Artificial Intelligence as a Project Stakeholder

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This edition of the Supply Chained newsletter was inspired by a chat with Oliver Yarbrough about incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into project management. In case you don't know Oliver, he's a project management trainer based in Atlanta, GA and a fellow LinkedIn Learning instructor.

During our conversation, Oliver shared several AI tools and tips that he recommends to help project managers be more efficient, more effective, and more agile. The biggest "Aha!" for me was when he made the case for treating AI as a stakeholder on our projects.

Artificial Intelligence

Okay, let's start with the basics. What is AI, anyway? Well, here's the best formal definition that I've found, proposed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission:

"Artificial intelligence systems are software (and possibly also hardware) systems designed by humans that, given a complex goal, act in the physical or digital dimension by perceiving their environment through data acquisition, interpreting the collected structured or unstructured data, reasoning on the knowledge, or processing the information, derived from this data and deciding the best action(s) to take to achieve the given goal. AI systems can either use symbolic rules or learn a numeric model, and they can also adapt their behaviour by analysing how the environment is affected by their previous actions." (HLEG, 2018).

TLDR?

Well, here's Oliver's definition: "AI is when computers are trying to replicate human actions."

And this is what I really like about Oliver's approach: If we think about AI as mimicking human actions, then we can start to approach it differently as managers. Instead of relegating AI to the IT Department, we can start to think in human terms about tasks that need to be done, the skills AI brings to the table, and how we can successfully onboard AI as a member of our team.

AI in Supply Chains

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been growing throughout the supply chain. Analysts, consultants, and startups are all pushing the benefits of AI tools for processes ranging from forecasting, to material handling, to autonomous vehicles, and much more. Naturally, the case studies, analyst reports, and white papers tend to focus on the big gains that could theoretically be realized from transforming critical supply chain processes.

But it turns out that a lot of supply chain leaders aren't ready to relinquish control of their critical processes to a computer... yet. So, on the one hand there's a sense of urgency to act quickly, but on the other hand we aren't ready to make any big changes. So how can we start to leverage AI in a meaningful way? I think this guidance from Gartner's Noha Tohamy hit the nail on the head:

“Both CEOs and CSCOs view AI as a transformative technology to their organization. Given its transformation benefits, supply chain organizations should actively seek to understand the potential and fit of AI through education and experimenting in small-scale pilots." (Noha Tohamy)

In other words, rather than starting with big dollar solutions at an enterprise level, we can get momentum more easily with a bottom-up approach of integrating AI solutions into our daily routines.

Actors are Stakeholders

When we map out a process, we often describe both the people and the computers as "actors." In this context, an actor is any entity that performs an action, such as completing one of the tasks in a process.

Oliver takes this thinking to the next level: If we can treat both people and computers as actors, then why not treat them as stakeholders? He does this by personifying the collection of AI tools that we incorporate into our workflow, and then treating that imaginary person as a project stakeholder.

In some ways, that's exactly what Google, Apple, and Amazon have done with their off-the-shelf virtual assistants. But Oliver's point is that each of us can assemble our own custom AI assistants by mixing-and-matching cheap and easy productivity tools that fit into our unique requirements. Trying to keep track of all of these tools separately can be confusing, and well, overwhelming. But treating this collection of tools as a single virtual assistant makes it much easier to offload the right tasks and manage our collaboration with AI more effectively.

For a project manager, their AI assistant might be responsible for specific tasks such as taking meeting minutes, tracking action item lists, requesting status updates, and more.

You can check out highlights of our conversation here:

And if you want to learn more from Oliver, I've unlocked his course "Artificial Intelligence: How Project Managers Can Leverage AI" as this week's Featured Video.

How this affects supply chain professionals? Projects are how we make changes in a supply chain. For the SCOR folks, I would argue that project management is part of our Enable process. Oliver left me thinking more specifically about four key questions:

1. Are we truly aware of the ways that AI is already adding value to our projects, and our supply chains?
2. Which simple AI tools should we adopt more broadly in order to improve efficiency or agility?
3. Would treating AI as a project stakeholder make it easier to recognize these opportunities?
4. What do we need to change about our project management processes in order to gain even greater benefits from AI technologies?

What do you think? Are you using AI tools to help manage your projects? What is your plan for leveraging AI to improve your own productivity? How do you feel about treating AI as one of your project stakeholders? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Additional Resources

• A Definition Of AI: Main Capabilities And Scientific Disciplines by The European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group On Artificial Intelligence (2018)
• Hype Cycle for Supply Chain Strategy by Gartner's Noha Tohamy (2021)
• AI-driven operations forecasting in data-light environments by McKinsey & Company's Jorge Amar, Sohrab Rahimi, Zachary Surak, and Nicolai von Bismarck
• Locomation and Edge Case Research Team Up to Deliver Safer Autonomous Trucking by Locomation's Çetin Meriçli and Michael Wagner (2022)
• Gartner Predicts 25% of Supply Chain Decisions Will Be Made Across Intelligent Edge Ecosystems Through 2025 (2022)

Who is Mr. Supply Chain?

Daniel Stanton is a supply chain industry veteran and the best-selling author of Supply Chain Management For Dummies. He is dedicated to empowering professionals through education and technology. His courses on LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) have been viewed by nearly two million students around the world, and he's a frequent speaker at educational conferences and industry events.