The Rise of AI: How AI is Revolutionising Project Management
Key takeaways
AI is already reshaping how project work is performed, especially the repetitive tasks that drain time and focus.
- AI can quickly turn meeting transcripts into summaries, action logs, draft schedules and initial risk lists, saving significant admin time.
- Outputs vary by tool and prompt, so results must be reviewed, corrected, and refined before use.
- Project managers remain accountable, using AI as an assistant rather than delegating judgement and context.
- Fast technology cycles make unlearning and relearning essential career skills.
- Adoption should be governed with clear approval, privacy, and security controls.
Introduction
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the field of project management . From administrative efficiency to enhanced decision-making, AI offers a variety of benefits. This webinar provides a deep understanding of AI’s current and future applications in project management.
Video
Watch the video, listen to the audio , or read the full transcript below.
About Mashhood Ahmed
Mashhood Ahmed has over two decades of project management experience and a deep understanding of AI applications in various industries. He has shared his knowledge globally, enhancing project outcomes through innovative AI integration.
00:09:09 Mashhood Ahmedthese two research findings on one slide. I’m pretty sure all of you have seen this one “AI won’t replace humans – but humans with AI will replace humans without AI”. Now if you take this same statement 100 or 200 years back, the farming equipment will not replace the farmers, but the farmer who use the farming equipment will replace the farmer who do not use the farming equipment. OK, so you replace AI with the technology of first industrial revolution, second visual revolution and this remains, this second remains the same that means we need to learn, and we need to adopt the AI and move forward. The second one, from 2019, Gartner research finding that “Says 80% of today’s Project Management task will be eliminated by 2030 as AI takes over”. It is not saying 80% of project management function or project managers . It’s saying 80% of project management task. Let me ask this question to this, we have about 47 people here. Is there anyone in this room who loves to take the meeting minutes as a project manager? who tries to take taking the meeting minutes?
00:10:25 Mashhood Ahmed
, and this is a short meeting that I’m going to copy paste into those generative AI and ask number of prompts and see how it would interact in real time. Do we have two volunteers that we can unmute and help me to read this script while I can take a break and have some sip of water.
00:15:57 Jay Gao : Yes, if you could type in the chat, I will unmute you.
00:16:06 Jay Gao : Anyone?
00:16:09 Jay Gao : Great.
00:16:10 Mashhood Ahmed : Happy to you, yeah.
00:16:16 Mashhood Ahmed : Yeah, go ahead anyone, first one could be sponsored in the next.
00:16:19 Jay Gao : OK, Layla.
00:16:26 Jay Gao : Right, I think I’ve given the sent request for audio, I think you can start speaking now. Let’s see if we can hear. I think the audio’s still loading should be.
00:16:42 Mashhood Ahmed : I can hear you yes, thank you.
00:16:46 Henrietta Still: Should I start?
00:16:48 Mashhood Ahmed: They’re you go.
00:16:50 Henrietta Still: Good morning, I appreciate your time. We’re excited to get started on this website project for our insurance agency. The website is going to be a crucial tool for our agents. We need it to be user-friendly and efficient.
00:17:06 Jay Gao: Henrietta?
00:17:07 Henrietta Still : Yes, do carry on going?
00:17:09 Jay Gao : Ohh Layla sorry I wasn’t sure who was talking earlier.
00:17:15 Jay Gao : Layla, are you with us? Is your audio on?
00:17:21 Mashhood Ahmed : OK, Jay wait, why don’t you act as a project manager, go ahead.
00:17:24 Jay Gao : Yeah, sure I’ll just be read the other part.
00:17:26 Jay Gao : Good morning, I’m eager to help you with this project. Let’s start by outlining the key requirements. I understand we need both technical and business functionality.
00:17:36 Henrietta Still : The website should have an attractive, professional design that reflects our brand. It must be responsive and mobile-friendly to accommodate various devices.
00:17:45 Jay Gao : Understood, the website should also have a user registration system for both clients and agents, allowing them to log in securely. What are the functionalities you envision for registered users?
00:17:57 Henrietta Still : Clients should be able to request quotes, submit claims, and access policy documents. Agents, on the other hand, need a portal where they can manage policies, communicate with clients, and generate reports. Additionally, we need to integrate a live chat feature for immediate customer support.
00:18:13 Jay Gao : I see. For the back end, the system must be scalable, ensuring it can handle increased user loads as our agency grows. We’ll also need robust security measures in place to protect sensitive data. What about integrations with external systems?
