Discover how AI can improve project management through five practical ways.
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How AI Can Improve Project Management
AI can significantly improve project management, from initiation to closure. As a project manager, using AI tools, you can manage project meetings and documentation, learn and master project management tools, quickly summarize email chains and generate instant project status reports, create training materials and visually appealing presentations, and prepare risk registers, executive summaries, and decision-making support. These help project managers for,
- Reduce administrative burden and free up time for strategic work,
- Leads to a more realistic timeline and budget, which helps reduce cost overruns and delays.
- Provide real-time, data-driven insights for making informed and timely choices,
- Allows for proactive mitigation and improves the project success rate, and
- Prevents team burnout and ensures maximum resource utilization.
5 Practical Ways to Use AI for Project Managers
As we previously discussed, here are 5 practical ways to leverage AI as a project manager in your daily routine to save at least 12-15 hours of your weekly efforts. Thereby making you a more productive project manager.
To Manage the Project Meeting and Documentation
This is the most transformative application I have implemented in my projects. It’s also the areas where AI really poses the most direct threat to certain project roles. Traditional meeting management used to consume hours of the project team’s efforts, such as recording discussions, transcribing key points, identifying action items, and assigning owners. It can be a massive administrative burden, and these tasks are typically performed in the industry by roles such as project clerks or project support officers. However, with AI tools like Otter.AI, Claude, or Microsoft Copilot, you can completely revolutionize this process.
For example, during the project meeting management, Otter.AI or Copilot automatically captures everything. It not only provides a transcription of the meeting but also identifies the speakers, extracts action items, tracks attendance, and highlights key decisions within minutes of the meeting’s conclusion.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: roles like project support officer or project clerks, whose primary responsibilities include meeting documentation, minutes of meetings, and action follow-ups, are generally at risk. These administrative functions are being automated away and organizations are starting to question whether they really need dedicated resources for these tasks.
Important💡 I’m not saying these roles will disappear entirely. Still, project teams that used to have 3 or 4 project support officers to manage this kind of stuff will now have only one professional service organization managing it. So that’s AI driving productivity in project management.
To Learn and Master New Project Management Tools
Utilizing AI tools enables individuals to enhance their skills and proficiency in Excel Spreadsheet Analysis. In my experience, there is a common expectation to be adept with various software applications; however, many of us lack the opportunity to attend formal training programs or dedicate extended periods to mastering complex functionalities. Nonetheless, AI has the potential to serve as a personal tutor and coach.
For example, if you don’t know the MS product or Microsoft Project, but you need to use it for preparing a project schedule and tracking the critical path, you can use Google AI Studio as your personal tutor to help you learn this from scratch.
Google’s AI Studio helps you navigate obstacles more effectively. It offers a better solution than simply googling the problem because the AI Studio can see your screen and open applications through screen sharing. It also provides real-time guidance by observing your cursor movements and directing you to click this button and then select this option, and so on.
AI has transformed how project managers approach data analytics. For example, with numerous.ai, you can simply type natural language questions like, for instance, which project phases are consistently used patterns across all active projects in a spreadsheet, and it will analyze your spreadsheet data instantly without needing to remember complex VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP formulas, or PIVOT Table configurations in Excel.
Important💡 AI doesn’t replace the need for project managers to understand tools fundamentally. However, it can significantly accelerate the learning process for you as a project manager.
To Generate Instant Project Status Updates
Through the application of AI, project managers can quickly summarize extensive emails and generate immediate project status updates when prompt answers are required. For instance, during a steering committee meeting, should the sponsor inquire about the current status of the fire safety upgrades project, an instant update can be provided.
Important💡 AI doesn’t summarize; it identifies patterns, highlights critical decisions, and extracts actionable items that might be buried in lengthy technical discussions across those email chains, which you surely would have missed.
This capability has been transformative; I now manage stakeholder communication in my projects, rather than dedicating extensive time to manually reviewing email threads for status report preparation. Consequently, I am able to furnish leadership with real-time updates, which enhances my responsiveness and value to the organization as a project manager.
To Create Training Materials and Presentations
Using AI tools such as GMMA and Napkin.ai, project managers can create professional-looking training materials for project management concepts. Often, project managers are expected to conduct training sessions for their teams and stakeholders.
Important💡 Using AI tools, project managers can create visually appealing presentations, which help them save their valuable time.
For example, over the past few years, I have spent hours manually creating bullet points in MS PowerPoint, searching for relevant images on Google, struggling with SmartArt to build process diagrams, and wrestling with AutoShapes to create flowcharts. However, with AI tools such as GAMMA.ai, I was able to generate complex 10 to 20-slide training presentations in under 30 minutes.
Furthermore, Napkin.ai helps project managers create complex diagrams and charts that visually explain project management concepts. For example, when you need to explain the critical path method during a training session, you can simply paste the text explanation of the critical path method into Napkin.ai, and it automatically generates a professional flowchart with the proper network diagrams, dependencies, and critical path highlighting.
These AI tools can save a significant amount of time, cutting down manual research and text input by at least 1 to 2 hours. Furthermore, diagram creation in PowerPoint can be accomplished in under 60 seconds.
To Generate Reports and Decision-Making Support
Project managers can leverage AI to generate various reports, including risk registers, executive summaries, value engineering assessments, and analyses of best value options. AI also increasingly serves as a potent tool for informed decision-making in project management. However, the effectiveness of this strategy hinges entirely upon the quality of the input data and the specific project context fed into the AI platform. Moreover, detailed project information, including scope, timeline, stakeholders, technical requirements, and organizational constraints.
Detailed project information is essential when using AI platforms. This must encompass the project’s scope, the agreed-upon timeline, all involved stakeholders, necessary technical specifications, and any relevant organizational constraints. Therefore, the data provided must be both rich and comprehensive.
FAQs
AI Tools Will Replace 99% of Project Management Work?
AI will absolutely not replace project managers. The core of project management is a soft science, not one based on mathematics or coding. It revolves around human interaction, emotional intelligence, managing stakeholder relationships, and navigating intricate organizational politics.
AI lacks the capacity to negotiate effectively with an enraged customer or to motivate a discouraged team to complete a difficult delivery stage. However, AI can handle repetitive data and administrative tasks effectively.
Conclusion
AI can enhance project management by handling project meetings and documentation, learning and mastering project management tools, generating instant project status updates, creating training materials and presentations, generating reports, and supporting decision-making. However, strategic thinking, relationship building, and leadership will still be with us as human project managers.
