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?
Melinda BrownProcess Improvement Project Manager| Seeking new opportunitiesCanton, Ga, United States
AI will automate and drastically speed up a lot of traditional PM work. However a PM who deeply understands an industry (healthcare, fintech, construction, etc.) has the value of guiding effective AI outputs into something actually usable.
The adoption of precise and insightful prompt engineering will add value in project management, and differentiate it from current project management decision making techniques, as currently PMs make decisions based on their intellect, knowledge and experience. Now adopting a decision making ability of AI for a specified problem, will definitely provide a well informed, and well analyzed decision. Also AI will help in reducing time consumed in less value repetitive tasks. I certainly see value addition through AI project management. Saving Changes...
Khalid Al-SametProject Management| Relief and Development Peer FoundationSana'a City, SN, Yemen
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.
Agree Saving Changes...
PRADEEP PURIProject Manager| Hexaware TechnologiesMumbai, India
As Project Managers, there are many use cases where AI prompts can support and add value to our work. However, in real-world scenarios, every project is unique in terms of execution style, processes, and handling. No AI prompt can fully predict outcomes for all situations. That said, using well‑defined, customized, and scenario‑based prompts with detailed context can certainly help to an extent.
Ultimately, most of us use AI-generated insights as a starting point—reviewing, refining, and reshaping the output to suit specific project requirements. At the same time, it is extremely important to remain mindful that confidentiality, compliance, and security standards must never be compromised while leveraging AI tools.
This is a very interesting point Sarah, as per my opinion, its very challenging for the project managers now a days. If they use Gen AI without much efforts it will lead them to wrong analysis and failure, but if they ignore and use there experience alone then they will be left out from market. So I believe that the combo of your vast experience plus smart use of Gen AI will end up in best results, satisfying the current trends and needs of market.
Saving Changes...
Jason GlocknerPrinciple Project Manager| UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of OBGYNLos Angeles, Ca, United States
I am new to using AI in PM work, I was recently tasked with learning about AI, and how my team can use it to build projects, and how we can incorporate AI into other offices that we support. What I learned after using AI prompts to draft my first business case, is the we are a long way from AI taking the humans out of PM.
After reviewing the business case, there were errors in the product that was developed, and the language was too complex for a few of the stakeholders to understand. I took the information that was provided and re-wrote it based on my experience with working with the stakeholders. I sent both versions to the stakeholders and as I predicted the AI generated report confused the stakeholders, while the rewritten version was clear and concise for the audience.
It was also clear that AI can help generate reports, data, provide suggestions on how to execute the project, we still need the humans to execute the projects. Saving Changes...
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.
Agreed. AI is not infallible, and certain checks from actual humans are needed to verify its accuracy. Also, leadership skills are inherently human, and the coordination and communication from an actual human is needed for effective project management. AI should enhance PM skills, not replace them.
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.
Agreed. AI is not infallible, and certain checks from actual humans are needed to verify its accuracy. Also, leadership skills are inherently human, and the coordination and communication from an actual human is needed for effective project management. AI should enhance PM skills, not replace them. Saving Changes...
A project manager who uses AI can really stand out because they get time-efficient, effort-saving, and comprehensive assistance for large and multiple files. This, of course, contributes to his excellence and leadership
Adoption of prompt engineering shall make a PM more effective and efficient, subject to the handling of input data appropriately. In case of breach in data handling esp. in terms of confidential and proprietary information's, ethical and compliance failures can bring chaos to self and the organization. Saving Changes...
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