Category: Business

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Business General Posts The Future

How AI is Changing the Future of Project Management

Project management is a complex and dynamic field that requires a combination of skills, knowledge, tools, and techniques to achieve specific goals. Project managers face many challenges, such as managing multiple stakeholders, balancing competing demands, dealing with uncertainties, and delivering quality results within time and budget constraints.

However, project management is also undergoing a major transformation, thanks to the emergence and advancement of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making. AI can perform tasks that are usually done by humans, such as data analysis, pattern recognition, natural language processing, and image processing.

AI has the potential to revolutionize project management in many ways, bringing significant improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and innovation. In this blog post, we will explore some of the use cases and benefits of AI for project management, as well as some of the challenges and limitations that need to be addressed.

Use Cases of AI for Project Management

AI can be applied to various aspects of project management, such as planning, execution, monitoring, and control. Here are some examples of how AI can help project managers with their tasks:

Project Planning: AI can assist project managers with the creation of detailed schedules and comprehensive risk logs, based on historical data and best practices. AI can also predict outcomes, optimize resource allocation, and suggest alternatives for different scenarios1.

Project Execution: AI can automate certain tasks that are repetitive or tedious, such as maintaining registers and logs, preparing meeting agendas and minutes, sending reminders and notifications2. AI can also enhance communication and collaboration among project team members and stakeholders, using natural language processing and chatbots.

Project Monitoring and Control: AI can monitor project progress and performance in real-time, using data from various sources and sensors. AI can also provide timely feedback and alerts, identify issues and risks, and recommend corrective actions3. AI can also generate reports and dashboards that provide insights and visualizations for project managers and stakeholders.

Benefits of AI for Project Management

AI can bring many benefits for project management, such as:

Improved Quality: AI can reduce errors and improve accuracy in project planning and execution. AI can also ensure compliance with standards and regulations4.

Increased Efficiency: AI can save time and cost by automating tasks and optimizing processes. AI can also increase productivity and agility by enabling faster decision-making and adaptation4.

Enhanced Innovation: AI can foster creativity and innovation by providing new ideas and solutions for complex problems. AI can also enable continuous learning and improvement by capturing feedback and lessons learned4.

Challenges and Limitations of AI for Project Management

AI is not without its challenges and limitations for project management. Some of the issues that need to be considered are:

Data Quality: AI relies on large amounts of data to learn and perform tasks. However, data quality is often a challenge in project management, as data may be incomplete, inconsistent, or inaccurate. Therefore, data cleaning and validation are essential steps before applying AI to project management2.

Ethics and Trust: AI raises ethical and trust issues in project management, such as privacy, security, accountability, transparency, bias, and fairness. Therefore, ethical principles and guidelines are needed to ensure that AI is used responsibly and appropriately in project management2.

Human Factor: AI cannot replace human judgment and intuition in project management. Project managers still need to have the skills and experience to manage people, relationships, emotions, values, culture, ethics2. Therefore, human-AI collaboration is the key to achieving the best results in project management.

Conclusion

AI is changing the future of project management by providing new capabilities and opportunities for improving quality, efficiency, and innovation. However, AI also poses some challenges and limitations that need to be addressed with care. Project managers need to embrace AI as a powerful tool that can complement their skills and expertise but not substitute them. By doing so, they can leverage the full potential of AI for project management success.

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Business Comment Management

IP or commodity skill?

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IP or commodity skill?

One of the trends that started at the end of the 20th Century and gathered pace in the 21st is the move to outsource certain parts of IT in the business to low costs providers.

This seemed a great idea at first as you could reduce, or fix your costs, for the more commodity skills. These included the provisioning of machines and desktop support of operating systems.

This also took its place in running data centres where support for standard machines and OS’s was seen as an off the shelf skill.

As the pace to outsource gathered more and more tasks were deemed to be commodity skills and candidates to outsource. Resources with many years’ experience if the various tools and there usage in the organisation were let go and replaced by these type of deals.

This is where the problems started to arise. Many of the skills that were chosen appeared to be a commodity skill but management failed to realise that once you deviated from the standard usage of the product you were in fact moving into the realms of intellectual property.

