Are they bad or good in terms of job elimination and effects on project managers who has not yet lean into digital transformation?
Looking at an example of eliminating a telegrapher jobs back then but creating a web designer and IT jobs, another example of electronic greeting cards and emails reduced the use of sending greetings card and letters through post office. look at the demise of a typewriter.
What skills and knowledge should PM develop to safe guard future career in this fast technological development? Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
I am working with AI from 1986. I earn a master degree on AI. Unfortunately is a new buzzword. Most of the people that wrote about AI has no knowledge about what AI means. So, regarding that field, my recommendation is going to the basement. Returning to your point, there is nothing new below the sun about dealing with this type of things IF AND ONLY IF the project manager performs a mostly forgotten activity that must be done BEFORE she/he start working on an initiative: Elicitation. Elicitation is a process and the first step is "Prepare for Elicitation" where the project manager MUST take information about the Domain : terms, process, locations where the actors performs, key stakeholders, "pains" of key stakeholders. Tools to do that? PESTLE Analysis, Porter Five Forces, Zachman Framework, etc and source of information like the internet. Saving Changes...
Thanks Sergio, I really enjoyed your responses but I'm really wondering what they used to call artificial intelligence in 1986. I never heard of it or not many people talked about it back then.
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
Feb 18, 2018 6:10 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
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We are surrounded for AI devices (software and hardware) from that time. For example fuzzy logic. That is used into refrigerators and air conditioners from 1988. Fuzzy Logic is there from 1965. Or to evaluate a person for giving a bank credit or a credit card with an expert system. I did that in 1989. I can give you lot of examples. But returning to the point you do not need to be an subject matter expert to lead a project where you have to use AI. As into any other type of things. I always wrote about things I really know by academic work and practical work. I do that because I firmly believe that the use of buzzwords jeopardizes the work of all of us.
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Feb 18, 2018 5:55 AM
Replying to Riyadh Salih
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Thanks Sergio, I really enjoyed your responses but I'm really wondering what they used to call artificial intelligence in 1986. I never heard of it or not many people talked about it back then.
We are surrounded for AI devices (software and hardware) from that time. For example fuzzy logic. That is used into refrigerators and air conditioners from 1988. Fuzzy Logic is there from 1965. Or to evaluate a person for giving a bank credit or a credit card with an expert system. I did that in 1989. I can give you lot of examples. But returning to the point you do not need to be an subject matter expert to lead a project where you have to use AI. As into any other type of things. I always wrote about things I really know by academic work and practical work. I do that because I firmly believe that the use of buzzwords jeopardizes the work of all of us.
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1 reply by Riyadh Salih
Feb 18, 2018 8:25 PM
Riyadh Salih
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Thank you Sergio for your encouraging words, as you know I am not an IT guy but keep myself updated with many software. I did my engineering degree in Electrical.
The LISP programming language was published in the late 50s and was commonly used in AI applications. The distinction between the AI of then and now is thanks to Moore's Law and the Internet, we have been able to move from programmed and supervised AI to unsupervised AI (a.k.a. true machine learning).
AI and robotics will cause the same disruptions as industrial automation did. Jobs which can be automated with equivalent quality and reduced cost will be, but there will be new opportunities for those who are willing to be retrained.
I look at such advancements as a liberator rather than an oppressor - they free us up to focus on higher value work. Even as a PM, if AI takes over the mechanical work of building and maintaining schedules, budgets and so on, we have more time at our disposal to raise team performance, manage stakeholder expectations and so on.
Kiron
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1 reply by Riyadh Salih
Feb 18, 2018 8:34 PM
Riyadh Salih
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Thanks Kiron, at the time I did my engineering in Electrical we went through Fortran, cobol, C and C plus languages. I even remember in old days the PLC system came as plastic cards dotted and just inserted it in a designated slots to do certain functions, now we have a logic ladder and you do it in bits.
