Introducing the AI-Driven Project Manager Credential

hello there welcome everybody and thank you for joining us for this apmg webinar where we're talking about the topic of artificial intelligence and project management so AI as I'm sure we all know is having an increasing influence across various aspects of Our Lives um and across many roles and industries and of course the world of project management is no exception to that um and the put primary purpose of this this session is to introduce to a new certification in the space um uh link to the the AI driven project management masterclass that many of the

call will be familiar with um and we'll be morphing that into a more open and Roundtable discussion about the impact of of AI in project management and trying to address some of the burning questions around the topic uh so to introduce uh myself in the panel so my name is Mark conable I'll be your host and moderate moderator for the session and it's a pleasure to be joined by three uh guest presenters and panelists so Antonio Rodriguez and Ricardo Vargas are Global for leaders in the world of project management and they're the brains behind the

aod driven project man management uh master class and the support and cerification that we'll be talking about today um and joining a bit later on will be Richard fah who's a CEO of apmg international uh Richard will be joining Antonio and Ricardo for that open discussion and as as I say trying to address some of those burning questions around Ai and its impact on the field of project management um just before we get into the main content uh a little bit of housekeeping before we get started so first thing to note is we are recording

the session and everyone that's registered will receive a follow-up email from us uh soon after the session's taken place once that recording's available online so do look out for that um you are all welcome to submit questions at any stage so using your Zoom control panel you should see an option where you can type in your questions um and we'll try and get to as many of those as we can during the open discussion and last but not least we welcome any feedback so if you when you when you receive the feedback uh sorry the

follow-up email once a recordings live you'll have my email address um so do let us have any feedback on the session because that really helps us to plan and deliver these types of webinars in the future um so that's a bit about it for me so I will now hand you over to Antonio first to to introduce to to a bit more about AI in project management so Antonia over to you thank you Mark and come up uh please so um how are you my friend good to see you Ricardo big big day for us

here yeah big big day yeah big big day we cannot believe we could make this happen my friend yeah you know the past days were just insane to put everything ready for today so we are super excited on that and we want to thank Richard farro Gavin and and Mark and the whole team for putting a certification in light speed of of what two months where we we almost really took this as a serious step for us to create the first certification in Ai and project management yeah and and what and Antonio just to to

build on that that there was a team that is working around the clock in the past three to four days to get this ready so I want just to recognize that uh we we cannot because many of them were engaged in the building the questions and this so there is a confidentiality agreement but we want to thank them from our heart for the dedication to put this together because I know it's that absolutely insane uh work uh that they did okay so the purpose of today is more a celebration a loue event it's not going

to go too deep into Ai and project management we address that different means that Ricardo and I have this monthly free webinar we have the master class but we wanted to give you a feeling of what's the credential about and why we build it and and then Richard farro the CEO of apmg is going to join us to have a bit of a discussion and then Q&A so we we we we'll just celebrate together we wanted to do this as as a big achievement as as as you know Ricardo and I we've been working on

AI and project management for what a year and a half already so it's is a big step in in milestone in our in our on how AI will will be integrated in project management absolutely so if we can go to the slides we have a few slides and thank you already I see a few questions so the point is also that you make questions so I see people very active already uh Jefferson and so so you you you'll get time to to address those questions let's see if we can slide the slides can you see

can you see my my second slide Antonio not yet are you still on the first one right yeah okay hold on I let me just take a look no it's yeah you see now right okay yeah so that one we can Skip and um yeah before so that's that's the the the name AI driven project manager certification you see with her logo with apmg International that's what you'll get if you pass the exam this is not an easy exam we didn't want to give away a batch after following the courses that we provide but just

something that it shows that you've learned that you know how to integrate AI in projects and and and use them to become a what we call AI project manager so this is uh hopefully what you will all get and uh and as from what this is open right now right Ricardo yes I will I will share the links s more information in a minute from that so that's the certif the benefit so you you will be able to read it I think I I'll just highlight a few demonstrate your commitment to staying current I think

the world of project management Ricardo me and most of you or all of you recognize the value of certification apmg International being one of the leading or if not the leading provider of this we know that we need to keep active we need to keep learning we need to keep showing that we've learned and this is one of the purpose of our certification is that show me show show me that you can um you understand AI in project management today there's nothing right there's there's no certification nobody has a certification from the big associations nobody

