PMI South Africa Chapter Summit 2022: AI and the Future of Project Management Practices

Driving behavioural and cultural change to boost AI-Powered Project Delivery Practices

In the era of big data and an ever-increasing flow of information, the use of analytics is now widespread across industries, with data analytics mainly used to help enterprises make better decisions.

With project managers required to make critical project decisions on a daily basis, while projects in most cases remain falling short to deliver on their promises, a data-driven approach to project management is needed more than ever – the previously untapped capabilities of Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence need to be leveraged to ensure that relevant project information is captured, towards more precise project forecasts and predictions and ultimately sound, informed and timely decision-making.

With many organizations and project professionals keen to initiate the journey to an evidence-driven and AI-powered project management practice, the primary focus is often on technology concepts, available tools, and techniques to collect and process data, and feed relevant information and insights into decision-making processes for improved decision outcomes and therefore more accurate project planning practices.

But what often is forgotten for such significant change is the impact of the cultural aspect and the need for people to change their behaviors, reflect on their current practices, and adopt a new evidence-based mindset. Data-driven and AI-based practices have to be fuelled with data and information for which the very same people that will consume the resulting insights, are the main provider. It therefore requires a new mindset in terms of authenticity, transparency, and accountability, to ensure genuine and accurate insights would get produced, providing real value and impact in projects.

Consequently, despite the major impact from technology and data, the key driver and factor for a successful implementation of data-driven practice is a supporting project culture which needs to be formed through the required behaviors of project leaders, stakeholders, and decision makers.

This session will provide an overview of how data analytics and disruptive technology like AI will impact project planning and delivery practices, how project management professionals need to adjust their behaviors and mindset to support the effectiveness of evidence-based project management, and which actions project leaders can take to initiate such change.