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Episode: AI’s Impact on Project Management: Interview with Saby Waraich [AI Today Podcast]

Author: AI & Data Today
Duration: 00:18:26

Episode Shownotes

AI, and in particular generative AI, is having a profound impact on just about every industry. In this episode of AI Today hosts Kathleen Walch and Ron Schmelzer interview Saby Waraich to discuss AI’s impact on Project Management. Saby is CIO at Clackamas Community College and and speaking at the

PMI Austin, TX Professional Development Day May 2, 2024. Continue reading AI’s Impact on Project Management: Interview with Saby Waraich [AI Today Podcast] at Cognilytica.

Full Transcript

00:00:01 Speaker_00
The AI Today podcast, produced by Cognolitica, cuts through the hype and noise to identify what is really happening now in the world of artificial intelligence.

00:00:10 Speaker_00
Learn about emerging AI trends, technologies, and use cases from Cognolitica analysts and guest experts.

00:00:22 Speaker_02
Hello and welcome to the AI Today podcast. I'm your host, Kathleen Molch.

00:00:26 Speaker_01
And I'm your host, Ron Schmelzer. You know, one of the interesting things about AI, especially recently now that so many people are becoming familiar with generative AI on a daily basis and putting AI directly into use.

00:00:40 Speaker_01
This is not like the old days when maybe you were using AI, but maybe you weren't aware that you were using AI. Now everybody's aware that they're using AI, and so we're trying to make use of these tools and make them do what we want them to do.

00:00:53 Speaker_01
And I think what people are realizing, given that there are no hard skills, you don't need to program, you don't need to do math, you don't need to do science, you need to write English sentences or other languages as well, that the large language models work, all of a sudden soft skills are coming back into the vogue.

00:01:11 Speaker_01
People are talking about communication skills, creativity, intuition, and of course, project management, knowing what you're trying to solve.

00:01:19 Speaker_01
I think we're actually seeing a little bit of a rejuvenation here, a renaissance of many of these so-called literary and linguistic arts and all these sorts of things, which is kind of neat.

00:01:32 Speaker_01
So we're spending some more of our time here on the AI Today podcast really talking to folks who have really furthered The development of these skills, especially as they become more useful to make these AI systems do what we want them to do.

00:01:46 Speaker_02
Exactly. And Ron and I have been speaking a lot. So if you have subscribed to our newsletter, then you get to see all of the upcoming talks that we're doing both in-person and virtually. And if you haven't subscribed, I encourage you to do so.

00:01:59 Speaker_02
We'll link to it in the show notes. But for today's podcast, we're talking with presenters and participants at the Project Management Institute, Austin, Texas chapters, Professional Development Day.

00:02:11 Speaker_02
Ron and I were invited to speak there, and we are talking with other people that have been speaking there as well, so we've had some wonderful podcasts with that.

00:02:21 Speaker_02
The Austin PMI chapter serves over 3,000 project managers in the greater Austin area, and in addition to hosting this twice-a-year professional development days, they also host monthly events with speakers on a variety of topics that help their members

00:02:37 Speaker_02
stay current on the latest developments in project management. So if you're interested in learning more about PMI Austin and all of their monthly events, you can go to PMIAustin.org, and I'll link to that in the show notes as well.

00:02:48 Speaker_02
But as I mentioned, we are really excited to have with us today, Sabih Vedach, who is CIO at Clackamas Community College, and he'll also be speaking at the Professional Development Day. So welcome, and thanks so much for joining us.

00:03:01 Speaker_03
Thank you, Kathleen and Ron. I'm super excited to join you folks tomorrow, actually, and the day after tomorrow for our speaking engagement. So thank you for giving me this opportunity to be here chatting with you all things AI.

00:03:15 Speaker_02
Yeah, we're excited too. We'd like to start by having you first introduce yourself to our listeners and tell them a little bit about your background and now your current role.

00:03:23 Speaker_03
Absolutely. So I live in Portland, Oregon, but I was born in the most perfect city in the world.

