32nd IPMA World Congress

Towards Hybrid Intelligence in Project Management

The project management industry is continuously facing challenges with rather low project success rates, although there has been a lot of effort over the years to advance project management practices, introducing and advancing various project management frameworks, methodologies, and best practices by various bodies and organizations. One root cause is cognitive and political biases which are impacting project decisions and often causing failures in project planning. In addition, project professionals are increasingly challenged by the ongoing and rapid growth of available information and data that is relevant for projects and informed decision-making.

In order to improve the quality of project management performance, a new and more intelligent approach to how projects are being managed and delivered needs to be elaborated and implemented.

Based on the mentioned key challenges in Project Management, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its capabilities to handle large amounts of data, learn from past project data, predict project outcomes based on identified data patterns, and to reduce the impact of human biases in decision-making, is a highly discussed technology for potential use in project management. AI is seen as a perfect opportunity to improve project management service quality and to address the existing shortcomings in project deliveries.

When reviewing the different areas of project management, properly applied AI in Project Management will be able to automate various project management activities, mainly in the areas of risk management, schedule management, scope management, and cost management, helping to achieve more realistic project planning, more efficient resource allocations, and to reduce the overall risk of project failure.

While AI will have a significant impact on project management and its performance, the human factor remains a critical element in project management as project managers still need to negotiate with stakeholders, provide leadership to project teams, resolve conflicts, etc., which are activities that cannot be taken over by machine intelligence. Accordingly, the future project management practice will be a collaboration between the human and the machine.

The Hybrid Intelligence approach is a dramatic change to an organization in terms of its project execution approach as well as its project culture and the general mindset. It requires an appropriate strategy and careful planning towards a suitable and tailored transformation roadmap, including the redesign of project management processes, frameworks, as well as the redefinition of existing project roles and responsibilities.