Articles

On the Way to Save the World, Don’t Forget to Check Your Green Blindspot

​​​​​​Ricardo Viana Vargas and Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez discuss leveraging AI and technology to effectively address all ESG components after the World Economic Forum (WEF) published a report on the progress made in encouraging private companies to adopt firm metrics on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives, a week before the Davos 2024 summit.

Beyond Algorithms: The Impact of Emotional AI on Corporate Culture

Artificial emotional intelligence promises to revolutionise the way companies do business. With it, robots will be able to understand, react to and mimic human emotions. Ricardo Viana Vargas and André Barcaui discuss how the technology will affect healthcare, the workplace and personal relationships.

The Opportunities at the Intersection of AI, Sustainability, and Project Management

There are unprecedented opportunities at the intersection of AI, project management, and sustainability. Unfortunately, without proper execution, projects to implement AI come with complexities, costs and a carbon footprint that undermine sustainability goals. It is essential for project managers to learn to implement “green algorithms,” specialized AI constructs designed to both enhance operational efficiency and prioritize sustainability. A five-step framework of defining sustainability objectives, centralizing data, customizing algorithms, pilot testing, and full-scale implementation can guide project managers and leaders as they deploy green algorithms effectively.

AI: Beyond the Buzzword

As a senior project sponsor, you oversee a complex portfolio of projects with a combined budget exceeding $50 million. One of these is a high-stakes transformation project to modernize your company's production facilities. As you sit down for the weekly status update meeting, you're greeted by an AI-driven bot. It seamlessly synthesizes information from multiple projects into actionable insights, providing a clear snapshot of your entire project portfolio.

Are You Willing and Ready to Embrace AI?

When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), project leaders should ask themselves two key questions. First: Are my organization and I willing to adopt AI-inspired tools as part of the ordinary course of doing business, particularly in project management? This question will give you a sense of your organization’s appetite for adopting machine learning (ML)–inspired technology. The second—and, in fact, the more critical question—is: Are my organization and I ready to take this important leap forward? This question will give you a sense of how quickly you can identify and apply AI to projects.

Leading Projects in an AI-Powered World

Technology has begun to transform how organizations deliver projects, and rapid change lies ahead. What role will leaders play when AI is deployed in project management?

While AI is not yet a standard tool in the world of projects and project management, there is no doubt that it will disrupt this discipline, and probably faster than we expect. The prospect of that transformation seems almost incredible: in most organizations the tools used to manage projects remain relatively basic compared to the sophisticated digital technology being deployed in other parts of business. Most projects are still managed with Microsoft Office tools, such as Excel and PowerPoint. Can you imagine running your business and operations with spreadsheets? Well, that reflects how little technology has evolved in project management.

How AI Will Transform Project Management

Only 35% of projects today are completed successfully. One reason for this disappointing rate is the low level of maturity of technologies available for project management. This is about to change. Researchers, startups, and innovating organizations, are beginning to apply AI, machine learning, and other advanced technologies to project management, and by 2030 the field will undergo major shifts. Technology will soon improve project selection and prioritization, monitor progress, speed up reporting, and facilitate testing. Project managers, aided by virtual project assistants, will find their roles more focused on coaching and stakeholder management than on administration and manual tasks. The author show how organizations that want to reap the benefits of project management technologies should begin today by gathering and cleaning project data, preparing their people, and dedicating the resources necessary to drive this transformation.

Marketing is killing ESG. Here’s how we can save it.

Businesses are scrambling to signal compliance with ESG (environmental, social, and governance principles). However, as ESG entrenched itself in the mainstream, it lost much of its original meaning and impact and became more of a marketing tool. Ricardo Vargas writes that the problem may lie in the decoupling of the ‘social’ and ‘governance’ components from ‘environmental’ concerns. He uses the example of a project to rebuild homes in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake to show how all three ESG components can work together. 

Beyond Resilience: Leaders Must Urgently Embrace Antifragility

In 1968, the government of the Manitoba— a medium-sized province located at the geographic center of Canada—completed what was, at that time, one of the great engineering marvels of the developed world: the Red River Floodway.

The floodway is a 47-kilometer-long earthen channel used to divert surging water from the notoriously flood-prone Red River around the City of Winnipeg (Manitoba’s capital). The idea for the channel was first proposed by a government commission following the devastating flood of 1950 that completely submerged Winnipeg, requiring more than 100,000 people to be evacuated and causing damage that would amount to, in 2022 dollars, more than CA$11 billion. Even though the benefits were many, most political leaders shied away from the project. Most, but not all.