00:18:31 Henrietta Still : Absolutely, we need seamless integration with our internal CRM system for data synchronization. And we should also integrate with third-party insurance databases to provide accurate quotes and policy information in real-time.
00:18:44 Jay Gao : Got it. Do we have an approved budget for this project?
00:18:47 Henrietta Still : The board has initially approved the budget of $100,000, we should be able dollars, we should be able to showcase the new website at our annual conference which is scheduled for November 28, 2024.
00:19:00 Jay Gao : I will engage the web team to fully understand our resources, capabilities, draft project charter and come back to you by first week of April with project charter approval and draft
: OK, so I’ll put my prompt.
00:20:41 Mashhood Ahmed : I will enter a meeting transcription, I am working as a project manager , help as an AI assistant to provide response to my prompts. I will enter those prompts after I enter the meeting transcription.
00:21:30 Mashhood Ahmed : And what I will do is I will copy and paste; I’m going to put this one in ChatGPT as well as I will put in the Google Gemini. So, now you can see the Google Gemini here and I’m going to copy paste this. Now I will go back to ChatGPT and say sounds like a plan. Go ahead and enter the meeting transcription, then you can provide the prompts you would like assistant with. I’m happy to help, so let me just go and copy the meeting transcription. When I enter the meeting transcription here and then says great, you have captured the detailed transcription for the initial project meeting. How can I assist you right?
00:22:14 Mashhood Ahmed : I’ll say the my first problem was provide me the summary under 50 words.
00:22:28 Mashhood Ahmed : So now under 50 words, it is saying the project involves developing user-friendly, responsive website for insurance agency featuring client and agent portals, live chat support, and integration with CRM and third-party databases. A $1,000,000 budget is approved, with showcase planned for annual conference in November 2024.
00:23:02 Mashhood Ahmed : So how many of you think that it captures the essence of the meaning in 50 words and it is accurate?
00:23:12 Mashhood Ahmed : Yes Katerina, you’re right the budget is wrong, so it’s in the transcript I provide as I copied this as $500,000, not $100,000. Now if I go to Gemini and I will put the same prompt absolutely go ahead and share the meeting transcription so. I will enter the meeting transcription and let me go ahead and change the budget to 100. So it will give us the right response.
00:23:43 Mashhood Ahmed : So, now provide me meeting summary in 50 words.
00:23:59 Mashhood Ahmed : So, the sponsor initiated the website project for the insurance agency, emphasising the need for user-friendly, secure interior platform. The project manager acknowledged the requirements and outlined the next step, including engaging stakeholders, developing a project charter, and establishing communication plan . The project has a budget of $100,000 and a target launch date aligned with the annual conference in November.
00:46:06 Jay Gao: Yes, thank you Mashhood, I would just in the meantime put up the survey before I forget.
00:46:13 Mashhood Ahmed : Thank you, Jay. So, I’m just going over the chat with you. Do you have any recommendations for acquiring the meeting transcript as to use as an input? Yes, my recommendation is so Microsoft Team, Zoom, Google meets any meeting collaboration tool that you are using has the transcription capabilities. So, you start recording, it can start doing the transcript, and then you can do the rest from there. Now the tool that I’m building, PM assistant. AI, this is where it can join all the meetings with you, do the transcription and automatically do things for you and recommend you what you should do as you go to.
00:46:56 Mashhood Ahmed : OK, “I will disagree with this statement it has replaced the planner if it creates a Gantt chart”. Yes, it can create the Gantt chart, but not to the quality level so it will replace jobs definitely. AI will replace jobs the similar way in second this revolution, third in this revolution. So many jobs were replaced, the farmer job is replaced by the by the farming equipment, but we have a lot of food available there are like 8 billion people and they’re food for everybody, right? So again, we’re not getting out of work. And now we have so many new professions that we never thought about right that never existed, like 20 years back. So yes, I agree with you that you know it, it’s opening more jobs. OK, let me go next.
