The Future of AI in Project Management: Interview with Pierre Le Manh, CEO of Project Management Institute (PMI) [AI Today Podcast]
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The A I today podcast, powered by P, M, I, cuts through the hype and noise to identify what is really happening now in the world of artificial intelligence. Learn about emerging A I trans best practices and use cases on making A I work for you today with P, M, I, host and expert. get. Hello and welcome to the air today podcast. I'm your host, kathleen and mulch.

and i'm your host run smells or and well, you might have heard from the introduction to that. As you may know, if you've been following A I today for all these years and following cogitate, we are now part of the project institute. That announcement came out a little while ago.

For those who are still catching up on our feeds in our region, might be thrilled to hear about that in bet part because you know that the whole history of what we've been doing here at A I today is thinking about how people are making A I work for them today across all the various industries, across all the various geography in the world. Private sector, public sector. We've got a lot of government listeners here as well, and we know that the technology part may be whatever gets the news.

Technology loves to talk about IT. And in many ways, technologies usually the easier apart of making things work. But we know it's the people in the process that are always the hardest parts to make work.

People are hard to change. Processes are hard to change. And when we're introducing A I into the way people and processes behave, that's where things usually get very complicated. And for those who who are new to our podcast listing to our podcast, you should hear some of our A I failure series, are A I U K series, are trust for the A I series.

Our interviews with A I experts and industries such as farming, manufacturing and government and agriculture and wealth construction and so many other industries, and they're all think of how of the same stories. It's kind of interesting how consistent the message is now that generate A I, of course, is grabbed the world by storm and is really democratized to the use of A I, put A I to the hands of more people. We're seeing A I used in many, many or places which at the same time provides many opportunities, but at the other times presents many chAllenges and risks. So as we get into IT, we like to spend more time talking to folks who are really thinking this through people who are putting together strategies, especially for those who are focused on the industry of project professionals and helping project professionals succeed, not only with projects thinking, projects successful, but also in their lives and careers and in supporting the missions of their organizations.

Exactly as one mentioned, that now that we are a part of P. M, I were so honored and excited to have with us today pr. Laon, who is president, and C.

E. O of the project management institute. P. M. I. So welcome here and thank so much for joining us.

Good morning, casina run, and thanks for .

having me here. We're so excited for this conversation and really how you know what you've required a cognisant a can move forward to P M. I. So we'd like to start for folks that who listen to our podcast, you may not know about you, we d like you to start by introducing yourselves and tell us a little bit about your background and now your current role.

You know, the identity question is always the most complex for each of us. And in in my case, i'm ready of a world citizen. I I have a by cultural background.

My father came from yet to study in france. He, he is steady, be met with my mom is the hit my mommy s friend. So I I group in friends that I lived in a number of countries in canada, really in in the U.

K. And my current home is in new york. I lived in new york for twelve years now. I after I studied business in france, I studied my career at accenture. So I was a consulting for a wide, mostly deep around technology transformation.

And then I moved on to in various rules and and I had the opportunity to become the sea of a publishing company. Very, my career I was is only thirty one. So I study down.

I learned the ropes of being a seo by just doing the job at the time. Manage ging, a profound digital transformation. As you know, the publishing industry, which has been affected by digitalization for many, many years and decades even now.

So I started that way. And then I two on responsive I E S, which were increasingly global initially in europe and beyond, always in the knowledge economy and always to an extent affected by digital disruptions. I joined PMI in september twenty twenty two, so it's been little over two years, first old, because I thought I could help the organize at this stage of its development.

And we were founded in one thousand nine hundred and sixty nine. We grew by phases. And when I met with the board, IT was very clear to me that we were at this stage of managing the globalization of P.

M. I, even if already two thirds of the P. M.

I activities outside of the U. S. But see a culturally from an organisation and point globalizing. Pm, I would still work in progress. So I thought I could help with that.

And I also felt I could, at least I was very excited with this opportunity to really help people who stand behind delivering projects. And I as A C E. O myself, i've seen projects as what we do all the time when we want to transform an organism. And you know, Frankly, the agenda of most CEO is about transforming more than just managing the day today. So for me, anyone who's involved in delivering projects that are critical for transformation is quite important, right? And I felt I could help the people doing that, help them get recognized, help them understand what the needs of sea sweets are and and how they could be a little Better at doing their job.

