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?
James TannerVice President| TurningPointSilver Spring, Md, United States
I feel it can enhance the toolkit of the Project and Program Managers. Saving Changes...
Angel NunezAssistant Project Manager| Vaughn ConstructionAustin, TX, United States
The widespread adoption of prompt engineering will commoditize project management skills, but that will not come with a large cost to industry professionals and their careers. Think of it this way: computer-aided drafting replaced a common skill (hand drafting) for Architects and drafters. But they are still around! The computer-aided technology changed their career field, but the humans are still driving the work. Saving Changes...
I find that Prompt Engineering is highly useful for PM's in a number of ways. For those who find it challenging to formulate large amounts of data and information, for those who struggle with creating succinct instructions or presentations, and it helps to guide the thought process without losing appropriate content or salient points of interest. Saving Changes...
While there might still be risks of adopting prompt engineering, the PMs still have a wider scope to play a role in. I think with time we will know how to get better at it and manage it well Saving Changes...
Lisa Polito (Sargeant)Project Manager| Trillium Health Partners Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
May 27, 2024 10:31 AM
Replying to Omar Jabbar
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This trend raises important questions about the future of project management in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. Many people have wondered whether AI will replace project managers. It's clear that PMs need to adapt and learn how to use and leverage AI to stay relevant and effective in their roles.
Who would have imagined 20 years ago that vehicles would not need drivers? We may not be there yet, but we will be soon.
Totally agree. My father was a small business owner and his mantra was always you need to evolve with the times even if that means abandoning the "old way" of doing things if you want to survive as a business. I think this applies to PMing, adapt or be eliminated. AI is a great tool to eliminate menial tasks such as action item tracking time wasted building project plans and other types of standard documentation. I think it will bring greater value to PM's and allow us to become more valuable in overall enterprise-wide implementations and allow us to be more strategic overall instead of wasting time just tracking everything. Its just like healthcare, there are not enough doctors to go around, so what do you do? Offload the tasks that nurses are more than qualified to do, they in turn offload tasks to PSC's and so on. It allowed the doctors to be more focused on the complex tasks and take on more of them, gave the nurses more autonomy and broader skill base and overall reduced the costs of performing these tasks Saving Changes...
Anonymous
We are always afraid of major technological breakthroughs and worry about the negative impacts. AI will be yet another tool that we will someday not know how we lived without it. Getting on board now will help you remain relevant in your career. Saving Changes...
I think it’s about how effectively the tools are integrated into PMs skillset.
The adoption of Generative AI and prompt engineering can both commoditize and differentiate project management skills. It may commoditize routine tasks, but PMs who leverage these tools strategically to enhance decision-making, efficiency, and innovation can differentiate themselves and command higher value.
Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Adoption of prompt engineering will not only ensure PMs keep up to date with digital advances but will also help us to streamline our work. Saving Changes...
Ida JayaraniPresident/CEO| OASIS4ULacey, Wa, United States
GenAI and LLM are the results of human expert inputs and training algorithms. It is like parents teaching the child what/how to speak/learn, how to respond, how to be groomed professionally and thrive successfully. Prompt engineering is when the parents age, cannot keep up with the humongous data out there, and begin to ask the child for help!
Ultimately the "well trained", "monetized", "commoditized" child will rule and the parents will be sent home (probably a "nursing" home :))
The differentiation is that the parents made a BIG difference by selflessly imparting their intelligence into their 'artificial' child.
So, the answer to the original question (Will the widespread adoption of prompt engineering commoditize project management skills, or can it help PMs differentiate themselves and command higher value?) depends on how you look at commoditization, differentiation, and higher valuation. Saving Changes...
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