00:03:29 Speaker_03
And if you don't know what's the most perfect city in the world is, you need to go to Google and search for the most perfect city and my hometown will show up. Well, I will cut that chase short. I'm going to give it to you. It's called Chandigarh.

00:03:42 Speaker_03
BBC did a study in 2016 and said Chandigarh is the most perfect city in the world. And then it's northern part of India. It's about five hours drive from New Delhi.

00:03:52 Speaker_03
And then people usually say, Saby, if that's the most perfect city, what are you doing in Portland, Oregon, right? Is that a valid question, Kathleen? You got it, right? So the answer back to them is, you know what?

00:04:02 Speaker_03
It became perfect after I left the city. So we get a good laugh out of it. My background is software development.

00:04:08 Speaker_03
I did my bachelor's in computer science and engineering back from India, worked for an Indian multinational firm, did some consulting, worked for GE Capital back in India, came to United States, did my master's here, and then started, did some consulting and then started working for City of Portland.

00:04:24 Speaker_03
And that's where my journey started as in a job And I worked there for about 15 years, started my journey as a software developer, became a project manager, coming to the good side, the bad side, or the dark side, depending upon who you ask.

00:04:38 Speaker_03
I did that for some time, became a business relationship manager, became application development manager. Then I headed the PMO, the project management office.

00:04:45 Speaker_03
I had a team of about 10, eight PMs, two business analysts, and we were doing IT projects throughout the city until one fine day in February 2018.

00:04:55 Speaker_03
My boss, who was the CTO at City of Portland, came to me and said, Saby, have you ever jumped from a plane? I was like, no. He was like, are you interested? I was like, no, I have fear of heights. They were like, guess what?

00:05:09 Speaker_03
I'm assigning you to this project. And that's the project, which I'm going to talk at PMI Austin is have we ever jumped from a plane? The journey of delivering a complex project. We actually delivered that project in February, 2020.

00:05:23 Speaker_03
I wasn't having much fun in my life during COVID. I joined Clackamas Community College as a chief information officer and a chief information security officer.

00:05:33 Speaker_03
So depending on a day, I may be spending maybe 50%, some days 70%, some days 100, some days even 150% of my day dealing with challenges related to cybersecurity. So I'm not only responsible for the operational part,

00:05:50 Speaker_03
at Clackamas Community College for the future, and where are we going with that? Clackamas Community College with 20,000 students, three different campuses, a lot of fun, a lot of engagement.

00:06:00 Speaker_03
So that's my full-time gig, but I'm also involved with a few boards. I'm the past president of PMI Portland Chapter, just like PMI Austin, PMI Portland Chapter, about 2,000 members, and I've been volunteering there for almost 15 years.

00:06:16 Speaker_03
I'm also the president of SimPortland Chapter. SIM stands for Society for Information Management. That is for IT directors, CIOs, CISOs, and whatnot. So I'm pretty excited about that.

00:06:29 Speaker_03
And then, of course, since I'm a keynote speaker and I go around the globe and I speak, so I'm also engaged with National Speakers Association Oregon Chapter. I'm on that board as well. So doing a lot of fun stuff in my spare time.

00:06:42 Speaker_01
Yeah, it sounds exciting. There's a lot of good things happening here. And even the nature of education is changing and the nature of the way we teach and the way students learn.

00:06:51 Speaker_01
All of that, not only in the face of just big changes happening in general, the remotes, work from home, the virtual environment. I think we know the pandemic really changed a lot.

00:07:02 Speaker_01
But now, of course, generative AI and AI systems where people can, one, accelerate their learning process, sometimes shortcut it, which is a problem, but in many cases engage with generative AI to drive

00:07:16 Speaker_01
deeper learning at maybe the levels that they want, where maybe they can't always get that. Or do things like summarize lectures. We've seen all that sort of stuff as well.

