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Welcome to the Iprograms Podcast, The Art of Program Management. Join Dr. Bill Bersing, President of Iprograms, as he brings you insightful interviews with top leaders and professionals in the field.
Each episode delves into the most challenging aspects of program and project management, offering expert insights, real-world strategies, and valuable tips to elevate your skills. Our guests share their invaluable experiences and expertise across various industries and regions, from cost control and scheduling to managing global, large-scale programs.
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Expert insights on key topics in program and project management
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Lessons learned from experienced professionals in the field
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Inspiration and guidance for advancing your career in program management
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📚 Resources:
Project Management https://pmi.org
Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)
Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling by Harold Kerzner
Project Management - Dennis Lock
By Dennis Lock
Welcome back to the art of program management. I'm excited to be here with our esteemed host, doctor Bill, who brings over 30 years of experience to the table. Today, we're diving into the fascinating world of AI within program management. Doctor Bill, we're eager to learn more about your expert insights and your secret techniques for leveraging AI to optimize projects. So let's get started.
Speaker 1:With your knowledge and experience in technology and innovation, can you please define artificial intelligence for our listeners and explain its role in program management?
Speaker 2:You would explain it as having a super smart, so a friend to answer your questions. It gives it in a way that based on artificial intelligence, which is like the data and all the big information we have that goes back in, it finds common themes and impressions finds things that relate to what you do, your emails in the past. If they can pattern that, which is what artificial intelligence does based on how you've written back to people and your emails, it would take that and would take your emails and it would approve the way you write. Or it would generate, as you can see in Copilot and chat GBT or other things like Grammarly. It'll take what your email is and automatically an Outlook generator response to certain things.
Speaker 2:Or in, in the world of, these other applications out there, it automatically come up with a response that you can do.
Speaker 1:Early on in AI, it looked like Grammarly, because Grammarly's been around for years years. And now they're doing some extraordinary things. You told me earlier that just in the past 2 or 3 years, it's really helped program management.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it has, and we just look at everything we have. Everybody carries around an iPhone or some type of smartphone. You look at that, it, it recognizes your voice. It looks at your face. That's all artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2:Some of the play in the games, things that the kids are doing now, a 10 year old don't understand what that is. It helps us with the little tasks at hand. When we look and we say, Hey, Google or Hey, Safari, what's this? What's that? What's my agenda today?
Speaker 2:What's my, what's the weather like? That's all considered artificial intelligence. Seeing and recognizing pictures and things like that. We can now take anything and just say, okay, I want a picture of George Washington and him crossing the bridge in the middle of Manhattan. And then it'll come up with a picture.
Speaker 2:Those are all really cool things with artificial intelligence that we can do now.
Speaker 1:So what are we doing right now as far as program management? Can you explain the role that artificial intelligence has had 10 years ago, like with Primavera versus what it has now?
Speaker 2:Yeah. We didn't even really have the term of artificial intelligence with Primavera. 5, 10 years ago, we were using Primavera P6 scheduling software, and it would, automate different things. We'd have, algorithms that would pop out and say, okay, for this program, we would have, we want to spend, we want to make sure it's an S curve on these typical projects. We want front end load these projects.
Speaker 2:So you have 20 or 30 different large construction programs. You may outline it and through Primavera, you can look and see where you are for the work in place projection, for example, for every year, or how much you're going to spend based on the 9 because pretty of our back then had 9 and they probably still do different ways of projecting how you spend your money within that project or program. So those are cool acumen fuse, which is another thing that I've always stated. That's a pretty good application will allow you to go through the 14 processes for scheduling and looking at the different aspects of it. These could be considered artificial intelligence as well.
Speaker 2:But what we have now in the construction and program management industry, I don't think anybody really does it. I can tell you what I do. I can tell you with our IPS and my programs does, in this field. We've, invested heavily in me for a small company and to chat GBT and to copilot all the Microsoft office stuff in Microsoft office. One of good example is probably everybody on this call can relate to Excel and what they've been doing within Excel to automate processes, automate some of the tables and things that we have for really data analytics and things like that.
Speaker 2:So those are really neat Grammarly. Everybody knows that. So we have Grammarly all of our employees have Grammarly's all employees have Copilot. I know you do. We have, chat GPT 4.0.
Speaker 2:You probably don't have that yet. If you need it, we can get it for you. But the fact is these applications for doing office and doing this call right now and doing all of our conference calls, there's a bit of artificial intelligence built into everything. We take this now. We transcribe.
