AI-Powered Solutions to Level Up Your Project Management
Since its early days till present, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been used to accomplish tasks of varying difficulty — from seemingly simple ones like booking an appointment with a hairdresser to more complex activities like detecting cancerous tumors with an accuracy equivalent to that of a medical expert.
Across its many use cases, improved productivity lies at the heart of AI. In fact, experts believe that by 2021, AI will be responsible for recovering 6.2 billion hours of staff productivity. This will generate a whopping $2.9 trillion in business value.
Like many other innovations, the AI revolution will disrupt multiple industries and sectors. And as far as productivity is concerned, AI will bring forth the new era of project management. It is not just another business strategy but leveraging AI in the workplace will become a competitive necessity in the years to come.
The beauty of AI advancements is that these positive ripple effects are adaptable into various industries and sectors. And one such area that could do with greater productivity and automation is project management (PM).
Implications of Artificial Intelligence in Project Management
Market and customer demands have become fast-paced and volatile. Modern PMPs and teams seize new opportunities by adopting agile project development frameworks. This way, they can innovate and deliver a minimum viable product (MVP) at speed while maintaining an edge over competitors.
So, how does AI play a part in PM exactly?
Combining project agility and AI-powered solutions enables project managers to process complex project data in seconds and uncover patterns that may affect project delivery. Part of the AI revolution is also to enhance automation, removing repetitive tasks from daily work.
By revolutionizing the way projects are managed via AI technology, organizations can reimagine the role of PMPs. They will no longer focus solely on monitoring project progress and deliverables. Instead, the new generation of project managers will instead be involved in strategic decision-making.
AI-Powered Project Management Solutions
So, let’s look at the most ground-breaking AI solutions that are augmenting different project activities for improved project quality and team productivity.
Right Project Information Dissemination
Information is king when it comes to project management. Just missing out on seemingly small information can result in expensive repercussions. But then again, information overload is equally bad too.
So, the key is to disseminate the right information to the right person at the right time. In the world of AI, chatbot is the solution.
Cortana, meet Alexa and Siri.
Perhaps one of the most popular commercially used forms of AI, chatbots serve as intelligent virtual assistants across many functions. These chatbots can understand questions and provide relevant answers, and they’ll only get better with more human inputs.
An example of a chatbot that can improve project information dissemination among team members is stratejos.
Integrated with Jira and Slack, this tool is designed to provide smart notifications and follow ups to users. From creating project tasks to watching the status of tasks on Slack, this tool can do it all effortlessly without even leaving the Slack workspace. This way, no one gets distracted by incessant notifications and switching between platforms.
In the future, stratejos will be able to analyze data and deliver strategic advice to PMPs. For example, the chatbot could scan through Slack messages, create and assign tasks to suitable team members based on their skills and expertise. Project managers would then be relieved of information processing duties and be able to divert their focus towards higher value activities.
Data-Based Project Risk Prediction
Every project is prone to risks. The best way to circumvent potential problems is by predicting them based on past events and notifying the team so that they can make intuitive yet data-backed decisions.
And that’s the basis of Aptage, a software that leverages AI to analyze project data (e.g. previous planned start and end date, backlog estimates, etc.) to predict the progress rate of teams and completion date of projects.
With its visualizations of confidence, teams can also visually see how “risky” their project can be. While Aptage doesn’t create contingency plans to contain project risks, it still directs teams towards the source of risks for appropriate corrective actions.
Accurate Resource Management
Solid resource management is the secret sauce for successful project management. Traditionally, PMPs rely on Gantt charts to manage resources efficiently for timely project delivery.
Nowadays, there are software that can automate resource management. However, they still require manual evaluation and adjustment to help project managers steer a project towards success while veering away from potential pitfalls.
But using predictive analysis and algorithms, AI-powered software like Clickup can manage resources efficiently, for instance, by matching team members’ skill sets with the most appropriate tasks. This Clickup’s beta feature can already predict the best team members for tasks accurately and assign them accordingly.
Reporting Made Easy
No doubt, managing projects does come with its fair share of reporting. In fact, PMPs can spend up to a day or more just to manually collate project reports from various parties and platforms. Surely, PMPs have other more valuable activities to do (e.g. mentoring) than just reporting?
But if you think that out-of-the-box or customized reporting is good enough of a solution, think again! Artificial intelligence-generated reporting integrated within a workplace communication channel is the better method for efficient reporting.
Workstream is the best example for AI-led reporting that allows users to instantly generate project reports right within Slack. Users only need to go to the channel where they want to generate the report from. Once they type “@workstreams report”, they’re able to view project progress report right from the channel.
The result? Accurate and efficient reporting with improved workflow and productivity among team members.
Conclusion
The solutions above don’t mean that AI will supplant PMPs and team members from their roles.
In fact, when letting intelligent machines do all the dirty work, project managers are free to focus on strategic decision-making activities.
Have you invested in AI-powered solutions for your projects and teams? Share with us in the comments!