there's a few minor things but what we wanted to do is something Global recognize professional and and that's the one of the key benefits right and and that leads to the different iation so if I need to hire somebody where I'm doing some AI projects or introducing Ai and big data I will choose somebody that's certified with this certification right between 10 people if you have one or two who have the certification is is not the the only thing that we look at but it it helps you with the screening and to differentiate you from

from others so that was one of the reasons we wanted to put this in place yeah Antonio Antonio I want just to to add one I think one of the key things if we remember the webinar we did last week we were discussing that there is a feeling that in the project management sector we we are moving slower than we should right and and this is not just my opinion or your opinion we we discussed this as a group and and one of the things that is be behind the a driven project management Revolution that

Antonio and I are trying to put in place is that we we really need to drive the change in the behavior of the project managers to understand that this is something AI is something that will change we we have a true belief that this will change the way we work uh and will change very very fast and the certification is one of the tools because uh anonio let's be honest there is a lot of people talking about AI but they have no clue of what they're talking about because it just is a trending word and

this so one of the reasons of the certification is is I would say to work on on that side exactly and for me just the last point I think one of the drivers that I don't know puts the fire on on me and Ricardo is is in the end we want to to deliver projects better right so this is this is kind of the big big dream big purpose and and and we we need to do that using AI we cannot do today without that so I think this is kind of the driver of the

whole Revolution that we we started a year and a half ago so that you you'll get the recording you can read the slides back to you I want to spend time with richer also talking that's for you Ricardo okay so the certification the certification is uh for project managers IT project leaders pmo directors programing portfolio managers change managers a strategy implementation consultant so all these are part of the public so it's not a specifically to someone on it sector so we we Tred it of course because AI has some content on it uh but it's

it's basically for all of us and okay now go into some practicalities and very quick so it's a a 40 question exam 40 minutes duration 75 uh percent the pass Mark it's a close book and Proctor exam so we are taking seriously so it's it's not for the questions that you know you you can check whatever you want and do so we want to take a very professional approach so uh it's a Clos book it's a proctor means your camera will be on uh there will be an invigilator taking care of the exam and honestly

um I'm I'm not saying the exam is is very hard but the exam we we work so hard to really uh make a bridge uh between those who really know what we are talking about and those who are trying just to guess what AI is so uh this is the intent of the exam uh and uh you have two options of get certified okay so what we we decided Antonio and I uh it's a lot of people will say okay AI is very big so how we can prepare ourselves so there is an option and

a path that is the prep material and exam and there is another another path uh that is only the exam so the prep material and exam so what happens you can access uh to the created material that we produce Antonio and I with dozens of videos cre content it's a Content that we produce but also a Content that we created so articles technical articles technical documents and this is updated as the certification updates because what is our plan is to keep the certification uh very uh uh updated to what is happening uh it's an online

access uh and with that prep material in the exam you also get a voucher to do the exam that you can do um in the time you want for the next uh 12 months the second option is the exam only you can access uh apmg International I will give you in a minute the links uh and do the exam okay you just select and then you do without the preparation material okay and of course um probably all of you will will talk about okay how much does this cost so let me be very specific because

I know this uh is where a lot of people want to analyze so the prep material in exam will cost uh $499 us and it includes the exam and the material we are doing um a special release price uh of 399 uh using the code aipm until the end of next month for the next 45 will be with this discount rate and this price is already including dexam okay for the former master class students so if any of you watching this so we have a lot of people that register for these webinar it will have

a special price of 299 including the exam okay but the master class students the current at the master class we have the list of all the 260 something each of you will receive an individual discount voucher for you to use up to the end of October okay if you decide to go this is a benefit for those who already had the master class even when we were not thinking about the certification you uh and the exam only if you want to buy the exam only you go to apmg International and the great news Antonio it's

available now now as we speak we we put this live something like 15 minutes ago okay so you can buy and do the exam right now you can get the prep material and you can do the only thing we you cannot do now is for the former master class students because you need to get the voucher that we'll send to you okay but this is this for us is the best because we we had to do a lot of work on the background on that okay so now Antonio back to you and also to Richard

