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?
Michael TurnerSenior Project Manager| Bridgenext Jacksonville, Fl, United States
May 24, 2024 5:41 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
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With the new generation of generative AI portfolio/program/project manager and business analyst role "are dead" at least in the way they were originally defined. I think a good source to understand that are the two courses on generative AI delivered for free by the PMI, mainly if you see the 3 layer model.
I think that we will need to embrace the changes Gen AI will bring to our roles. Use common sense, caution and knowledge to learn and grow. These tools should provide efficiencies and potentially better output. As long as the foundation of what each of the roles is based on are utilized, our skills should be enhanced. This is the largest leap in the era of technology, and I think will prove to be more reason for the importance in our roles in the workforce.
I've been using prompt engineering for a while in projects, however I did not realize there were specific formats and strategies that helps streamline the response and involvementof AI. Saving Changes...
Yuichiro ItoIBM Japan, Ltd.Midori-Ku,Saitama-City, 11, Japan
The widespread adoption of prompt engineering is unlikely to commoditize project management skills on its own. Instead, it will shift the basis of differentiation among PMs—from execution mechanics to higher‑order judgment and leadership.
Prompt engineering adoption will facilitate PM to do routine activities in an agile way, improving and optimizing estructured operations that historically took a lot of time and effort, leaving more time to strategic thinking and old handed criteria developed by PM. In this context, PM will evolve to deliver more value to organizations, making them valuable themselves. Saving Changes...
I was curious what AI would have to say about this...so I asked Gemeni:
Hi Sarah and the PMI Community! I’m thrilled to be joining you all. As a Project Manager currently helping to build out a new AI course, this specific tension—commoditization versus differentiation—is something I’m navigating in real-time with my team. Here is my take on how GenAI is shifting the landscape for us: h31. The Risk: Commoditization of "The Basics"/h3There is no denying that GenAI commoditizes the administrative overhead of project management.
Drafting status reports, meeting minutes, and basic Gantt charts used to be "billable" indicators of a PM’s effort.
Now, these are "table stakes" that anyone with a well-crafted prompt can produce in seconds. If a PM relies solely on these outputs to prove their value, they will quickly find themselves replaceable by automation or lower-cost roles.
h32. The Opportunity: Differentiation Through High-Order Thinking/h3I believe prompt engineering acts as a force multiplier for the PMs who move beyond the "template." It allows us to differentiate ourselves in three key areas:
Strategic Synthesis: While GenAI can summarize a meeting, a skilled PM uses prompts to perform Gap Analysis or Risk Modeling that would have taken days of manual data crunching. The differentiation isn't in the prompting; it’s in the curation of the output to drive executive decisions.
The "Human" Margin: As the technical side of PMing becomes easier, the "soft" side (Stakeholder Empathy, Conflict Resolution, and Ethical Oversight) becomes our primary value proposition. We use AI to clear the "busy work" so we can spend 80% of our time on the human leadership that AI cannot replicate.
Prompting as Logic Design: Effective prompt engineering is actually just requirement gathering in a new language. PMs who master this demonstrate a level of structural thinking and technical literacy that commands a premium in a digital-first economy.
h3The Verdict/h3Prompt engineering will likely commoditize the junior-level tasks of project management, but it will simultaneously widen the gap between a "coordinator" and a "strategic lead." The PMs who use AI to handle the mechanics while they focus on the mission won't just stay relevant—they’ll become indispensable.
My actual thoughts - I think this will really depend on the individual. LLM's are a tool to be used effectively. When computers came out - many years ago - there was the fear that they would replace the workforce. There was some job loss, but overall, people were able to be more efficient. Similar to what many of my colleagues said, AI can help with many of the basic tasks but it will not replace the "people" portion of the role that is fundamental. It will still be up to the individual to set themselves apart. Saving Changes...
Tanmay VoraProject Manager| Majesco Ltd.Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
With the advent of Gen AI tools and methodologies to use the tools like Prompt Engineering, it will immensely equip the Project managers with toolset to do repetitive tasks, reporting for statuses and articulating of project health better and faster than erstwhile manual work. Efficiency gains in such areas will give more window of opportunity to explore other Strategic and tactical initiatives which a Project manager would not have got bandwidth to do, and this will help ultimately in the larger success of the project. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
The adoption of prompt engineering will give value in project management to those who have a good capacity to adapt in this caotic world.
Saving Changes...
Nehal ManekDirector Program Planning| Barnes and Noble Digital EducationEast Meadow, Ny, United States
While prompt engineering will certainly help the project managers improve efficiency and provide PM deliverables more effectively, my POV is the world would still need good project managers to run their projects on time and first time right as a machine would never be able to reproduce the EQ the PMs would have when managing teams and managing people. Project managers are more people managers than task managers. Project Managers also use their emotional intelligence to get things done along with other project management tools
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