Project management: openings for disruption from AI and advanced analytics

Purpose The purpose of this essay is to illustrate how project management pull and AI or analytics technology push are likely to result in incremental and disruptive evolution of project management capabilities and practices. Design/methodology/approach This paper is written as a critical essay reflecting the experience and reflections of the author with many ideas drawn from and extending selected items from project management, artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics literatures. Findings Neither AI nor sophisticated analytics is likely to elicit hands on attention from project managers, other than those producing AI or analytics-based artifacts or using these tools to create their products and services. However, through the conduit of packaged software support for project management, new tools and approaches can be expected to more effectively support current activities, to streamline or eliminate activities that can be automated, to extend current capabilities with the availability of increased data, computing capacity and mathematically based algorithms and to suggest ways to reconceive how projects are done and whether they are needed. Research limitations/implications This essay includes projections of possible, some likely and some unlikely, events and states that have not yet occurred. Although the hope and purpose are to alert readers to the possibilities of what may occur as logical extensions of current states, it is improbable that all such projections will come to pass at all or in the way described. Nonetheless, consideration of the future ranging from current trends, the interplay among intersecting trends and scenarios of future states can sharpen awareness of the effects of current choices regarding actions, decisions and plans improving the probability that the authors can move toward desired rather than undesired future states. Practical implications Project managers not involved personally with creating AI or analytics products can avoid mastering detailed skill sets in AI and analytics, but should scan for new software features and affordances that they can use enable new levels of productivity, net benefit creation and ability to sleep well at night. Originality/value This essay brings together AI, analytics and project management to imagine and anticipate possible directions for the evolution of the project management domain.

Automated summary

The essay discusses how the combination of project management pull and AI or analytics technology push can lead to incremental and disruptive changes in project management capabilities and practices. It emphasizes that while AI and analytics may not directly impact project managers, new tools and approaches supported by packaged software can enhance productivity and efficiency in project management. The author also highlights the importance of staying alert for new software features and affordances to improve overall project outcomes.