Take for instance support for ERP systems like SAP or Oracle amongst others. These are deemed to be fairly standard applications that you can churn skills out of training camps in a standard manner and then get them supporting business.

However we all know this isn’t true it isn’t what they are using that is important it’s the how they are using it that really matters. Company A and B both may have inventory and financials but the chances are they use the same package in totally different ways and on top of that the chances are they have both modified the core system in different ways.

So the concept of being able to get resources at the turn of a tap becomes increasingly more difficult because they also need to have knowledge specific to the particular company they are working for.

One of the major trends currently in business is the concept of nurturing your talent and the fact that those business that develop their talent will be the winners in the future so decision makers need to be very certain that anything they consider for outsourcing in the future is a real “commodity skill” to avoid losing all their Intellectual property.

As we move more and more toward the future and the true knowledge economy of high skill; high paid employment the distinction between the two will be more important than ever.

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Business Management

Managers versus leaders

businessmen-152572_640Managers versus Leaders

One of the disturbing developments I have noticed in a career stretching over 30 years in length is the rise of the manager and the demise of the leader.

Back in the 90’s when everybody was talking about “the new economy” businesses removed layers within organisations and “empowered” people to get on with it and make decisions. This enabled businesses to make major productivity gains and with the advent of the Enterprise Resource Planning systems businesses became quicker and more efficient.

Being a project manager you role was to keep the team motived and drive the timelines whilst making it fun! We didn’t have mobile phones or emails it was down to energy and strength or personality and charisma that made things happen.

Then something happened. I don’t know what it was but suddenly there were managers everywhere. Process and people were managed. Countries were managed by their politicians there was more emphasis on measuring everything; KPI’s; Scorecards; targets all leading to people managing their processes and business in such a way as to meet the measures not what was good for the business.

I think this trend has led to the phenomenon where managers are being paid massive bonuses and have no risk associated with the remunerations. It has also led to a lot of the scandals we see in the banks and other organisations.

This trend has to stop. We need leaders to be back in the forefront of business and driving the growth that the economies need.

My gut feel is that the true leaders will make a resurgence in business. The tools available now in terms of social media and collaboration and the “sharing” economy means that the managers have nothing to hide behind anymore.
Hopefully this will lead to innovation and risk taking and not just managing what currently exists.

I for one believe that the leaders ate the most important management resources we need in the 21st century world of business.

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Business General Posts Management

It’s about Content not Process

business-people-working-together-istock_000017346252medium

My last time two articles had been about the different types of project managers that you find within organisations and the different focus they have on projects. The “battery pm’s” focus on the process around a project, the “free rangers” are more focused on the content of a project.

Both areas are key the success of a project but one will deliver a successful project, the other will produce a great set of governance documentation.

The content is the most important part of a project and in order to understand what is required to deliver the project you need to have an understanding of the content and the context. This is obtained by talking to your sponsors, peers and any others you identify that gave the business and business impact understanding.

The content is the most important part of a project and in order to understand what is required to deliver the project you need to have an understanding of the content and the context. This is obtained by talking to your sponsors, peers and any others you identify that gave the business and business impact understanding. If you don’t understand the content and the understanding you are really only undertaking an academic exercise.

A great technique for getting the business understanding is the use the “new boy “pretence and ask the “dumb question “ of those with the knowledge. Most people are willing to help you and bring you up to speed as they understand the greater good and what the project is trying to deliver.

I remember delivering a project on time and to budget that ended up delivering over £3 million above the benefits case, yet because I had not produced on time a couple of governance items the project was deemed a non-successful project from an IT department perspective but from the business/customer standpoint one of their most successful projects of the year.

In summary both process and content are important and should be given focus, but in order to deliver you should focus on the content first and then the process.

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Business Comment Management

To email or not email that is the question.

Email PhotoEmail Banned by Consulting Company

There was an interesting segment on the BBC breakfast show last week discussing the fact that the consulting company ATOS has decided to ban its staff from using internal emails by 2014.