Well, that's that's quite a lot of interesting common things here. As mentioned. It's interesting how when we interview different people, we hear a lot of the same things.

You might think, well, way a second, the bite cultural thing that's that's new, indifferent. But actually that comes up quite a bit. Some of our listeners might know, like even myself, my mom is for margenau, my dad is romania.

A very interesting cultural mix, empanadas and boris's out. And anyone explain that? But more specifically, of course, a lot of our relations will know about the issues of spending between business and IT.

That's the obvious ly entered organization, cultural mixes, right? When A I was just really starting to become part of the the the daily from natur. Of course, we had to deal with data sign.

Tis the machine learning engineers, a lot of which you came out of academia was a very interesting mixed of people who are used to doing things in P. H. D. Now, of course, we see the outputs of that when we have these large language models built by P, H D, fresh out of school, who are powering literally trillions of dollars of economic. But I think there is opportunity for bi cultural ism.

There is well, well, so let's actually get into this because part of IT was this idea of transformative, and that's the other theme that keeps coming up and that A I is transformative. It's transforming a lot of things, a lot of organza. And part of the the organization course is PMI.

So will bring that up first because the cognitive is now part of PMI. We're bringing a lot of our thought leadership, a lot of our content. Of course, I see pyy I certification and training and a lot of the work that were done in in the space of making A I really productive for people. So mere perspective, you know, how do you see the colonic acquisition, the assets, the various activities is really helping to argument P M S A I focus. And we can talk little bit about, uh, P M S A I focus and kind of you know where is where that .

is having yeah we we started to work together way before the acquisition of community A I P M. I work with you, Kathy, and wrong. We we really appreciated your level of expertise, your understanding of V I in a much broader way and just applications to project management. And we felt this was important for our community to area that was important for our community to learn right or developed in.

And we so we work together on the number of our courses we had thought about integrating your content in our I platform called puma infinity, which is a basically A A I assistant that helps project measures do their job on a specific dedicated instance of OpenAI. And as as we talked, we I thought we had A A good cultural fit, right? And and we could together invent in a way how A I can be leveraged to transform project management and how at the same time we could help protect manager res or project professionals be Better at managing transformation.

So I think we had the same objectives. You also we're looking for a way to expand globally, expand your reach, your influence. And P M, I is a great platform for that.

You know we are Operating over two hundred countries. We have hundreds of events with your we touch one point six medium active certification holders. We have our members, you know, close to three quarters of a medium right now, close a big community in china.

We are not allowed to have members in china, but we have a big community there. So yeah, I mean, I think IT was A A good a good idea to work together, and I think you felt the same. So we made IT happen pretty icky, which is fantastic.

You you know your resources, we can talk about that. But I think beyond your content, beyond your podcast, beyond your expertise, we found things in community together were almost fantastic jewels that could be developed and and made bigger. And i'm thinking in particular of your certification, C M I, but also things like your frameworks, you know, your framework that is has been used by the O A C D.

To define those little things are difficult to accomplish, and what we need to do now is to amplify them on a broader scale. So look, we very we're very happy with having you part of the P. M. My family, and we are very excited about what the future would bring.

Yeah we definitely are as well in your right. You know, one thing that I do love so much about P. M.

I is that it's a global community, but it's also a global company. Folks really do come from all over the world. And IT helps provide that holistic perspective, right? Sometimes people can be very contrary focused, right? Are very north amErica focused.

But P M I really is global. And IT helps bring in all of those different perspectives. And that's one thing that I i've really enjoyed about P M I. And you adventured the C P M. A I certification, the cognitive project management for A I certification.

And so for our listeners who don't know it's the best practices for running and managing A I projects, a lot of the conversation now is focused on how do I use A I tools to help me do my job Better. But C, P, M, A, I helps talk about the other side, especially for project professionals. How do I run and manage A I projects? And IT provides a step by step approach and framework for doing IT.

So IT really helps kind of bridge that conversation into a holistic picture where we're not just talking about tools and technologies, but also then how do you have to run and manage ji projects. And now C P M A I certification is part of P M I certification. And more super excited about that.

You can find IT on the P M I det ork website. You can also, you can also find IT at cognizant that com for now as well. But this is definitely A P M, and you are really looking forward to that. So how do you see C P M A, I enhancing project success and growing P, M, S reach as well?

yeah. Guess then I think you you're right to sort of reframe a little bit the discussion about A, I and project management because P, M, I for sure wants to lead the A, I transformation of project management. And I think we've been doing that, launching our P M I by initiative that encompasses multiple products and and things we're doing, including expanding our critical is part of IT.

