You can’t throw a stone right now without hitting another article about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in project management (and many other spaces). It dominates the conversation. It’s exhaustive and confusing; it seems beneficial and it seems threatening. It feels worrisome to not be informed of the latest evolutions, but it also feels overwhelming to keep on top of that evolution as it speeds along at what can only be described as a momentous pace.
All of these viewpoints are legitimate. But here is something that may help alleviate AI-related anxiety.
If you’re following trends in project management, the theme of exactly how to leverage AI, automation, and real-time data to drive successful and predicable outcomes is at the forefront of these conversations. Most organizations are trying to get their arms around how exactly to employe AI (and all its bells and whistles) to help course-correct before delays occur, before costs escalate, and before projects snowball outside of scope.
Basically, organizations are looking to shift from after-the-fact reporting and manual updates to something more agile, more flexible, more visible … something that outlines the benefits before the outcomes. Maybe you see where this is going.
Benefits Realization. Projects that deliver value with less waste because the benefits have been scoped out and aligned from the very onset.
This is where you may just breathe a sigh of relief. Isn’t some of what organizations are looking for in AI the same outcomes that benefits realization aims to achieve? “To ensure that the payoff expected from business investments actually occurs.” That’s directly from a PM Solutions white paper published in 2016 titled “Optimize Strategy Execution by Planning-In Benefits Realization: Benefits-Focused Project Management.”
Part of the reason AI tools and technology are so appealing is that they seem like a quick fix to long-lasting issues, and we’re not talking just reducing admin work time. Organizations are always looking to reduce the manual labor of tasks that are time-consuming with better tools, techniques, technologies, methodologies, etc. The issues that organizations and their leadership are truly looking to solve revolve around risk reduction, better decision-making, and alignment with strategic initiatives. Now that’s the focus of Benefits Realization Management.
The truth is that all along we have had the tools and practices to plan for desired benefits, to track measures that will tell us if we are realizing them, and to change course if we are not hitting those targets. Now a dose of reality. Most organizations don’t focus on realizing the benefits of initiatives thus many corporate strategies are never achieved. And you can add as many AI bells and whistles as you want, but if you haven’t aligned those things at the onset, the outcomes will be no different. A cultural change needs to occur before the implementation of AI-related tools and technology.
While it may feel like organizations need to hurry up and integrate all the AI-driven tech they can get their hands on, the opposite is actually a better-outcomes-based path.
Foresight.
Agility.
Flexibility.
Visibility.
All of these can all be accomplished through benefits realization. Then we can talk tools and techniques.
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