Whilst I think this is a bit of an overreaction it does highlight the fact that the use of email has got completely out of control.

Being of a certain age and in the industry for too long than I care to remember I am amongst a small group of professionals, who project managed and implemented massive systems without the use of email.

We can still remember when collaborating meant everyone in a project sitting in the same room and speaking to each other.

Email Introduced.

When email came along it was a godsend to project teams and really helped in the communications process. It probably helped us become more efficient. We were the masters for the technology and used it and loved it.

However email has become abused over time and we have now become the slave to the emails. Because of this ATOS have made their decision.

Obviously we now live in a connected world and are using social media more and more this means there are a plethora of tools that we can now use to communicate, or the real topic of the moment, COLABORATE.

There are many Instant-messaging platforms that are now getting the acceptance in the corporate market and these are being rolled out and used.

Email or others – Collaboration is the key.

I feel there is a place for all these tools in the IT professionals tool box and they should be used appropriately. The decision from ATOS, in my opinion,  on banning mail is down to misuse of the technology not the technology itself.

With a little discipline in using the technologies the can be used to their full potential. I will follow up on with a separate article on how I manage email and communications to avoid the overload scenario.

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Business General Posts

If you are in IT you should celebrate today – 17th November 2011

Lyons Electronic OfficeLyons Electronic Office

Today is a day that you should celebrate if you are currently employed in the IT field. Be you a project or programme manager or an IT analyst,  it is exactly 60 years ago to the day that the world’s first business computer was turned on and processed its first data. The business that created this machine was a catering company that sold tea and ran teashops called Lyons. The machine was called LEO (Lyons Electronic Office).

In the 40’s and 50’s Lyons was renowned for technological innovation and always looking for efficiencies. On a trip to the USA in 1947 2 mangers returned from a trip to the USA and reported that electronic computer held the secret to efficiencies and that investing £100,000 in this endeavor and building their own  could realize savings of £50,000 a year. They were granted the funds and the project went ahead. Work formally started in early 1949.

Over the next couple of years the project moved forward in building their own machine employing many difference skills and technologies that we would find really amusing by todays standards.

LEO First Operation

If was on 17th November 1951 that the first operation run was initiated to calculate the costs of Lyons’ weekly bakery distribution run. This task had previously been carried manually by accounts clerks. Initially the machine was unreliable but over the following weeks improvements were made and within 2 years LEO was trusted enough to run the Lyons Payroll.

The team that developed LEO were eventually spun off into a separate business that built machines for other business and was eventually nationalized by Harold Wilsons government in the 1960’s.

So there we have it from a British Catering company in the 1950’s we now have an IT industry worth trillions of pounds globally and employing millions of people. If it wasn’t for Lyons Electronic office where would we be today.

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Business Management

Humour – A great Leadership Tool.

Team LaughingHumour – A Great Leadership Tool

When leading a project or programme I believe that one of the most valuable tools that the leader has is humour.

Humour can be used to foster team spirit, to relieve tension and for motivation. A lot of people can take themselves very seriously and this can have a detrimental effect on the team.

I am not saying don’t take what you are doing seriously, you should, but don’t take yourself too seriously.

Humour – The Carry On Moment

If you are at a particularly stressful stage in the life-cycle injecting what I can a “Carry-On Moment” can remove the stress and reinvigorate the team.

Meetings can be particularly tedious and an injection of humour can raise the spirits and refocus the participants.

It’s amazing how, in this connected and global world, humour crosses borders and cultures and has the same affect wherever you are. But be careful that you don’t make assumptions that things that are non-offensive where you come from are OK everywhere.

Humour – Careful How You Use It.

However you need to use the tool carefully. Don’t use it to belittle others or belittle the task at hand. Don’t use it to undermine others or other teams. Always use it in a positive and appropriate manner. Use it in an appropriate and none offensive manner.

In conclusion injecting a bit of humour can really brighten an endeavor and put a spring in people’s steps.

If you need a starter here is a joke that may help that was voted the best joke at the 2011 Edinburgh festival.

“I was asked for an eight character password so I gave snow white and the seven dwarfs”