for uh the Q&A and and to share some more information and answer your questions back to you andon thank you Ricardo so Richard please join us Richard Farrow so somebody that knows project management as well as we do or even more and and and what you've done in this profession so always a pleasure to have you and your thinking and your challenging thoughts uh so the idea is to have like a 15 minutes 20 minutes uh free flow discussion and then we'll see if there's any questions I see already a few so Richard thank you

for joining it really means a lot for us it's it's good to see you Antonio Ricardo it's been a long time it's good to know you've been keeping busy though over at least the last 48 hours many many thanks for your words about the team behind the the camera behind the work yeah it does take a lot of people to put these things together and uh it's very easy for me to sit here and take the credit but the credit belongs to all those people that you've been working with over the last few weeks but

you know talking about the whole AI in project management I saw a Gart report recently that said 80% of project management tasks will be done by AI by 2030 so what are those tasks you know what will be done by Ai and what's the role of the professional project manager when AI is here that's my only questions I don't know which one of you wants to take it go ahead Ricardo I'll B on you yeah no I I think that we we just need to understand that the profession is changing and and when you you

ask me what are the the topics that will be automated by AI I would say that most of of the current planning uh reporting tasks for example preparing artifacts uh to projects doing schedle resolving uh resource allocation conflicts making project budgets preparing reports analyzing your portfolio these will all be if not 100% done by AI the vast majority of this work and this is why we need to reinvent for example our work and and this is why r i I say many times if your work is to prepare report on a project management office uh

then then your work may be replaced by Ai and this is why you need to move towards I would say a more strategic thinking a more human related tasks more on negotiation complex problem solving uh because these report and these operational task will be done by AI very very soon if they are not already being done but though we have the same problem I mean what everything I read about AI it talks about data quality it talks about the way you integrate one system with another you know how do we trust that data how do

we trust the data that we pull in from wherever we pull it in from and using it to help us plan to analyze our risks on our project to do those sorts of things Ricard how do we know it's quality data that we're drawing on yeah of course as we always say garbage in garbage out so the data not is not good it's it's very very hard but what is happening now with AI is that there is a lot of effort from tech companies to create ways of checking data and also one thing that is

for me it's um almost amazing Richard is that use of synthetic data AI is becoming able to produce data that did not exist in reality but that can help you to predict the future it's it's really it's really uh very scary when we talk about that uh but but this is already happening uh because to the lack just to give you an idea very uh uh uh large companies on AI producing these large language models are facing challenges because there is no human data available to train the machines because all human data they already took

it you know everything that is already public so this is what is happening so data is a challenge uh AI I think will help us to overcome but one of the biggest challenges on the data and then I will move to Antonio H is the bias on the data the one of the biggest problems not only the re reliability but the bias on data and maybe Antonio because you you take care of this on on the master class so you can talk about that yeah Richard so building on what Ricardo is saying I think that's

something that we normally don't think about when when we're working on our projects or reporting or we they chasing for data and now suddenly we have the issue of the bias and and now how is it been incorporated into the machine learning algorithm and so I think this is something that we are exploring we cover in our master class I think bias become more important now than before because really it had bigger impact and then so we just need to be aware of which them we we can be facing and how to address them I

think bias are things that we can work on uh if they tell you this is going to happen so I think it's a challenge but it's something that it can be work I agree that the bigger problem is having this good data available and and companies are struggling not just on projects in general just because data has never been a priority topic since ever and now suddenly it's big important for sustainability matters for for many other things so but like Ricardo say I think we're seeing AI working on this synthetic data to fill in the

gaps but do you see a world where organizations will willingly share project data you where you everyone always speaks about Lessons Learned reports but Lessons Learned reports tend to be not very useful for most people so do you see a world where there will be I don't know what you call them data leaks data sharing where people will be able to look at previous experience on projects from competitors to enable them to inform what is the right decision for their current project because a lot of the projects in my view go wrong because they start

with the wrong assumptions complet they start with thinking it can be faster quicker cheaper but the reality is that it can't be and so it's that truth in that date and how do you deal with bias when the machines are generating the data how what isn't ethical unbiased machine look like we don't know I think this is going to evolve but to your point on sharing knowledge and lessons learn I think I always talk about an example which is just amazing is sap implementations we've been doing for almost 30 years sap implementations and these projects