Speaker 2:2 years ago or 3 years ago, we wouldn't even dream of doing transcription in every call, but we basically do that. We tell everybody, Hey, we're gonna tape this. We're gonna transcribe it. But even for the simple calls, recently we had a call doing a time impact analysis and doing some claims and we transcribe every bit of it, but, nobody's really offended by that. We're just using it to be able to write a good time impact analysis for NAVFAC and they sent over here's what you should do.
Speaker 2:And we do it all that way anyway. But that was very helpful in those meetings to be able to come up with good, not just meeting minutes, but just, Hey, this is what we're going to walk away with. Here's what we came away with. Here's the collaborative effort. And we weren't just using Teams.
Speaker 2:We were using WhatsApp. We're using emails. We're using everything in our hours as a team to get this thing, this deliverable, which was due tomorrow, by the way, out to our client, to be able to give us an app back to say, Hey, this is the way it is. We don't want any questions. We wanna make sure that it's viewed by our customer in a certain way.
Speaker 2:So these tools, they could have really helped.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's great. In our previous episodes, we've explored the top ten challenges for program management, including project complexity, cost management, schedule adherence. And so with these things, how can we leverage and mitigate some of these challenges and improve the overall program management effectiveness with AI?
Speaker 2:Yeah. The beginning of a project and program is different than the middle than the end. So each aspect of it really comes into play here. So, artificial intelligence, I it has just opened my world up to say, hey, processes and procedures I would manage. Like I always harp at need to be like understood.
Speaker 2:We need to understand our project and program from the beginning, even in the middle and the end, if you just have to continuously upgrade and update what you are, but artificial intelligence is right there. Artificial intelligence will help us write that program management plan or that communication management plan at the beginning of the project. I can go back in and I can say, hey, this is a good here it is. Here's one I used in the past. So, I'll upload it to chat GPT.
Speaker 2:I'll give you my see, I uploaded chat GPT, and then I also upload the version that I want or the things I wanna do to change it. And then within that, I give it some parameters within chat GPT to be able to go by, and then it'll spit out me a really good draft of something. And then you have meetings and within those meetings, which would be teams meetings, because I like teams and maybe people help other people like other applications. For doing it, but I like teams, just because I can, with the process and procedure for the program. So to answer your question, what do we use?
Speaker 2:Process and procedure for the program. So to answer your question, what do we use? There are many applications that we can use. It's depends on the capabilities and the experience of your team. Of course, because I'm not the only one on the team.
Speaker 2:We have other program managers that can do things and it depends on how they want to view things on those projects. But using copilot, using chat GPT, using Grammarly, all the information systems that we have, taking out the best ones is the best choice for that. Hopefully, I answered your questions.
Speaker 1:How about some that are specific to program management?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Acumen fuse, Prolog, ProgNet, e Builder, Procur, MS projects, all of these applications, trying to have a data validation intelligence built into. We have what we call a relational database. And I've developed a couple of many on larger programs in both access and FileMaker Pro, which are 2 very good applications that a lot of people still use acumen. And then you have aqua next, which is by Oracle one, some other really good ones.
Speaker 2:There's a ton of them, but the fact is many of the applications that are being used are used as applications with your contractors. And as we were talking about before, every program I've worked on, they'll have, a server network drive that they go to, to be able to do this. And no matter what people say, even accountants, the larger accountants have always harped on this. They always have some type of Excel or access. Like, mostly just Excel sheet that they go to.
Speaker 2:They have a server that they go to. There's OneDrive, there's, Dropbox and all these things. And recently we've been using really Kite Works, which is a great one, to manage all our information and data. I think that's good because they use a bit of artificial intelligence to make sure that the information is secure. Those are really the main ones I would recommend.
Speaker 2:It's really a pointed question because every program is different. So you have to get together with your group and your team to be able to figure out what technologies you want to use, develop your process and procedures orally. Make sure that the first thing you do is look at your risk management. Look at your program management plan to communication management plan. These are documents, many program managers consider a waste of time because they are like, nobody looks at it afterwards, but it's something that everybody needs to look at and be involved
Speaker 1:with. You were tapping in the next question, which was once you've chosen the different AI programs that you're going to use, how do you seamlessly integrate it into the program?
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's tough because you gotta really keep an open mind, especially with artificial intelligence of using different documents, different technologies out there. Some people are good at it. Some people aren't, some people like to use the same thing. They've been used to in the past.
