How is AI Going to Impact the Role and Responsibilities of Project Managers? Transcript

Idris Manley:

Welcome to Future of Work 2.0. I'm your co-host Idris Manley.

Ross Martin:

And I'm Ross Martin. One of the questions that we get a lot from our viewers is, how is AI going to impact my career? And so we've got a treat for you today. That is the topic. The topic is, how is artificial intelligence going to impact the role and responsibilities of project managers? So Idris, what's the big thing here? How is AI going to impact project management professionals?

Idris Manley:

The project management career is going to go away, cease to exist as we know it.

Ross Martin:

Oh my God, the world is falling.

Idris Manley:

No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. No, it's not. It's not. It's not. No, no, no. But it will change. It will change. There is a place for us. But yeah, it definitely will will change. I think, you know, certainly it's one of the it definitely is the most, if not one of the most common questions I get regularly over email and talking, speaking to people is the anxiety and fear that they have around how AI is going to impact their career. And there are a lot of people that are really stressed about this concept. So I think it's really good that we're taking some time to really discuss it and to really share our thoughts on where the industry is headed.

Ross Martin:

So is it something to be fearful of or is it an opportunity? Both.

Idris Manley:

I think it's something to definitely have a healthy respect for. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. You should have a healthy respect for the impact that AI will have on your career. But it isn't something to fear because I think it's important to view AI in the context of project management as really an assistant, as a trusted assistant, right? Someone who will be able to help you by doing some of the more mundane tasks And those tasks would be whether it's planning or scheduling a project plan, or taking meeting notes, or scheduling meetings, even doing some level of risk management and some of these other things as well. But it really will be able to do a lot of these more repetitive tasks. that are consuming 80% or more of your time a week, it'll be able to do those things pretty effortlessly. And so it really will provide project managers an opportunity to begin to focus on other types of activities that perhaps either they didn't have the time to focus on or weren't necessarily in their mind maybe the highest priority when they were focused on tasks and getting deliverables done. It'll really give them a chance to focus on those higher order sort of activities.

Ross Martin:

And often those types of activities are handled as an entry-level position called a project coordinator, at least in some companies, right? Sure. And so I think that particular role is going to get automated, mostly. all the project management 101, the basic stuff you learn, and that some people who don't understand the value that project and program management can provide to a company think that, or have only encountered people who take meeting notes and schedule meetings and create project plans and that sort of thing. So yeah, I think that that's gonna that's going to get automated by AI. But like you said, it's going to create a capacity situation for project managers, as those things get handled by your new AI assistant. Absolutely.

Idris Manley:

And I think it's a good thing. I think just to touch on an earlier point you made, I think, you know, you know, we both have been in the industry for longer than I would like to say, but, you know, certainly, you know, I've been in industry for more than 25 years. Yeah, same with you. And one of the things that we can say as PMO leaders is that the executives have oftentimes viewed PMO and project managers as really more of a marginalized sort of function that they can replace or minimize. With AI, it really provides project managers an opportunity with that extra capacity to begin adding much more strategic value in ways that we haven't historically, which will allow executives to begin viewing project management in an entirely new light. If we get this right, you can really begin to provide insights and information in a way that is highly valuable and useful to the business goals of the company and to the strategic discussions that they're having or considerations that they need to have in order to make sure they're making the right strategic decisions that will ultimately impact the business.

Ross Martin:

Well, and that makes me think about what we've learned as we move through our careers as project managers and then in the director and senior director levels and then eventually up into VP, head of PMO, those types of levels, is That's the kind of thing that we had to do to move our careers forward. You have to have the leaders of the company have to start seeing you as thinking strategically and providing more value than the basic project management. You know, chasing down tasks and deliverables, that sort of thing.

Idris Manley:

And project managers, they really struggle in that area. You know, I haven't had a chance to do it yet, but I have an action item to really quantify the ratio of senior level project management positions, like say, senior director, VP, head of PMO, relative to all of the other project management positions, senior project manager, project manager level one, two, three, et cetera, and compare that to engineering, marketing, Product management to understand the ratios. And I would, and I, my, my thesis is that the ratio between executive level, project management positions or senior leader, project management positions to other project managed positions is much, uh, is, is much less than in other functions. Meaning, you know, there are far more VP of engineering or VP of product management positions than there are, you know, relative to the project management function. And I think there's a reason for that. And I think the reason is what you highlighted earlier, which is because we don't tend to be viewed as really strategic players. They don't necessarily see a need to have an executive-level, senior-level role defined for many companies.

Ross Martin:

Actually have an anecdote on that which which you made me think of at at a big tech Silicon Valley company that I worked at one of my friends was a senior director of project management and she was trying to get promoted to VP and what her SVP did is he moved her into a product role So she could get promoted to VP because the company did not see VP of project management as a thing as a thing Yeah, it wasn't even an option and if she was ever gonna move up in her career she had to switch lanes yeah, yeah, and I can't tell you the number of project managers over the years that actually moved out of

Idris Manley:

of, you know, project management in order to continue moving up in their career, because they felt that they had really hit a ceiling in project management. So they moved into operations, or they moved into product management, or they moved into other adjacent functional disciplines in order to continue growing in their career.