00:07:24 Speaker_01
So how do you see generative AI tools, such as the popular large language models, ChatGPT, et cetera, Google Gemini, how do you see them changing the role of project management on the one hand, and maybe the role of what else you're focusing on as your job at CIO and CISO as well?

00:07:43 Speaker_03
Yeah, absolutely. Traditionally, project managers have been very heavy on task-oriented. There's so much to do, so many minutes of the meeting to take, so many meetings to attend, and so many tasks to write all that down.

00:08:00 Speaker_03
With the help of generative AI and other AI tools, I see the role of a project manager to be changing from that heavy task oriented to be able to do more strategic conversations. Ron, you talked about those softer skills.

00:08:18 Speaker_03
How are you going to start spending that time to start having those conversations with your stakeholders to understand what are their pain points and are they aligned with delivering the scope of the project or not.

00:08:30 Speaker_03
Having those conversations and connecting at that human level is going to be the key piece for a project manager. That's what I see as a key piece in transition for project managers is start sharpening your skills

00:08:46 Speaker_03
In software skills start having conversations start building those skills how to build better relationship with your team members so you can deliver those complex products but also start playing with ai i have seen a few of those who are.

00:09:00 Speaker_03
So scared to play with ai and was like no start utilizing as your helper it's gonna augment.

00:09:08 Speaker_03
Your skillset in many many ways right so for personally my personal fashion assistant right so i am i will give you an example i am very challenged when it comes to fashion like colors i will do grey on grey white on white and what not and my daughter is always

00:09:30 Speaker_03
coming back and saying, Daddy, that's not how you should do it. So I was supposed to speak at a conference. And I was like, OK, what I'm going to wear? My daughter is not here.

00:09:40 Speaker_03
So I don't want to look unprofessional or show my weaker fashion sense in there. I'm on the stage. So what I did was, interestingly, I took a picture of my jacket. And I put it in ChatGPT and I said, could you please act like a fashion expert?

00:09:58 Speaker_03
Could you please look at the jacket and please tell me what color of shirt, what color of pant, what color of tie, what color of shoes can go with this? And guess what? It came back with giving me all that. So guess what?

00:10:12 Speaker_03
I am being dressed by ChatGPT these days. So that has become my fashion assistant right there. I like it.

00:10:21 Speaker_02
Yeah, you know, we always like to hear how different people are using ChatGPT for different things that maybe you would have never thought of.

00:10:30 Speaker_03
Yeah, yeah. And for my personal work here at Clackamas Community College, we are using ChatGPT's Teams version. So most of the concern around ChatGPT when you're working in an organization is Is my information safe?

00:10:46 Speaker_03
Is all that information being used by OpenAI or Microsoft for Copilot or Gemini for Google or anything to train my data? Right?

00:10:56 Speaker_03
So if you're using a free version, again, please don't put any sensitive data in those models because it's going out there and those organizations are using it. But for us, we're using Teams version.

00:11:10 Speaker_03
What that means is that all the data which we are putting in there is secure within our organization. So that is a benefit of that. And we are using it basically chat GPT, and also doing a proof of concept for Microsoft Copilot.

00:11:26 Speaker_03
But some of the things which we're using it for cybersecurity. We get so many phishing emails every single day. And what we have is phishing button on our Outlook.

00:11:39 Speaker_03
And people, if they see that this is a phishing email, they will click on that and it comes to our team. And somebody needs to look at that and provide a response to that. That's a lot of manual work right there.

00:11:50 Speaker_03
So one of our team members, he's super smart. He created a prompt where all he needs to do is copy and paste that email, put it in chat GPT prompt.

00:12:00 Speaker_03
And that chat GPT prompt, what it does is it analyzes that particular email, looks at everything and drafts a very personalized response for that particular individual. and telling them what not to do, whether this is a phishing email.

00:12:17 Speaker_03
And then my team member looks at that email, make sure it is correct, because that's another piece. Because one of the things you're gonna hear is people just copy and paste and say, oh, it's not working. But hallucination is a real thing, guys.

