January 2025
U of T seminar: "A Practical Approach to AI in Project Management"
31/01/25 09:50
Just watched a recording of the subject seminar… 1,100 people signed up and there have been 200 recording views in the last week! Clearly lots of interest in this topic.
I won't recap the seminar but a few things did jump out at me: First, the idea that AI won't likely take your job, but not knowing how to use AI might cost you your job. I suspect this is true for now but all bets off going forward. It strikes me as foolhardy to think that AI will "never" be able to do this or that. The pace of change is simply fantastic at this point and the future, even the relatively near future, say three to five years, is unpredictable at best.
Secondly, PM practitioners are, mostly, using AI for simple tasks - freeing up time for more value added tasks that require human effort. Again, I suspect this is true and it supports point one - using AI will make you more effective and efficient and conversely make non AI users LESS effective and efficient. But, as AI capabilities continue to improve I think actual human project managers will need to focus increasingly on the interpersonal and communicative aspects of PM. AI's reach into PM will only increase over time and technical expertise will, I believe, decline in value… just like machines reduced the value of physical strength.
Finally, an interesting chat about prompting. Clearly writing effective prompts is a good thing but it was fascinating to hear about how the tone of our prompts will influence the tone of the response. Maybe we should all be saying please and thank you to our AI!
I won't recap the seminar but a few things did jump out at me: First, the idea that AI won't likely take your job, but not knowing how to use AI might cost you your job. I suspect this is true for now but all bets off going forward. It strikes me as foolhardy to think that AI will "never" be able to do this or that. The pace of change is simply fantastic at this point and the future, even the relatively near future, say three to five years, is unpredictable at best.
Secondly, PM practitioners are, mostly, using AI for simple tasks - freeing up time for more value added tasks that require human effort. Again, I suspect this is true and it supports point one - using AI will make you more effective and efficient and conversely make non AI users LESS effective and efficient. But, as AI capabilities continue to improve I think actual human project managers will need to focus increasingly on the interpersonal and communicative aspects of PM. AI's reach into PM will only increase over time and technical expertise will, I believe, decline in value… just like machines reduced the value of physical strength.
Finally, an interesting chat about prompting. Clearly writing effective prompts is a good thing but it was fascinating to hear about how the tone of our prompts will influence the tone of the response. Maybe we should all be saying please and thank you to our AI!
How does one keep up?
30/01/25 12:24
So, it's 12:25pm… I have received multiple emails today about Deepseek AI, about PMI's Infinity 2.0 - it's Infinity's first birthday - congratulations!, about linking AI models to my Moodle installation, and about agents… what are they and why are they? This is all fun and good but how does one keep up? I feel like I'm drinking from a firehose! So, I asked ChatGPT - it wasn't particularly helpful but it did agree with me that it's a challenge.
I think the solution is to keep an eye on the overall structure of change, not the specific details. For most of us, AI is a tool to be used in our work - it ISN'T our work. So, from a structural perspective, it's good to know the history of AI as that will provide a better idea as to where it's going… but, a 5,000 foot view is probably fine. We can let the developers figure out the details. We need to understand things like agents but again, from OUR perspective: how will they enhance our use of AI? Will they?
There's an old saying about forests and trees… it's applicable here I think.
I think the solution is to keep an eye on the overall structure of change, not the specific details. For most of us, AI is a tool to be used in our work - it ISN'T our work. So, from a structural perspective, it's good to know the history of AI as that will provide a better idea as to where it's going… but, a 5,000 foot view is probably fine. We can let the developers figure out the details. We need to understand things like agents but again, from OUR perspective: how will they enhance our use of AI? Will they?
There's an old saying about forests and trees… it's applicable here I think.