Speaker 2:I've been on programs where, we had file management system within the server and, change the naming structure or make any changes because this is the way they've done it. So therefore, that's it. And, there's a bit of a power struggle on all that, but how do you implement artificial intelligence in a program? It's a question that's gonna come up, but it's not something like that. We don't say artificial intelligence in the program management industry.
Speaker 2:We just don't say, Hey, how do you implement it? We say, how do you manage the processes and procedures? How do you manage the program? Which organization structure? But the, you know, artificial intelligence, it's a new thing that, that has come up.
Speaker 2:I think their good investment could be to say, Hey, we're gonna use not just 1, but 2 or 3, Chappie, GPT, copilot, and something else like we've been doing to manage the progress because every application like Chat GPT doesn't do everything. Copilot doesn't do everything. I use them differently. I'll do something with email or do something different with our artificial intelligence application. And one that I can't do with the other.
Speaker 2:So I gotta have them all. Call me weird, but you gotta have them for what it is. But then again, if you're investing in a large program, you can't just buy everything for everybody. You have to stick with something that you know and do. Stuck with teams and office, that's an application with our company.
Speaker 2:I think that's the best way to go. If you're good with it, I think a lot of people that come out of school, I've met with people and senior executives of large small companies. That's all they do is Gmail and Google business. But for me, Microsoft office, a great application. There's nothing that competes with it.
Speaker 2:There's free office stuff, but there's nothing like Microsoft when it comes to one drive. And when it comes to integration using MS teams to me is the best in this class.
Speaker 1:How do you overcome the challenges of security with AI?
Speaker 2:God, it's tough, man. People, when you talk about security, the first thing that pops up in my head is that, you can talk online. We can talk right now. We can talk on the cell phone or whatever, and people can hear you. They can look at everything you say.
Speaker 2:If you put your social security number out there, it's out there for everybody. With artificial intelligence, we've invested heavily in Kite Works, which is great. It just needs all the data security. I can exchange information with people overseas if that have a Type Works account through IPS, but when artificial intelligence now, it's another dynamic because I can create a outlook kind of word, kind of artificial intelligence workflow that just boom. And you can find out who the employees are, find out who the executives are, target their email, because if you know the email structure and how they do it, first name, last name, first initial, last name, and then the w at whatever Microsoft dot com, you can target everybody.
Speaker 2:You can do anything. And if I did that with a robot or a computer using artificial intelligence, it's out there. So I can try to find that inside threat. For me as a small business owner, managing projects all over the place, we got to have that security. That's why we invested in something like kite works.
Speaker 2:Microsoft is good too. They have some good background, good things, but you really need to have something that is a little bit better. If you have information that you don't want to be shared with the entire world.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And I see that as an advantage to the naysayers who don't wanna switch over to another program because they've always used one thing. The safety and security has to come first.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 1:So speaking of resistance to change, overcoming hesitations within the team in an ideal world, how do you approach this when starting your program?
Speaker 2:Anything that you do, we begin with the end in mind. So you look at the big program, you look at exactly what your goals are. You have those meetings, and then you provide the training and education for the artificial intelligence applications, to be able to make the team effective. That's better earlier than the middle or the end of the project, but anytime, education and, and continuous learning is a big part of it. And now with artificial intelligence, it makes it so easy because I can come up with, just YouTube.
Speaker 2:I can say, oh yeah, this is it. This, we want to get trained up. And then damn, there it is. Found something that's interesting and I can pass it about to the team, the program and say, here, do it. And then, the robust security data security measures and all that needs to be implemented as well.
Speaker 2:Continuous improvement with the processes and procedures in the owned and managed, things that we do. That always has to be up in the, in how we address those challenges with implementing, the successful artificial intelligence initiatives on a program. Programs are a little bit different because you're managing so much information. They're usually not mitigating technologies, not okay. We're going to do this today and next week or today we're going to do these 10 things.
Speaker 2:And then you got a one app activity after another. It's long length technology. It's like you got a program and you have to make sure it's successful. What does success mean to you on that program? It's different for everything, but usually it's using the long link technologies.
Speaker 2:Using long link technologies with artificial intelligence is totally different than using mitigating, technologies with artificial intelligence, if that's clear.
Speaker 1:The different technologies.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like with chat GPT and even Grammarly would be considered an artificial intelligence. Grammarly is great. We've been using that for the last 2, 3 years as a paid subscriber for everybody. But it's more towards, Hey, I have a word document in Excel.