Ross Martin:

Yeah, absolutely. So what's interesting is, is we're talking a little bit about sort of the opportunities and what needs to happen to grow your career. Let's talk a little bit about if someone chooses not to go that route. No, you know, because, because, you know, Some of that might be scary, especially if you've never felt like you really completely understand strategy or any of that stuff And you're really what you're really good at is you're really good at getting people to get their stuff done To hit their deliverable dates. You're really good at organizing people and chasing and taking meeting notes and all that kind of stuff and What are those people have to fear

Idris Manley:

Yeah, no, I think fear may be an appropriate word in this particular instance, right? I think that when we look at AI, we can look at it from an opportunistic sort of lens. It presents a tremendous opportunity for PMs to up-level their careers and to really redefine their careers in entirely new ways as leaders and strategic thinkers in companies. But there is also the sort of the opposite end of that, which is it also It also will create competition for certain PMs based on what they value or what they have decided to specialize in in terms of their value contribution. And so if your value contribution as a project manager is really on those sort of repetitive tasks that, you know, we said more the more mundane tasks that are relatively simple in the in this sort of the portfolio of activities that a project manager can perform, again, those are gonna be the skills and the activities are gonna be replaced initially by your AI assistant. And then, so then the question becomes, okay, as a project manager, what are you left to do? If your assistant is actually planning your project, evaluating risks for you, actually taking meeting notes and sending meeting notes out and tracking and monitoring and controlling, your project, what is left for you?

Ross Martin:

I suppose a little bit of oversight. That's maybe not worth a full-time role.

Idris Manley:

Not a full-time role, absolutely. So perhaps as a company, they may decide to have half the number of project managers that are responsible for project coordination. So that person is taking on more responsibility in terms of more projects because they're you know Their AI assistant is able to do you know a good portion of the task that they were that they have to perform So in that instance, then the question becomes, you know, who are they going to select if a company is left to To reduce, you know the project managers that they have on staff who would they select versus not and more than likely the person it is able to offer more value to offer a

Ross Martin:

More insight more strategic capability other than just providing oversight They're probably gonna be in better position to keep their jobs or to continue to excel And I think of people like I'm thinking of of another woman that I worked with at at my previous company where I could you can tell like she had she had the the desire and the drive to move her career forward but felt stuck and And I think one of the reasons she felt stuck is she was an IT program manager and she couldn't get past the mundane, the volume of stuff she had to track. Was keeping what made it so it was very hard for her to be strategic even though she wanted to be so for people like that I think this is nothing but opportunity. Yeah, you know now you have the opportunity She's gonna have the ability to have her AI assistant take care of all that stuff free her up to become more strategic and to provide more value and drive her career forward. And I think they're going to really love this. Yeah, no, I agree.

Idris Manley:

I think it's definitely a mindset sort of pivot. You know, over the course of my career, when I think about the various project managers I've managed, I would say that a good portion of them are sort of, as you described, where they really are opportunistic, they really want to be able to thrive and excel and really take on leadership sort of roles. But then there have been a fair share of project managers that they really find value in the mundane. They, for whatever reason, it's comfortable. It's a very comfortable space to take meeting notes and send out, take, you know, send out status reports is like, is their thing. And they really get a lot of enjoyment and pleasure out of performing those kinds of activities. Now, you know, for some of them, they just, you know, again, because it's a mindset, they just maybe haven't had the opportunity to challenge themselves in other areas or to really explore sort of other ways to add value. But for others, they're very content. And so I think for individuals that are particularly content, With that being their unique value proposition, I think those are going to be individuals that are going to have a bit more of a struggle. But again, having said that, you can still pick the pivot. There's plenty of time to be able to still sort of evolve and to shift the mindset and to be able to begin seeing value and opportunity in some of these higher value sort of contribution and more strategic contributions that I think will be critical for your success.

Ross Martin:

Yeah, I was about to say like, you know, your boss and your company aren't yet making lists of who to keep when they cut their PMOs into half. But then I paused for just a second when I thought about some of the recent layoffs that just happened with some of our biggest names, tech names in Silicon Valley and up in Seattle. And some of what they're saying in this case, now this was not about project management, but in these cases it was about they wanted to shed some cost in order to reinvest in AI, but in this case building their generative AI capabilities. What that says to me, though, is maybe it isn't yet time for companies to start deciding what to do with their PMOs because AI isn't quite ready to take all this project coordinator thing, all the tasks away. But they're going to be thinking about these things in the context of AI with all their areas pretty soon. When people are making decisions about cost-cutting in any company, in any scenario, you always want to be the one who they say, oh, we can't live without that person.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, and the way that that happens is by offering greater value than your peers. Exactly. And the way that you do that is by being more strategic, thinking about business outcomes, understanding concepts around value delivery management, agility, et cetera.

Ross Martin:

Exactly, exactly. And then you become someone who is really helping drive your company towards being a delivery machine. Absolutely, absolutely.

Idris Manley:

But it is a different mindset. And so it is important to, to really establish a clear vision for yourself. And you know, and for your career to really start to reimagine what your career would look like with AI and how you could perhaps add, you know, greater value than than previous with the additional capacity. I think it's important to be able to then establish a strategy that aligns with that vision. So how are you going to strategically approach achieving that vision that you have in mind? And then establishing a plan, which I would expect every project manager to know how to do very effectively. But then you establish a plan where you really start to lay out over what time frame, what are the key milestones, what am I trying to accomplish? There may be a need to learn new skill sets, play around with certain tools, but really put that into a project plan so you can really hold yourself accountable for how you're going to progress. to achieving that strategy and then ultimately think about how you measure it. How do you truly hold yourself accountable? How do you essentially ensure that you're going to be successful in your execution?