consistently deliver late and triple budget consistently and there's been maybe million sip implementation but people don't share they think this time we're going to do different so I think that's an example of there's things that we need to do better regardless of AI I think when we talk about sharing data on projects a good definition that I like about projects is the future of organization a project is the future and and I think there's a lot of confidentiality in in what's the strategy what projects are we investing so I don't see uh competition sharing data

on their projects I would say public sector yes why not the there you know the the major projects Association in the UK we can do a lot of learning from the massive amount of projects and mega projects they're doing but within the industry I would be a bit skeptical for the time being um to to to be able to share a lot of lessons learn Ricardo I don't know if you have any know I I have I I have a couple of comments I I think that the the the sharing lessons uh depends on how

competitive your is your landscape for example um there is a a company in the US called IPA independent project analysts and they do Benchmark and they were able to collect a lot of data of projects capital projects in the mining industry oil industry and why because this companies operating in in a commodity word so there is a competition of course they want but but you know there is a market for everyone so they share that it's h when you go to a more competitive environment it's harder for people to be willing to share data but

I have one point uh to make here um do we need to be willing to share data to our data be shared and why I'm saying this uh okay we um the revolution that we are seeing with AI do we need that you share your reports to know what is happening uh with your project I would say if it's a physical project and this why because AI could make assumptions on based on the way you deliver tools on on for example if it's a software tool on the way you deliver and the pace you deliver

I can predict what you can deliver next so it's like the concept Richard let me let me go expand it's like the concept of privacy in an AI work what is privacy you know because maybe you share something on one social media on one your your website or share on on a webinar like this one and then AI can compile this and say okay this is where the trend is uh so it's it's a very smart process it's like open AI getting data from us to use on their large language models when we post this

who will warranty that that this webinar will not be part of an llm uh next month yeah earlier on you said that project managers should be working on the interpersonal skills that be focused on negotiation that' be focused on communication what other skills will the future project manager need to know so people listening to this this webinar that are just starting off in a project management career whatever the role is whether it's in a Support Office whether it's as a project manager what do you think their key skill set will be in the next 5

to 10 years yeah for me uh is our ability to have a system thinking and critical thinking complex problem solving it's not basic problem Sol but complex multi-layer problem solving uh and and most of this complex problem solving they are not technical problems they are they involve rules regulation laws people stakeholder interest so to have a much more broader understanding on what is around for example AI projects is not just technology maybe technology is is a is a piece of that there is a a massive change in the way people operate and and as project

managers we need to understand that and this is this human skills okay this more complex reasoning uh negotiation trouble projects managing crisis managing politics managing power and these up to now um machines cannot do that well maybe in the future okay then then we we may see this also as a challenge but but not today so there's a lot of questions I think coming in so we want get time to hear those but if I asked you to predict the success rate of projects by about 2035 so once AI is started to be here you

know what do you think the success rate most people think the success rate depending on what research you look at is around 30% let's assume 30% is the current succcess rate at the moment do you think it will double 70 60 70% do you think it will travel to 90% genuinely what do you think the impact of AI will be on the success rate of projects I think that's a good question for to start it's uh it's the one yeah one billion question Richard I I I think projects fail for many reasons uh some of

them are related to the project definition the project planning the so that's that's one piece but then do you have reasons for failure around lack of leadership po sponsorship and and that's something that AI will not h address and and the other bigy dimension the third one is the organization the culture the hierarchy that's also something that AI will not be addressing in the next year so I think we can do better on the projects for sure and the selection prioritization estimation but I don't think we're going to solve uh all all the project success

in with AI I think we will increase for sure maybe we'll get to 50% 60% which is already huge but there's still the human element that Ricardo was talking from the leadership perspective from the project manager modern project manager as well which has to be developed and and that's why this again this certification the master class is building those skills that we don't favor today so much and I think it's the future for the profession is those soft skills critical thinking so that we can reach more than 60% 70 I also think that when projects

fail is not too bad either it should not be 70% but some of them need to fail so that we come so a 10% failure rate I think that's reasonable in in every aspect of projects but yeah no great question Richard I need to write a post on that you made me think no I think Antonio what what you just said is is perfect what I think also it's maybe the success rate will not incre increase but the complexity of the projects we are undertaking will increase what happens uh with the success rate if I