Speaker 2:Here's the grammar. Here's some suggestions. And it pops up with artificial intelligence to say, Hey, you should reword it like this. Or comes up with suggestions, which we can do. And it's really important to have that experience doing so with Grammarly in any other application, you can't just hire somebody out of college or out of high school, to, to work for you and then just spit it out with artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2:You have to have that practical experience doing it. So with Grammarly, it's way more important that you have to have an understanding of what it is that you're doing, because you can click the wrong thing and it could say the same thing, but in a different manner, which gives you impression of something else, or it could make the meaning of what you're saying totally different than what you want to say. So now if you use chat with GPT for 4.0 versus 3.0, 4.0 goes a little bit more artistic and this and that than 3.0, but you still need to be able to say, okay, if I put in a good example was the program management, you get a good plan that I'm doing for this one project. I wanna do another one for this other project. And then you put you upload the program management.
Speaker 2:You say, I want something similar to this with this and change the name to this and that. Here's my audience. Here's my here's what I wanna do. And then it'll come up, but there's nothing that chat gbt or even Copilot can come up with that can make it your program.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:So you have to have that understanding, but that's a good example of the difference between Grammarly, which is gonna look at your words and your grammar and come up with maybe paragraphs, maybe different sentences versus chat GPT, which will come up with the entire change, everything around type thing. Copilot is different too, because copilot's more integrated with your emails. They can go through the emails. I can say, Hey, I wanna know everything that Virginia did last week, based on our emails that came in and out. And you can do that with Copilot.
Speaker 2:Wow. There it is. Here's what you did last week. Those things, nobody knows that you can do Copilot. We're an orphanage, but that's not gonna be done in something like chat GBT, because it's not integrated, but it is integrated if you pay for it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Chat GPT, you can even do an Excel and it has a little thing called chat GPT for Excel. And then you pay for that, which I'm not into. I think the, the Excel version of Copilot or the Excel version of whatever they're doing with artificial intelligence is just as good for anybody that's doing this world, unless you that's all you do is data analytics and you just want to have that chat GPT thing going on in the background, which is good, but just different from what. We don't want computer programmers for program managers. We want people who understand construction and programs to be able to run the programs and use artificial intelligence, to be able to streamline what they do.
Speaker 2:If you know what you're doing, then it will make you even quicker. Cause I can come up with some things. I understand how to apply this something, or I understand how to put together this process procedure. I'll put it together, put it through chat GBT. It'll come up with some improvements, correct my grammar, do whatever it takes.
Speaker 2:And then you have your process. I love lucid charts. I also love the.com, that application because it goes through your processes and comes up with an organization chart, which comes up with very streamlined ways of doing things in your organization. So there's a lot of really cool applications out there. Unfortunately, nobody knows them all.
Speaker 2:I don't even know them all, but it's exciting world. And on any other program that I go on to, I'm gonna say, this is what I think Here's the applications I've been using, but other people will have other applications, other things, other ways of doing business. Maybe it's not Microsoft, maybe it's Google, maybe it's something else. And for me, it's exciting.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. There should be a what would you suggest to somebody just dipping their toe in the water and wanting to do what you're doing. How do they get started?
Speaker 2:Within program management, you gotta apply the application, you have to invest in it, which is a hard thing to do. It's $20 a month, which is you think it's easy, but it's hard. And then, it's how much for Microsoft office copilot or whatever, but use any of these applications and just begin with what you have. And you say, okay, here's what I'm gonna do for this process, This procedure, you take what you have. Maybe it's you already have a communication plan or whatever, upload it to the chat gbt.
Speaker 2:Tell them what you want to do. You want to clarify something, you want to do something and then bam, you can have another version of your project management program management plan or your communication plan. And it's good because it's, you'll come up with good ideas and you'll say, Hey, here's my ideas. And then you put it into chat GPT. And then based on what you've already submitted, it'll spit out some things that will be similar to what you want in there, but then you have to re edit it and it takes time, but that's how I got into it because I, I have all these process procedures already outlined and then here it is.
Speaker 2:And then I come up with chat GPT or copilot or whatever it is. And, and it's good. And then Grammarly is another one I would strongly suggest anybody, even in academics, buy the professional version of Grammarly. I'm not here to promote. We're not getting paid for any of this stuff.
Speaker 2:It is what we use. And I think it's something to start doing. There may be other things. And I think if anybody who's listening to this have other applications they use, I like to hear about it. There's a couple of things that I've used RoboForm is one that saves my passwords and all this.
Speaker 2:RoboForm, security wise, I shouldn't say what I've used, but revophone is a great one because I store my, all my websites. I've used it for 20 years or so. That's a great one. There's things that are out there that I'm probably not aware of, but every year we do this university of Washington, the master's program, this thing that you review all the apps. Usually they're under $15.