00:12:31 Speaker_03
It's a real thing. So make sure you have human oversight, looking at all that information and then sending it out. That has helped us to be very, very productive. in turning that manual work to be more automated work.

00:12:45 Speaker_02
Yeah, those are great insights. We always say AI is never a set it and forget it either. So you always need to be checking, you know, the output, keep the human in the loop, but yeah, use it to augment your role.

00:12:55 Speaker_02
So when it comes to project managers, how can they leverage their skills that, you know, their various skills that they have, especially some of those softer skills, you know, really good at communication, critical thinking, adaptability, attention to detail.

00:13:09 Speaker_02
How can they leverage all these skills to build conver... better conversational skills when it comes to AI in these large language models.

00:13:17 Speaker_03
Right. PMI is very focused on AI. In the last one year or so, they have provided a lot of guidance and material to project managers. And many of those courses are free.

00:13:29 Speaker_03
So if you haven't already used or gone through that course, Generative AI for Project Managers, or other prompt engineering for project managers, I will highly encourage you to download those resources and start using those, because it's an art.

00:13:46 Speaker_03
It's garbage in, garbage out. So if you're not putting the right information in there, you're gonna get a very different response. So start sharpening your skills on how to write effective prompts to get the right result and keep fine tuning it.

00:14:04 Speaker_03
It's not a final result, right? The fun part of chat GPT or these tools, they're conversational. They're gonna retain that knowledge in there. and make sure that you are having that conversation.

00:14:16 Speaker_03
If you're not happy with the output, make sure you do that. So there are great prompts out there. How do you build a project charter? On an average, a PM can take almost four to eight hours to create the first draft of a project charter.

00:14:33 Speaker_03
You can use chat GPT prompt by providing in the details of your project. But take you maybe 10 minutes to write the details of the project and say, could you please create me a project charter? And it will actually create you a project charter.

00:14:48 Speaker_03
And here's the beauty about that. If your organization has a particular template, which you use, you can upload that template and say, could you please use this template to get me the information which is needed? Right there.

00:15:02 Speaker_03
Again, please make sure you're not putting any sensitive information in there which is very proprietary to your organization and have a human oversight when you're looking at that. It's your first draft. Don't make it a final one.

00:15:16 Speaker_03
You need to engage your team members. Another one which is a game changer is minutes of the meeting.

00:15:24 Speaker_03
it takes so much time to basically take all those minutes of the meeting, going back and saying, okay, what were the action items from this particular meeting? Who said what? How am I going to do it? Did I capture all the conversation or not?

00:15:40 Speaker_03
So Zoom has an inbuilt AI tool now, and we are using that where it is taking notes while we're having a conversation.

00:15:48 Speaker_03
what project manager can focus on is rather than taking notes, it's facilitating those discussions and asking those valuable questions from the stakeholders to get the actual information.

00:15:59 Speaker_03
So it's not stressed about taking the notes or anything else like that. We have created a prompt where you grab all that information from, you know from your zoom because it's going to give you all that information from the meeting.

00:16:17 Speaker_03
You put that in there and and the prompt is very detailed. And it will tell you who all were there in the meeting. What was the time of the meeting? What all was discussed? Who said what they're going to do?

00:16:30 Speaker_03
Action items and again it gives you a detailed template which you can use. So multiple use cases. We have been using it every single day on many. I can tell you like 20 other different use cases where we're using it.

00:16:45 Speaker_01
That's fantastic. I think when people hear this, I think the biggest thing that gets in the way, I think, with people making effective use of generative AI is creativity. Simply just thinking of what to do.

00:16:58 Speaker_01
Then they start seeing other examples and they're like, oh, that's good. Then, of course, they make their prompting techniques more advanced. When people start, they write a sentence or something. We know that doesn't work because

00:17:08 Speaker_01
I mean, remember that it's being trained on the entire internet. So you can try to figure out from the entire internet, just based on your one sentence, it's going to give you some pretty generic stuff, right?