But the transformation of project managment through A I is not the only thing that we want to lead. We also want to lead the project management of A I transformations. That's what, in the end, we make our professional the most successful beyond learning how to leverage I doing our own jobs, right? So IT is very important for us to be in that space and to help our profession lead the A I transformations that they are assigned to as project professionals.

Now S B M I, for sure, initially, we are not including certification in A I as one about primary area as a focus because precisely at the very beginning of that whole initiative, P, M, I by I, our first objective, our most urgent objective, was to equip proof professionals with knowledge or skills to leverage ye in their jobs, right? So that part, we felt, is going to evolve very quickly. And having a certification for project measures who know how to leverage.

I was, maybe not the most, the modest way of doing this, right? So we preferred focused on focusing on thought leadership guides, courses that are we developed, updated very quickly, developed at this platform, P M. infinity. We're not really thinking about sophistic tions at that point, but of course, on the others side of what we want to accomplish.

So leading the project managment away at transformation, then here, a certification makes a lot of sense because some of the things that you need to learn, most of the things that you need to learn if you want to lead A A, A I transformation successfully, our more perennial right, they can last longer. It's about understanding the frameworks, is understanding A I, understanding change management and all these things, right? So we felt in that space, there is probably a role for us to play.

But we are P, M, S. So we are the real broker of trust when IT comes to certification. IT means that employers know that if someone is certified by P, M, I made something.

And professionals know that if they get a certification from from P, M, I, IT also will bring them something. So we are these brokers of trust and we cannot do IT. We cannot jeopardize that reputations and and status that we ever built over decades.

Um by just doing any kind of certificate or certification that is not at the right level, right? That's why we have this very important concept of gold standards certifications at P M I. And we want to take C P M I to that level.

And and it's already a great traficant. But when we have have a specification, we develop a whole ecosystem around IT with standards, professional standards, with network of credit training providers, you know. So that has to be built over time. But with C P M, C P N A, A, we have all the nuggets, we have the platform to build fantastic and very reputable professional certification.

Yeah agree. I think that's the interesting thing about A I prospect for those who have been covering IT for a while. At first, that seems like a technology of product.

But then the more you spend time with that, you realized that that's actually it's a means to an end. It's actually it's really is transformation because what we're trying to do is we're trying to take some of the work tasks. This is something one of the one of our first guest experts that really kind of highlighted and let the lipo for us actually was a moment.

Or you've said it's really you're trying to take the work out of the job like the job is important. You're doing customer care or you're doing you're trying to develop a product or you are in sales or you're in finance. That's your job.

Your job is to support the business, but you may spend half of your time doing work that is not really in support of your job. Entering data into spread sheet, analyzing documents, moving invoices from email into an erp system that's not really job. So the key is how does A I just like every other major technological wave, the industrial revolution, all these things, it's like we move from animals to machines.

It's not like we always to introduce some new kind of agriculture. We just needed that technology. Otherwise we would not be able to feed eight plus billion people in the world.

So this is kind of what that was like. The woman like, uh, this is really a transformational wave. And project managers, people have been running and managing projects have been around for a long time facilitating these projects.

People are still necessary. There's a lot of those triangles that are out there. There is, of course, they are in triangle is also triangles.

We talk about the people process technology triangle all the time, because technology is the easy part. People always want an easy technology solution to a problem, buy something to solve the problem. But we've been buying things for a long time, still having a lot of the same problems.

So clearly, we have to solve that with people in process just sort of brings in that next bit because a lot of those skills are not technology skills. There are the softer skills that are really required to make even A I systems where collaboration, communication, creative thinking, creativity, all of those machines can do that, and they can do that still. So from your perspective, you know, what specific skills do you see? Project professionals needing to develop to effectively lead any AI driven projects is AI driven transformations that are here today and certainly coming in the next few years.

May your framework has been implemented successfully by a number of organizations, companies, government agencies. I have in mind cookie college and then take buzan, just name a few. So clearly, there are things that are specific to A I projects right now.