compare the projects we do today uh with the projects we used to do 30 years ago it's different it's different you know it's for example if we use the tools we have today to manage the projects and the deadlines we had 30 years ago probably our success rate would be 100% because the projects were much easier to be done imagine the complexity of an IT project 30 years ago with the tools we have today so what is happening is that we are evolving and getting more and more challenges over time uh so probably in 2030

we will talk about people flying or people you know the a very different set of projects that we never thought about doing them today that's very interesting very interesting thank you both Mark have we got some questions yeah we have question Antonio Antonio um and Richard I I am just just for you to know I I will not be able to stay too much because people are already asking me I'm I'm on LinkedIn today so I need to start recording but I want just to answer very quick some some questions um AI driven PM versus

PM P there is nothing pm p is amazing okay I'm I'm Antonio is certified I'm certified for many years they do not compete at all it's a different thing this is a certification for the use of artificial intelligence in project management okay so they complement everything else so if you do ibma if you do Prince 2 if you do PMP there is nothing related to this though they do not compete at all okay I just want to make sure uh that people um know uh that uh okay um Antonio do you want to take a

couple of them yeah I can Mark if that's okay we can go through the questions ourselves uh and just it's going to be faster so Federico great to see you you're always there thank you federo yeah so we're going to launch there's a pilot well we're going live as we pilot we're super agile and hybrid so uh but we're going to do a mini pilot as well with a few people so we'll be reaching out but uh yeah the the exam is live now yeah but we already did the the alpha pilot it's already done

yeah uh can we get recording yes so the master class that we share uh we have the monthly uh webinar that Ricardo and do every Friday first Friday of the month that's available in in in in the different channels uh Jeep so yeah all this it's is available if you want to catch up the master class is is the other package the bundling that we we offering with together with the certification um yeah rard let me take quickly here there uh are there study guides before taking apmg certification yes there are this is what I

shared here the option of you getting uh the the prep material the prep material contents part of the master class and part of other things uh that you you you can buy or you can buy the exam directly okay the prep material what we believe will increase your chances uh uh uh to pass in the exam okay so this is the idea uh behind and there is a second question from uh Rami uh about uh what is the trigger point for you to come up with this curriculum to get F fine T AI strategy so

we created this curriculum uh on the PM air revolution.com you see the curriculum for the exam and this and we decided to create this because we tried to understand the a holistic aspect understanding what machine learning and AI is how to plan an AI project some examples of that some use cases of that what are the challenges and how the future looks like so these are the topics that are the umbrella both for the master class and this and one important thing the master class uh helps you of course to to to to pass to

the exam but is is not only based on the master class content okay so you will see that many of the prep material we extract as part of the master class but there are other topics that you need to be aware also to pass on exam so take a look on the on the on the on the on the content on our website to see what will be required and there is another question is there a simple exam yes on apmg website you can get a simple exam there and download and and test for you

to to understand that Antonio back to you um I'm just checking which one has one what's the price of this oh the price it's already on the screen okay the certification itself is 240 uh prep material index some 499 but with the prom code a PM 399 until the end of October for the master class students 299 and this includes uh okay the exam uh and the master class students will receive an email with a discount voucher soon okay and please anybody that goes through examp if you sharing social media and cop recardo and myself

taga so we can make more make sure that people are aware of your achievement yes absolutely absolutely of course we we want to to create value on that uh we have a question why uh the the exam is supervised it's proctored because we want to make it a credible exam so we don't want people to try and test the exam 25 times before uh uh they pass you know so this is the idea of that is to bring value to to the exam so it's not something that you just do uh you know you know

between your breaks and and pass and get the badge so this is not the idea behind that okay then there's a question from Rick R good to see you if I register for the prep material exam is there a deadline to take the exam the the voucher is valid for 12 months yeah one year don't don't wait for 11 months and then take it uh I think what we recommend is go through the material do the prep exam to see how you're doing and then just take the the official we don't uh yeah but it's

valid for 12 months sometimes okay uh Umberto has a question what is your experience in applying AI in project management how long and what projects did you execute I will talk by myself I started uh working with AI in 2012 I published uh my first paper in 2015 on on that uh I developed the P Moto in 2017 and I'm owner uh of of Y and pmot Y in Estonia and pmot so it's basically I would say 10 to 12 years of course uh in the past five years much more than it used and in

