing risk analysis and other such tasks. However these tools cannot get the work done. For example, these tools will not do the telecom rollout for you. They cannot improve your customer relationship management. There are areas where human to human interaction is required and it will always be required. Saving Changes...
Prompt engineering and GenAI can both commoditize and differentiate project management, depending on how PMs respond.
Routine tasks like drafting plans, tracking actions, or generating reports can be automated, potentially reducing the value of traditional PM skills.
However, PMs who embrace GenAI to drive insights, enable faster decision-making, and focus on strategic leadership will stand out as high-value professionals.
In short: GenAI won’t replace PMs, but PMs who use GenAI will replace those who don’t. Prompt engineering, when used well, is a tool for differentiation—not dilution.
Prompt engineering finds its merits in the novelty of GenAI and the interim gap we find ourselves in, in which full-blown NLP-based instructions lack (for at least now) the structural instruction-set qualities provided by prompts.
Even now, “prompt engineering” is largely circumvented through GenAI’s evolved features that have realized native “prompt refinement” capabilities and through “prompt wizards and assistants” that provide the tooling one needs to get desired outputs.
Unfortunately, the hyperbole surrounding GenAI has created a unique and concerning economy whose currency finds its primary basis in fascination.
I recognize this is a strong statement, but I caution any professional from using a rapidly evolving, relatively immature, destination-unknown, and ethically unresolved “tool” as a personal key differentiator in the marketplace—a minority opinion.
George
I believe in failing fast and failing forward, it's all a learning phase. When previous technologies before Ai came, they were all received with fear and skepticism, this is normal and natural. I believe we can gradually adopt these Ai technologies with an approach of gradual integration and implementation. The role of the human intrinsic knowledge can never be ruled out in projects which will play key roles in the use of Ai. Saving Changes...
Marti DerowProduct Services Manager| Hewlett Packard EnterpriseFort Myers, Fl, United States
May 24, 2024 7:55 AM
Replying to Md. Golam Rob Talukdar
...
While prompt engineering may streamline certain aspects of project management, skilled project managers who combine technical knowledge, soft skills, and strategic thinking could be continue to command higher value.
Agree, AI will enable differentiation amongst project managers but not obsolescence. AI enables project managers to spend more time working on the deliverables that add the most value versus the administrative work like note taking and reporting. Saving Changes...
Natalie KaletaProject Manager| Morgan StanleyToronto, ONTARIO, Canada
To an extent, I think prompt engineering could commoditize project management but on the most basic level. I see prompt engineer as an opportunity for PMs to further evolve in their expertise to deliver a unique and human element to managing projects. Not everyone is equipped to understand how to effectively use prompt engineering so I think previous project management experience and further exploration and education for project managers will be imperative to ensure project management remains a high valued service. Saving Changes...
PMI Team Member