00:47:47 Mashhood Ahmed : Yeah OK, Layla is saying but they are not great transcript. Yes, zoom, Microsoft Teams, they are not great transcript, there are some other tools. If you would like to try one, I would suggest you to try a tool like fireflies. AI. And then there’s another tool called Fathom, you can try that one. Again, they’re not 100% accurate, but they get the job done to a level and this is where I say that, you know, even if you let AI do your job, you have to read every single thing. Could it produce the project plan on example Verto or Smartsheets? OK great, so Smartsheets have some integration with AI and what people are doing is they’re using Smartsheet and Zapier or make.com and by building those custom workflows or automations, you can do those things. George is asking, do you think AI will have impact on PM methodologies such as Waterfall and Agile , yes definitely. I’m seeing that you know in my another demo what I did is I uploaded like a workflow diagram and that diagram has one error missing right like a decision box, yes and no. The no box was missing so, I asked ChatGPT saying hey the diagram is missing this, what does that mean? And it was able to help me navigate saying hey you need to fix this and this. So, in terms of process, you can put any process into ChatGPT and Gemini and ask them to fix it. And they will give you good recommendations, again not 100% correct, but a good starting point so OK anymore questions?
00:49:37 Mashhood Ahmed Request a quote: OK, I think I catch all the questions.
00:49:41 Mashhood Ahmed : So, my recommendation is to you know, try these tools you know, enjoy them, you know work with them and see what works and what does not work with you. In terms of you like to learn more, feel free to contact me on the LinkedIn, we’ll be happy to have a chat or send me an email or anything you have please share details with me. Can you please repeat those tools? OK, I’ll just type them here, fathom and fireflies.ai. Is there any certification for this, so BMI has two courses for AI but those are not certification courses. I’m not going to go, I don’t think we need to go and get the certifications because what I believe is this is something, it’s a tool, it’s something that we need to use right. Typing skills, you need to know how to write a good prompt. So yeah, they could do some certifications, but I’m not familiar or aware of them. As I said, things are happening so fast, it’s humanly impossible to know every single thing that is happening in the world of AI so and we need to be OK with that.[email protected]
00:50:59 Jay Gao : Just to add BCS has a couple of AI certificates, foundation in artificial intelligence but that’s just general AI has nothing to do, it’s not specialised for +44 (0)207 148 5985project managementCourses or anything. But they have a couple of certificates and I think some other accreditation bodies are catching up on that too, just to add thanks.PROJECT MANAGEMENT
00:51:22 Jay GaoPRINCE2: I think George also asked Mashhood, when do you think we will see more AI in the PM world?®
00:51:29 Mashhood AhmedFoundation : OK, so I’m seeing in the last three months I start seeing there’s a little bit of a transformation happening within the project management world. But so, for example if you go to and I will type it here, if you go to RAIDLOG.com. OK, that’s a RAIDLOG, that’s a tool that as a project manager we use to capture risk, action, issues and decisions, right? They have an AI module where you can put your project description and it can generate the risk and once you generate the risk and you put up the mitigation plan then it will go and look what other content that you’re providing in kind of a, that’s some recommendation on the fly.Learn the fundamentals of the PRINCE2 method.
00:52:13 Mashhood AhmedPractitioner : So, you can download the AI prompt guide from PM assistant. AI, and RAIDLOG, I think it’s RAIDLOG.com that is an AI tool for PM and what was the other thing. If you could analyse the data, yes it does Layla asking you can it analyse the data? Yes, it does so ChatGPT 4, the paid version and Gemini paid version. I’ll just quickly show you the screen here. So, if you see this clip sign here. If I do clip, I can connect with my Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive or upload any document. I can upload PDF, word document diagram, spreadsheet and it will just give you some output, right. It will tell you can ask questions about like you can ask saying hey based on the spreadsheet. Can you help me draft some graphs and charts and similarly Gemini they have a plus sign here. So let me come on the screen. Yeah, and if you click on the plus sign, you can upload file, you can upload image or you can attach with your Google Drive.Includes Foundation & Practitioner combined option.
00:53:24 Mashhood AhmedAssociation for Project Management (APM): So same function, right? So, you can do those things, but again this is available in the paid version. It’s not available in the non-paid version. Can you share the link of the 2nd webinar for the Agile? It is on the project, let me just do it quickly from here I think I have it here, contribution webinar I’ll share the link right now, there you go. Yes this is here and if you go on this site you will also or if you go on my site mashhood.net you will also find some of my other talks and share my LinkedIn as well so feel free to connect and I think we have one minute left so I would like to thank Knowledge Train for giving me this opportunity to speak with this all through audience, I really enjoyed the talk and the Q&A session and thank you all, looking forward to connecting with you, thank you.Project Fundamentals Qualification (PFQ)
00:54:42 Jay GaoStart your APM project management career.: Thank you Mashhood, for the great presentation. Thanks, guys, for participating, we’ll be having a webinars roughly every other month and keep subscribed and we will let you know of the of the upcoming ones. Thank you.Project Management Qualification (PMQ)