the past two years even more than than that okay and my Umberto I've been maybe five years not in AI but very focused on all the PPM tools for corer and three years ago I started working on a AI predictor tool machine learning so uh with a professor in Canada where we from scratch how to train a machine learning algorithm from zero to something that can be used now to prioritize thousands of projects so yes this is the experience plus the research plus the publication in H we are a couple of Articles and all the

master class so we're not programmers but I think we do understand how AI can work to make better projects I think that's the key uh for both of us okay Joshua uh does rting for this webinar provides Master Class discount as well uh no Joshua it does not but we do uh I would say once in a while some discounts for the master class there is nothing uh a schedule now for the master class but we will think on that okay uh Vivani how can we keep up to date once certified okay when you get

certified you do not need to recertified and we um okay this is one of the things we want to announce we will announce soon but we are creating a certified Community like we we are creating for the master class it's exactly for people keep up to dat with their credential okay we we cannot people to recertified every day okay as AI evolves so what is the idea is that once you are certified you will be part of a group on on on uh preparing uh I would say getting updated information on that okay so this

Raquel is the same questions okay uh uh we will be used uh in the training some exams particular AI tool chpt and others uh the answer is no you do not need of course you need to understand the concept behind what CH but will not ask you for a chpt question okay what else is the 178 the same master class from last year this is a new court it's an anonymous so we it's our last Master Class of the year the third one we do this year so uh yeah we have already quite some people

register search so there's no uh yeah it's already confirmed yeah confirmed yeah yeah Melody I completed the AI essential 4 pm course on LinkedIn would I be able to pass the exam uh no Melody you will not it's it will not be enough in our view uh for that you you need to have other knowledge take a look on on the program so it's not related to any specific course designed on LinkedIn or other platform perfect I think we've covered most of it repetition so I would say let's let's wrap it up here there's going

to be more sessions that we plan for for everyone to understand um what's behind the exam and the community that we're building the partnership that we have with apmg International so I think just to keep it sharp I would say um just the final words Maybe starting with you Ricardo as you need to go to recording yeah so look first Richard thank you very much so we know each other since the time of the UN so it's it's really an honor uh to have you uh to have you Gavin Mark supporting us on that okay

it was it would be impossible for us to get this done without your support so thank you from from my heart also I want to thank uh the team behind that okay uh it was incredible we cannot believe we we were able to make it this happen okay and and we are very excited so Antonio also thanks for the partnership and every time we give one step uh towards this it's really really a rewarding moment for us okay and for those who attending the PMI Summit I'll be there Thursday and Friday and I'm looking forward

to see you there Antonio thank you very much my friend about B thank you Ricardo take care have good recording there okay okay so I have to go okay I have to go because I have a recording now Arisha thank you very very much Gavin thank you Mark and see you all okay I'm leaving now bye bye thank you Richard any words before I pass to Mark no I mean not on behalf of everyone listing many thanks Ricardo and you Antonio for actually doing the session it's always interesting to hear about the developments and evolution

from people who are actually deep into it come from project management background not a software AI background trying to sell into project management so many thanks for time you were able to spend today in presenting to everybody thank you and I think it's an exciting space it's interesting to see what's going to happen with it I appreciate that partnership doing new things and greatting new creds I think that is is is really valuable for for the community here so thank you Richard again and Mark and gabin of course um so I just thank everyone for

being here and Pi people will watch the recording so we have these monthly calls where you are all invited and we'll get more information more details and hopefully you you you go through this opportunity which is I saw one of the comments really an investment I think today the way we need to learn is much faster than we were learning five years ago so I think this type of things are investments in our career in our profession so that's why we didn't want to price it too high just that everybody can have that opportunity to

keep growing and and becoming better in in in the profession we all of so thank you everyone for for joining us and and mark back to you yeah thanks very much an and thanks Richard and thanks Ricardo who's obviously left um and thank you everyone for joining us um really interesting session and and as Richard say it's really evolving interesting space so it' be interesting to see where this goes um and just a reminder really to look out for the um the follow-up email because I know there was a lot of questions we may have

missed a few on some of the you know logistical side of things so we'll make sure we cover as much as we can in the followup email uh so do look out for that um and yeah that's it so thank thank you again for joining and we'll see you sometime thanks everyone thank you gabin by bye everyone