00:17:18 Speaker_01
But then as you start making it more specific, as you follow the prompt patterns, some of our listeners may be familiar with some of this, because we also have a newsletter series that we put out that talks about the prompt engineering best practices, one of which is use a prompt pattern, because it'll help you remember to put all those things in.

00:17:36 Speaker_01
that are usually good for an LLM, the role, the task, the format, all that sort of stuff, right? And then the other thing is, of course, use of prompt chaining techniques where you could follow up with additional things.

00:17:46 Speaker_01
Maybe you already have it as a plan, like ask something general, then break it down. This is fantastic. You know, that's why I'm saying, you know, even though

00:17:53 Speaker_01
We are not building AI systems from scratch when we're doing this, we're really using the AI systems that others have spent their millions of dollars to build. We could still gain so much value from that.

00:18:05 Speaker_01
This is really great insight and maybe we'll dig in, maybe we'll even take a look at some of the prompts you wrote just out of curiosity and kind of...

00:18:12 Speaker_03
Absolutely. You know, here's a golden question for ChattyPT. After you get the solution, what did I miss? That's the amazing question all the time, and you will be amazed to see the output which all these tools give you.

00:18:27 Speaker_03
And it's amazing to see the increasing productivity, basically, of being so much wasting your time on mundane tasks, and now suddenly you have a little bit more time to work on those strategic initiatives.

00:18:40 Speaker_01
Yeah, exactly. I think for us, what we call the explainer bundle on these things where it's like, tell me what I missed, tell me what the alternatives are, tell me what the pros and cons are. It's amazing.

00:18:51 Speaker_01
Of course, what's happening is that, as we all know, the LLM is just using the internet to say, here's what the internet said, and here was what the internet said, That wasn't what I already said, and it just kind of does the little difference.

00:19:04 Speaker_01
Once you understand how the magic trick works, it doesn't seem so much magical, but it is still highly powerful. So actually bringing that in a little bit into here for a question for you.

00:19:15 Speaker_01
And by the way, for those who are our listeners who are interested in really not just applying AI to project management, but also applying project management to AI, because we do need to run these AI systems that are incredibly valuable.

00:19:29 Speaker_01
Now you hear it. They're becoming part of your everyday lives. There is a methodology. There is an approach for running and managing AI projects called CPMAI, the Cognitive Project Management for AI methodology.

00:19:41 Speaker_01
It's been around for a while, adopted by both public and private sector Agencies, if you're interested in learning more, you can learn more at aitoday.live slash cpmai. I'll tell you all about the cpmai methodology.

00:19:54 Speaker_01
And of course, for those who want to learn it and get certified, we have training and certification for our folks around that. So let's talk a little bit more about sort of these soft skills.

00:20:03 Speaker_01
We talked about them earlier, the skills around communication and creativity, you know, the ones that are really, I think, for, you know, learning how to learn, you know, learning how to be intuitive, learning how to you know, go beyond the box.

00:20:15 Speaker_01
You know, maybe we haven't really learned those skills so much in school. People have just learned to be in the box. And I think breaking out of the box is key to being really successful with AI.

00:20:24 Speaker_01
So maybe you could tell us from your perspective, you know, what soft skills are, do you think are going to become most important, especially for project managers in this AI, generative AI world?

00:20:35 Speaker_03
Yeah, I think the core core skill which is going to be a game changer and has been a game changer for PM's or any leader for so many years is how can you effectively build trust within your team and within your organization?

00:20:52 Speaker_03
Because it's all about building those relationship and there's if there's no trust. There is no relationship right there zero. So here's an equation for your listeners. Give it out to them. T is equal to R plus C plus I divided by SI.

00:21:13 Speaker_03
T is equal to R plus C plus I divided by SI. So what does that mean? R stands for reliability. Are you a reliable person? C stands for competence, I stands for integrity, and SI stands for self-interest. So let's break it down step-by-step.

