The Impact Of AI On Project Management

AI has transformed our everyday lives through spam filters, personal assistants such as Alexa, facial recognition in airports, and, in the future, driverless cars. It is also having an effect on our working lives, how we do business is ever-changing and now, with AI, this technological advancement is likely to start rapidly accelerating.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the world as we know it, one of the most exciting tech innovations to appear over the past few years. It is set to have an enormous impact on project management in the coming years. Keeping up to date with the ever-evolving industry is essential for any project manager.

It is a great time for those within the tech project management field to look into how developments in AI will take shape in the forthcoming years. In some cases, the future is already here. In 2018, jobs were created as part of a £6.9m investment into the world’s first AI-led project management software in Edinburgh.

Strategy and Planning

Tech project management provides both the means and the methodology behind strategic planning and, ultimately, change within businesses. The strategic and planning skills that the qualified tech project manager has cannot be replaced by AI, but once these plans are established, they will be able to become automated quickly.

AI is likely to take over standardised tasks which might once have been the responsibility of the project manager, such as, checking in on work, assessing the speed at which tasks are completed, flagging issues and even finding solutions to resolve them. AI will take the burden off project managers by automating repetitive tasks and subsequently, time spent on strategy, creativity and forward-planning is increased.

Automated Reporting

Reporting on completed or in-progress projects is one of the most tedious tasks that we have in our working week, whichever industry we’re in. Fortunately, the statistical nature of reporting means that it is easily automated and likely to be one of the first tasks that tech project management teams can utilise AI for. Other mundane tasks such as invoicing, resource allocation and scheduling will, like reporting, soon be given over to AI.

Increased Collaboration

The future looks bright, with AI taking over our most mundane project management tasks. Alongside this, there’s the ability that AI has to shape the way that teams work across multiple platforms; and the ability for this to lead to increased collaboration, openness and communication within teams, and increased productivity in general.

Communication platforms like Slack have transformed working environments for project managers. Strategy Execution named increased workflow efficiency and collaboration due to the use of shared platforms as one of its key projects trends for 2019.

It’s evident that the future of project management is positive, as long as we make sure we invest in effectively working with AI and being open to all the ways that it can improve our businesses.