You know, before people always asked me what is specific to an industry, what is specific to a topic. And I always like to start with the things that are the same because it's important to always remember what are the lessons we can learn from project management and reapply to other industries to other cases. So what is the same? But first of all, and that's an evolution we're seeing across the project management. IT is very important to think about project success beyond project management success, if you're only focused on delivering on spects in one scope, time lines on budget, then that a good chance that by the time when you deliver your project, the perception of success is not gonna as good as IT could be.

So he is very important for project professionals, and that is true, especially in a very fast moving area like A I, that you expand your accountability as a proof professional, that you really, really own the impact of the project beyond the expects that we're given to you, that you manage perceptions of success and not just 好 fact that you constantly assess whether you delivering the value that the project is supposed to bring。 So that kind of flexible and expanded mindset and also ownership is, I think, absolutely critical. And it's a cultural shift, definitely not specific to A I.

Of course, I personally believe that you need to have a fairly robust understanding of A I, how IT works, the use cases, the pit full, listen to your podcast, learn from experiences, you know, positive, negative. All of that is important. You can be accident.

A I project transformation matter, if you're not, if you're not, first, wait, what A I does, right? So there's a little bit of learning here that is necessary and the experience would come. Data skills.

We ve measure that, right? So clearly, if you wants to be successful at managing an eye project, you need data skills. It's very complicated to Operate in this area. Where did I saw central?

If you have no ability to deal with data and seeing project professions are most successful, with data transformation projects being, with transformation projects being also usually very data literate and apt expense to understanding of ethics and how you manager I P and governance frameworks and guidelines around the data that you use and also the usage I now that's one thing that generally speaking is a pretty section is to and that maybe a little more for leveraging A I in your jobs than for A I transformation projects. But generally speaking, this whole new area, prompt engineering makes a big difference. And and we see we measure that right.

The effectiveness of proof professionals who can deal with prompt engineering in the right way is really multiplied like and and I see that even when I talk to my friends because I use that myself every single day, my job, right? And I realized that most people don't know how to talk to A I. And IT is something you need to, in part, learn.

So there are frameworks for that, and in part practice a lot, of course. And then I would add, IT goes back. I think it's pretty true for any kind of project, but it's very true for A I transformation.

You need to have some good understanding of the business of the youth cases, right? Bad business. Understanding of the use cases makes a big difference as well as many companies are still experimenting rebate, they are not very sure how to leverage I and how to make the best use of IT. There are complex projects, usually cross departmental enterprise level, there is money behind IT, but how do you spend the money smartly and effectively is something that, as a proof professional, you need to be good at, right? So that this whole business understanding and making sure that you need my waste in the way you manage A I transformation project, just the way we have to manage waste, to reduce waste in digitalization projects, that we'd also be critical yeah .

like how you bring up this idea of use cases, right? Everybody always wants to have. Use cases and how A I is being applied in different industry. So much so that we are in the middle of an entire use case series to talk about how A I is being in the number of different industries because there's a lot to learn.

And people always like to say, well, how have others done IT? And what can I learn from there? right? They don't they don't want to be making the same failures. They sometimes are afraid to be first. So that's why we said, let's bring this use case series in.

And he also talked about prompt engineering and how do you get Better with that? And we always say the best way to get Better is to just start right and just practice. And they know that infinity has a lot day of a prompt library that we're looking to expand as well.

We also worked on the prompt engineering course for P M I, which obviously I think is an absolutely wonderful course. But it's nice to hear the community reference IT. And it's a great it's a great place to go to learn.

And then there's tutorials as well in in infinity so that if you are unsure where to start, you can go for reference points. And that's one thing that I really like that PMI is doing. We always talk about meeting the users where you're at everybody's on a different path in their AI journey. And so I really appreciate that P. M.

I is focusing on not just those you know trail blazers ers, but also focus that are newer in their journey and say, hey, we're going to help bring you up to speed and we're gona meet you where you're and help you on this entire journey because it's important, because you have to make IT appropriate people, you know, their spears and concerns around the eye. Some people think I can be very intimate. And so i'd like that.

P, M, I. I think we're going to meet you where you're APP. So as a final note, we always ask all of our guests the same question.

And I always love everybody's response because no matter how many times we ask, you always get such fair responses. Some people get very philosophical. Some people get very practical. Some people are very, you know, maybe from a personal level what they'd like to see. So as a final note, what do you believe the future of A I is in general and its application to organizations and beyond?