00:21:35 Speaker_03
So how do you become reliable? The first basic thing for being reliable is keeping those commitments, right? Do what you say you're going to do and just do it. That's the first principle in there. And then you should be able to talk straight.

00:21:52 Speaker_03
Talk straight is be honest. Leave no doubt what the other person may be thinking. That will help to take that reliability factor to the next level. There are a couple of other factors. One is demonstrate respect.

00:22:09 Speaker_03
Be fair, be kind, but here's the most important, be consistent. Who are you showing your respect to? Is it to somebody who is higher in your organization, or is it to everyone in the organization?

00:22:23 Speaker_03
If you're very picky in giving that respect, your team is not going to trust you. And the last one is creating that transparency, being open and authentic. So that's how you become reliable.

00:22:36 Speaker_03
C stands for competence, and competence is basically delivering results. If your boss or manager or somebody is giving you a task, or let's say somebody gave you this project to deliver, can you actually deliver that project?

00:22:54 Speaker_03
Do you have the competency to deliver? How do you build that competency? You build that competency by getting better by continuously learning and growing at the same time.

00:23:04 Speaker_03
So for the folks who are listening to this podcast, this is part of building your competence because today you may learn few things which you weren't aware about that. A couple of other factors which will help you to create that competency.

00:23:19 Speaker_03
One is clarifying expectations. Now, if you're not very clear about the goals, and your team is not very clear about the goals, whether that's goals for the project or in their life, that's not going to help to build that competence.

00:23:37 Speaker_03
Then you're running after something which nobody's aware of. So make sure you clarify those expectations and set very clear goals. Last thing in there is to build that competency is confront reality.

00:23:49 Speaker_03
What that means is, are you the kind of leader who shoved things under the carpet? Or are you the kind of leader who is addressing those issues and leading those issues courageously? Have that courage, right?

00:24:05 Speaker_03
Because problems don't get better with time. The stuff which you are shoving under the carpet, pretty soon it's going to start stinking, and it's going to be very bad. So make sure you take care of those issues and lead courageously.

00:24:20 Speaker_03
So that's reliability, competence, and then comes integrity. And integrity is a simple definition, is doing the right thing even when nobody's watching, right? So here is what I say, do the right thing first time.

00:24:35 Speaker_03
If you're not able to do it, let's say if you did something wrong, own it, correct it, and please make sure you don't repeat it. That's how you're going to build that trust. Other factors coming to that is setting some of the boundaries, right?

00:24:49 Speaker_03
Define and respect those boundaries. Don't share information or experiences that are not yours to share, period. Don't start that rumor mill because eventually it's going to come back to me and that trust level is going to go down.

00:25:03 Speaker_03
Vulnerability is another factor. Demonstrate the courage to share those personal stories, personal truths. And last one is the values. Choose to practice your values rather than just saying it, right?

00:25:17 Speaker_03
If you're saying, hey, honesty is the best policy, or I respect everyone, but your actions don't match with what you're saying, the team is not going to trust you. So R plus C plus I, and then here's divided by SI. SI stands for self-interest.

00:25:37 Speaker_03
So if you take self-interest out, let's say if you're doing everything and anything for you, your own self, your team is not going to trust you. So inversely, if you want to build that trust within your team, take that self-interest out.

00:25:51 Speaker_03
You know, do it for a bigger vision, bigger purpose. That's how you build that trust. How can you build, how can you show those behaviors? One is by giving credit.

00:26:02 Speaker_03
Are you the kind of leader who takes all the credit themselves or are you loyal to your team by saying, you know, this is so-and-so and that's what they accomplished? Give credit to others where it is. Don't just take it.

00:26:14 Speaker_03
Active listening is another one. Are you listening to to just listen? Are you listening to respond? Are you actually listening to understand? That's how it does it. Here's the big one. This always has been a key piece.

00:26:34 Speaker_03
People usually say, as a leader, as a manager, it's like, you need to trust me, man. But then going back to the team, they say, You need to earn my trust, buddy. It doesn't go that way, right? It's two separate pieces which you're looking at.