Speaker 2:And a lot of this is artificial intelligence. Now I haven't done it for a few years, but they would actually have me as a judge to look at their master's thesis or their undergraduate thesis, which had to do with some application that's out there that for construction and program management, those things are great. So any, I would like to hear back on that?
Speaker 1:Yes. Yes. I love the fact too, that some of the AI programs learn from your like, you were saying with Copilot learning from all the emails, chat GPT, some of the other ones can actually learn from your conversation. There's a program called pie.ai, and it's an emotionally intelligent chat GPT. And I really love it because it understands me more and more as I use it.
Speaker 1:And so it it can help me in ways that maybe another one couldn't. And and I think that you were right earlier saying that one program doesn't have all the answers and using multiple programs really does help, and you have to get better and better at it. Right? You have to learn how to use AI. Wouldn't you say that's true?
Speaker 2:I've seen things and, you know, my wife, Barbara, she's, I'm not good at this. I have technology block or whatever, because I'm not good at the computer. And then she can go on her cell phone and play 5,000 words a minute and do things that I've never dreamt about. And then she gets on the computer, does the same thing, but then gets blocked. People are maybe the older generation, but I think even the younger generations, people are blocked at new, just change.
Speaker 2:And historically people have talked about changes in totally a huge subject than organizational leadership and theory and all this stuff because people don't change artificial intelligence is really changed because right now, this year, last year, 2 years ago, whether we like to admit it or not, artificial intelligence is here and it's going to take over. I was looking at some things on YouTube and I'd said something, my son, William who's wants to be an engineer. And it was about quantum quantum computing and about IBM and Google and the process and what it is and how it's going to change economics. It'll change everything. You're going to have processes and procedures and things that have taken so long to figure out for our super mainframes done in no split second.
Speaker 2:Things that we never dreamt about looking at biology and all these sciences that we'd never even thought about. Artificial intelligence is all about that. So whether it's this year or next year, or IBM's world of, Hey, we're going to do this by the end of this decade, which would be amazing. Artificial intelligence is going to improve every year. It's going to improve and it's going to improve.
Speaker 2:We've even seen it last couple of years within program management. It's got to improve. We have been stagnant for so many years. We, as far as an industry, haven't done things like the banking industry, haven't done things like the, T industry within our industry. IT and agile project management, you were talking about emotional intelligence and all this emotional intelligence stuff is all we do.
Speaker 2:Our programs and projects failed because people don't have that emotional intelligence. How can we implement that on our project? Emotional intelligence, like things that they do in service industry. I've heard about these applications where you go out and you have services and you have people who go and they take care of their clients and whether it's the nursing industry or this and that. And then after they're done, they say, rate us.
Speaker 2:We want to know how our employees are rated. I want to know constantly how everybody's telling. I'm interested. I don't want people to fail and our employees don't want them to fail either. They don't want to fail.
Speaker 2:They want to know what they think about how they did as a service, because nobody wants to wake up and do a bad job every morning. They wanna wake up and do a good job every day. So hopefully this application and other things will go a long way when it comes to improving what we do in programs and having that streamlined, ability to say here's our process procedure, here's our team. In the future, we're gonna hopefully have a program that gets generated to build a new bridge or build a new hospital or do something in some third world country without having to recreate everything. We can use the lessons that we've had on other programs and projects to be able to not just do this project, but do it on time within budget and do it in a way that people can say, hey, I honestly believe my $10,000,000 or $100,000,000 is going to the right place and people are spending it wisely.
Speaker 1:That's great. Yeah. I hope everyone gained a lot of value from this. Do you have any closing remarks about all of this? I know.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:And I get very excited about this big topic, and it's I
Speaker 1:love it.
Speaker 2:Something that I love to do, and I've always implemented, talk about artificial intelligence. We're talking about years back, couple of years ago when I first joined that fact in the Navy and understood all access and FileMaker Pro and, and implementing all the databases and systems and looking at all offices. This is where I thought we would be maybe 10 years ago. This is great. It's good news.
Speaker 2:It's changed, but nothing happens very quickly in the world. We're here now, 10 years from now, things have changed that it's not going to happen as quick as you think. So we should be patient with everybody to be able to help improve the processes and do it happily and be excited about what we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And encourage everybody to get in there and start using what you have available to you. So that way you don't get lost in the changes that are to come.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, and Okay. We will see you next time.