Well, I think many CEO have said that A I is a technology of the, or revolution at the of the manual of the invention, electricity of the internet. And and that is probably true. But but I think even more, and maybe i'm so on, the was difficult camp, I don't know, but I think even more, A I is really questioning us as human beings.

You know, what is our purpose wrong? You mention mechanized, the work of animals which helped us feed the planet. But that, from a philological standpoint, sounds like easier to me, like replacing an animal with a machine is easier, even replacing humans by machines when IT comes to mechanical tasks, I think we all see mechanical task as sure you know something you would be happy to dedicate to a machine.

But now we are thinking of something very different, right? It's, I think, a ee being Better than us at being an expert, being than us Better than us at even empathy and or simulating empathy, but in the end, no empathy. People have learned to be impatient sometimes.

So is IT really different? I don't know. I it's not the first time, right, that the humanity is facing, uh, discovery that is make us, is making us question, or our role as an an an even existent al nature, right?

So good neis finding out that the l is not the center of the universe and therefore the man is not the center of the universe with a hard blow, you know, Darwin, letting us know that we come from primate. That's not easy to accept when we thought we were elected, whatever, by god, and very different. Now we're just animals, evolved animals, but animals.

That's hard to accept. fraud. You know, letting us, no, that we are not full in control of our actions.

You know, we think, therefore we are. But sometimes we don't think, and still we are. We do stuff guided by unconscious motivations, you know, and and sometimes that's very scare you.

So I, I, I do see how I is so scary for many people. And we would see, I think, in the next years and even maybe a little longer than that, a lot of resistance to IT. We might see the new hamish, you know that who don't want to change, they are related machine or product or you know it's it's absolutely considerable.

But just the same way we got over the Darwin for IT, you know, I think we will get over IT will probably drastically change. How we see our purpose as human beings is conceivable that within, I don't know, thirty, fifty years, working would be a choice. And and of course the read justness between now and and this future state is gonna very difficult.

People will have to struggle a lot you know with this adjustment and I think the governments and and public policies, we need to adapt to help us transition. And its not right now, they're easy to see how we can find any consensus in the way to do that. But when we're another, I think we will have to do IT, you know shorter my CD has an incredible opportunity anyway.

First of all, we do have some sustainability issues that need to be fixed in case people don't realize that the planet is, you know, bad shape. And maybe A R is going to help us go faster and make some discoveries that will help us resolve our problems from a technology that point the natural by old becoming aisher, right? But short term for our professional project professionals as C, D, as an incredible opportunity.

Now i'm thinking of project professionals as the accountants. When excelled, we have discovered or stop workers when algorithm, fast computing and the communications and internet came out, right? So we are at this moment when we can indeed, as you mention before, run, get rid of many of the tasks that make maybe us keep us busy, but are not exactly what we really need to do if we want to increase project success, right?

So we have this incredible opportunity to be more focused. It's a little scary, but more focused on the things that really matter. And then as I said, there will be a lot of work, a lot of work for people who manage transformations, who manage A I transformations and the consequences of the A I transformation of the world. So I can see a very bright future, or at least few decades, for project professionals before we reach to, we reach this next stage of humanity that I was a leading to.

That's fantastic. As we mentioned, we always get a different set responses. Maybe one day we'll have to collect all these responses together and say, here are the philosophical perspectives and here are the technological perspective is fantastic.

This is definitely well worthy of a further conversation. So I really hope that we can continue to engage and get our community engage. I would say, reach out be we're going to put some show notes in our show notes.

More details about not just what we're doing here at P. M. S. Doing, but where's you can participate in the conversation. I think it's very important.

This AI today podcast is a two way street, even though that feels like a one way dialogue. This is our way of engaging with you, with the community. And we love to hear from you.

We like to hear your reviews, your comments, your thoughts. We will be posting this episode all over, including and all the spotify, all those places, but also on linked in. And we encourage you to engage in the conversation posts, post your comments.

What do you think about what peer just said? What are your thoughts about where things are heading? Do you see this as as one of those pivotal moments in history? So this is part of what we love, and I love these leading conversation. So thank you here so much for joining us, sharing your insights and being part of this transformation movement of A I in the project professional and industry and towards project success.

Thank you. run. Thank you.

guessing. Yeah, thanks so much. Just was such a wonderful discussion like this episode of money. Hear more with hundreds of episodes and over three million downloads. Check out more A I today podcasts at A I today that live.

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