Superpowers. You've Got 'Em

October 28, 2023 | by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin

I missed posting yesterday but it was the day of my presentation which--whew!--is over and went off without a hitch, apart from a bit of mic feedback. All these presentations from PMI are recorded and available to view online, starting next Monday thru some time in January. I am planning to "attend" all the interesting ones that I missed because I couldn't be in two places at once. But for now, a shout-out to one of the fascinating speakers I did manage to catch.

Mike Griffiths did a terrific job on Thursday of showing practitioners all the ways that predictive and agile techniques can combine and work together to meet the demands of the real world in his session (219) "Feeling Conflicted? Implementing Agile Practices in an Un-Agile Organization." Mike was the lead author on PMI's Agile Practice Guide, among other important writings, and he's skilled at making the fog of buzzwords and coded language plain as day and just as sensible. Given that knowing how to apply the best approach--agile, predictive or some hybrid of the two--showed up in our 2023 research as a key skill for value delivery, PM Solutions Research is planning a 2024 research study that revisits our 2018 research on these approaches, and which takes a look at other trends--PMaaS and AI especially. Mike showed us, using simple, clear graphics, a plethora of ways that mixing agile and predictive PM makes practical sense. Kudos to him for the clarity! Often I've found that the agile in-group prides itself on arcane language and that's not the way you take a very accessible and necessary way of working mainstream. When I talk about people having superpowers, this is the kind of thing I am thinking about: the ability to read the room, understand where others are coming from, empathize with the struggles they have faced in their work--because you've faced them as well--and come up with just the right language to change the minds of others.

Another conversation, with my colleage Rich Maltzman of Boston University, touched on this theme of humanness being our superpower in the age of AI: he described an exercise he developed which involved asking ChatGPT for directions to build a birdhouse. The directions were correct, as far as they went, but glaringly lacked any safety information, like wear gloves and eye protection when operating the saw. Well, yes. Because AI has no hands and no eyes. I stole this anecdote for my presentation, so that I could tell my audience: AI can help us, but YOU have to be the hands and the eyes. That's our superpower.

Sign up for our list to receive an invitation to participate in that 2024 research, because January, when it rolls out, is right around the corner.

And stay tuned for my last blog from the conference. Just getting ready to attend the closing keynote now.

About the Author

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin is editor-in-chief for PM Solutions Research, and the author, co-author and editor of over twenty books on project management, including the 2007 PMI Literature Award winner, The AMA Handbook of Project Management, Second Edition.

View Posts by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin

Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin

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