00:26:50 Speaker_03
Extend that trust. Give your team members a full bucket of trust, and based on their actions, either they're going to empty it out, or they're going to keep it fulfilled. So extend that trust to get that trust back.

00:27:05 Speaker_03
So that's how you build trust, and that will help you to succeed as a leader, as a project manager. Please remember that equation, T is equal to R plus C plus I divided by SI.

00:27:17 Speaker_02
Yeah, that's great. Our listeners, maybe you'll have to go back and rewind that, but they can definitely get that. And, you know, cause it is incredibly important. We talk about trust all the time, especially when it comes to AI systems as well. Right.

00:27:29 Speaker_02
You, if you don't trust, you know, the system, you're not going to use it. And so you spend all this money and time and resources. So trust is a really big overarching theme for us always.

00:27:40 Speaker_02
So we always like to ask our guests one final question, and no matter how many times we've asked, we always get such varied responses. Some people are very practical, some are very philosophical.

00:27:50 Speaker_02
You get to take your own backgrounds and personal experiences into this answer. What do you believe is the future of AI in general and its application to organizations and beyond?

00:28:03 Speaker_03
Right. So AI has been here in our system for such a long time, right? 1950s machine learning, 1956 when AI was coined. So it is nothing new, but generative AI is one which has made it to the mainstream and now everybody's focused on that.

00:28:24 Speaker_03
And I see the future of AI incredibly promising. With you know, potential applications extending far beyond the turn cap. It's in a very young stage.

00:28:38 Speaker_03
NVIDIA, there was a session by one of their leaders and they were talking about the breakthrough chips which they're breaking, which are gonna help solve so many of the medical problems which we as humans are not able to solve.

00:28:56 Speaker_03
So AI is expected to be more autonomous. more predictive, more personalized, right? Khan Amigo is a great example where students can have their own personal assistant now, help them to learn skills in a much better way.

00:29:14 Speaker_03
So it's going to make a huge and significant impact in how organizations operate. When I look at project management, it will probably lead to more you know, a better resource allocation, more dynamic resource allocation.

00:29:31 Speaker_03
Risks are always a huge part of that. How are you going to manage those risks? So can you actually have a real-time risk assessments? Because those risks, they don't stay continuous throughout the project, they keep changing.

00:29:42 Speaker_03
So how can you utilize that AI tool? And even more engaged with stakeholder communication through those personalized updates and insights. So that's what I see in terms of project management, right? How can you build those effective relationships?

00:29:59 Speaker_03
One of the two, one of the prompts which we're using is based on lessons learned.

00:30:03 Speaker_03
We are feeding that lessons learned into the tool and say, could you please figure out what kind of emotion was, or what do you get out of this lessons learned and how could we make it a little bit more better, right?

00:30:15 Speaker_03
So incredible opportunity right now in front of us. Please don't be, fearful take it yes we need to be watchful we need to be you know looking at the challenges which come with the ai but

00:30:32 Speaker_03
Again, I think somebody should have coined this line, which was like, your job is not going away, but somebody who uses AI will take your job, right? I don't know who said that, but whosoever said it, it has been repeated a million number of times.

00:30:50 Speaker_03
So please, start using it. Make it fun, right? I dress up, as I said. Here's another example I use. Initially, I took a screenshot of my workout machine in my garage.

00:31:04 Speaker_03
And if this is a workout machine from Costco, I said, hey, could you please act like my personal fitness expert? I want to lose 20 pounds or 10 pounds. Please look at this machine and tell me what all the exercises I can do.

00:31:16 Speaker_03
Put it in a table format and I don't have more than 15 minutes per day. Boom, it became my personal assistant. Is it 100% correct? No, but it's maybe 70, 80, 90%. I will take it. So that's where the opportunity is. It's huge. Start embracing it.

00:31:37 Speaker_01
Yeah. Yeah, and I think these are really, you know, I think these ideas in part, as I said, you know, part of the challenge of AI is really creativity, human creativity, right? Interestingly enough, the machine can't be creative for you.