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Clemens BauerCEO| Think3 Consulting GmbHGraz, Austria
Sooner or later jobs will be replaced by AI or robots. But that always happend if you go back in history. This is simply based on creative destruction which was investigated by Schumpeter (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction). However, every (r)evolution in technology brought up new jobs. So I think PM's will change as well as other jobs change over time. Some new skills will be developed by people, others will not be necessary anymore. Based on this a big transformation had already begun. Most companies started moving towards into agile development and project management. They want to become lean and destructive. Both leads to a new fast and smooth way to try things and bring it to the customers.
Our work life will also change. A new concept (New Work - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Work) is coming up which will sooner or later also change the way we work.
So, don't worry keep on going and educate yourself with new skills which are necessary in a new world of working. Saving Changes...
Dan BaleanOperations Mgmt.| 2089956 Ontario Inc.Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
AI is totally alien to me, but I have experience with robotics and automation in the workplace, and they DO cut jobs, this is what they are meant to do. They DO create other jobs as someone mentioned above, but cost savings is their intended purpose. They require a higher capital investment though, but it is offset by savings in a couple years.
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1 reply by Riyadh Salih
Feb 18, 2018 8:53 PM
Riyadh Salih
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Thanks Dan for your feedback.
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Amany NuseibehSpeaker, Global Leader | Optimal ConsultingSydney, Nsw, Australia
Riyadh,
I agree with Sergio and Kiron. Briefly put, soft skills so far will not be replace by automated machinery, while hard skills that can be automated will. Hence, project management skills will lean further toward soft skills, ethical leadership, business acumen, strategic alignment and critical thinking.
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1 reply by Riyadh Salih
Feb 18, 2018 8:36 PM
Riyadh Salih
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Amany, totally agreed with all what said the human being remained is the strongest among all creatures and we who invented all those advanced technologies, surely the soft skills remain in tact as no robot can replace the feeling and emotion of the human side.
Are they killing jobs? Depends how you look at it. They are killing jobs traditionally performed by humans. Since they do those jobs more effectively, they could also be creating new jobs when the performance and cost benefit of using robots or AI out-ways using humans who come in second best.
Why not replace as many human jobs as possible? Perhaps one day each person can help maintain "their" robot, ensure it is operating at full efficiency, uploaded with the correct firmware/software etc. Robots can perform some jobs 10 or 100 times more efficiently than a human, and since they don't need to be paid a salary, just pay the human instead to maintain its robot.
Now wouldn't that be cool; humans maintaining the robot who perform their previous job, while the human still gets paid for it.
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1 reply by Riyadh Salih
Feb 18, 2018 8:48 PM
Riyadh Salih
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@Sante, heheheheh :) very lovely now I can see how we share same ideas.
We are surrounded for AI devices (software and hardware) from that time. For example fuzzy logic. That is used into refrigerators and air conditioners from 1988. Fuzzy Logic is there from 1965. Or to evaluate a person for giving a bank credit or a credit card with an expert system. I did that in 1989. I can give you lot of examples. But returning to the point you do not need to be an subject matter expert to lead a project where you have to use AI. As into any other type of things. I always wrote about things I really know by academic work and practical work. I do that because I firmly believe that the use of buzzwords jeopardizes the work of all of us.
Thank you Sergio for your encouraging words, as you know I am not an IT guy but keep myself updated with many software. I did my engineering degree in Electrical. Saving Changes...
The LISP programming language was published in the late 50s and was commonly used in AI applications. The distinction between the AI of then and now is thanks to Moore's Law and the Internet, we have been able to move from programmed and supervised AI to unsupervised AI (a.k.a. true machine learning).
AI and robotics will cause the same disruptions as industrial automation did. Jobs which can be automated with equivalent quality and reduced cost will be, but there will be new opportunities for those who are willing to be retrained.
I look at such advancements as a liberator rather than an oppressor - they free us up to focus on higher value work. Even as a PM, if AI takes over the mechanical work of building and maintaining schedules, budgets and so on, we have more time at our disposal to raise team performance, manage stakeholder expectations and so on.
Kiron
Thanks Kiron, at the time I did my engineering in Electrical we went through Fortran, cobol, C and C plus languages. I even remember in old days the PLC system came as plastic cards dotted and just inserted it in a designated slots to do certain functions, now we have a logic ladder and you do it in bits. Saving Changes...