00:31:49 Speaker_01
It'll just, it still is at the end of the day, a machine trained on all the internet. But if you were to

00:31:55 Speaker_01
The alternative would be like you could take your machine and you could go out and do a million Google searches and whatever searches and probably read all the articles and you might maybe come to the same set of conclusions yourself.

00:32:07 Speaker_01
But why bother doing all that? We already have a model that's been trained on all that content. You might as well, it's good at summarizing. So go out there, ask your question, get the summarization.

00:32:16 Speaker_01
I think as people become more and more and more familiar with it, just like they were with searching because when when people may or may not know this, but like, you know, hey, in the early 1990s, nobody knew how to use the Internet.

00:32:28 Speaker_01
We barely knew how to search. Actually, what made Google revolutionary in its way was that it just had a better search. Right. Prior to that, the searches were awful. If you remember those days, you could not find anything on the internet.

00:32:41 Speaker_01
It was there and you could not find it. And Google said, we will help you find it. Now, everything was just a Google search away. Now, actually, Google searches are really difficult. Now, everything is just a query away, just a product.

00:32:55 Speaker_01
And I really like the way that you're thinking about it sounds you're making daily use. And yeah, I think people should know. Don't be afraid of it. The tool is here.

00:33:01 Speaker_01
And as you mentioned, you will find yourself quickly obsoleted by those who are making effective use of the technology.

00:33:10 Speaker_01
I want to thank you, Sabi, so much for joining us here on AI Today, sharing your insights, your wisdom, the things you've learned from your years of experience and the ways you're putting AI into practice.

00:33:21 Speaker_01
I think this is why we have folks like you here, sharing these things and these great insights on the AI Today podcast. I want to thank you very much.

00:33:28 Speaker_03
Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Kathleen. I had a really great time. Recently, I've been appointed by governor at state of Oregon to be on the AI Advisory Council.

00:33:39 Speaker_03
So I am learning, I am getting better and saying how AI is going to impact all of us and how we can put some guardrails around it. How can we create some policies around it so that we can all feel safe in and more confident in using this AI.

00:33:55 Speaker_02
Yeah, that's wonderful. We're definitely going to have to stay up to date on that. And, you know, it really is all about trust and it's about being comfortable with it. That's why I like how you said, just use it.

00:34:05 Speaker_02
You know, there's a lot of fears and concerns when it comes to AI. Don't be fearful of this. See how you can use it. We always talk about augmented intelligence. This really is, you know, the idea of augmented intelligence.

00:34:17 Speaker_02
It's not meant to replace you, but do your job better. So how is it able to allow you to work out better or dress, you know, more professionally?

00:34:27 Speaker_03
Yeah, don't tell that to my daughter. She's gonna be like, daddy, AI is taking my job away.

00:34:33 Speaker_02
But you know, we actually bring that quote up a lot, where it's AI, because a few years ago, everybody said, you know, is AI going to be a job killer? And what people are saying is AI is not a job killer.

00:34:43 Speaker_02
But if you don't use AI, it's going to replace you.

00:34:46 Speaker_03
Absolutely. Recently, a World Economic Survey did a survey and said 85 million jobs are going to go away. 85 million jobs. Guess what? 97 new million jobs will be created. It's a huge, huge shift. So we all need to be excited and get ready for that shift.

00:35:03 Speaker_02
Yeah, and this happens with any wave of technology and we always talk about that too, you know, 20, 25 years ago, what was a social media marketer? No clue, right? And now there's a lot of jobs created because of that.

00:35:15 Speaker_02
So this has been such a wonderful discussion today. We're really looking forward to getting to meet you in person at the PMI Austin event.

00:35:24 Speaker_02
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00:35:30 Speaker_02
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00:35:42 Speaker_02
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00:35:52 Speaker_02
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00:36:07 Speaker_02
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00:36:33 Speaker_02
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