#266: AI Projects: From Obstacles to Opportunities
Mar 4, 2025
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Kathleen Walch, Director of AI Engagement Learning at the Project Management Institute, shares her expertise on overcoming obstacles in AI projects. She emphasizes the importance of clearly defining problems before implementing solutions. With humorous anecdotes, she highlights common pitfalls, like treating AI as mere software projects, and advocates for a data-centric approach. Kathleen also explores the necessity of realistic ROI expectations and evolving skill sets in project management, providing insightful frameworks to navigate the complex world of AI.
Organizations must clearly define the business problem before embarking on AI projects to ensure effective solutions and alignment.
Understanding the historical context of AI helps businesses appreciate its limitations and potential, enabling informed deployment decisions.
Equipping teams with critical thinking skills is essential for navigating AI advancements and fostering innovative and responsible adoption of technology.
Deep dives
The Importance of AI in Modern Organizations
AI technology is becoming increasingly pivotal for organizations aiming to enhance their efficiency and transformation. There is a growing excitement about the possibilities that AI presents, leading many companies to explore its application across various industries. However, many organizations struggle to identify, scope, and implement AI projects in a systematic way. It is essential for teams to move beyond tactical implementations toward a strategic understanding of how AI can truly transform business operations.
The Evolution of AI Understanding
AI has a rich historical context dating back to 1956, yet its current surge in popularity is often misconceived as a recent phenomenon. The speaker highlights that despite its long history, there have been periods of stagnation known as 'AI winters' resulting from over-promising and under-delivering on AI capabilities. This context is necessary for organizations to appreciate the potential and limitations of AI as they embark on their own AI projects. Recognizing that AI is merely a tool with specific applications helps businesses make informed choices about its deployment.
Establishing the Right Fundamentals
A structured approach is critical for successfully managing AI projects, with an emphasis on beginning with business understanding. Organizations often rush into AI projects without clearly defining the problem they aim to solve, leading to misguided efforts and failures. A key takeaway is to ensure clarity on what the business problem is before proceeding with AI implementation, as misalignment can lead to products that do not effectively address user needs. Organizations must also be aware that more is not always better when it comes to data; having the right kind of data is more impactful than sheer volume.
Patterns of AI Applications
Identifying the most appropriate patterns of AI applications is vital for ensuring successful outcomes. The speaker outlines seven distinct patterns, covering areas from hyper-personalization to prediction analytics, each with specific use cases that organizations need to consider. This variety offers professionals a framework to determine what type of AI method best suits their needs, rather than relying solely on popular tools or trends like generative AI. By understanding these patterns, organizations can better tailor their AI initiatives to align with their overall strategy and business goals.
The Need for Critical Thinking and Training
In the rapidly evolving landscape of AI technology, the necessity for critical thinking becomes increasingly evident. Organizations must equip teams with power skills such as creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking to adapt to AI advancements and address misinformation. The speaker emphasizes that critical thinking can be cultivated and should be part of organizational training, especially as AI tools become mainstream. Critical thinking allows employees to assess outputs produced by AI and apply them effectively within business contexts, fostering a more innovative and responsible approach to AI adoption.
In celebration of International Women’s Day, this episode of Analytics Power Hour features an all-female crew discussing the challenges and opportunities in AI projects. Moe Kiss, Julie Hoyer and Val Kroll, dive into this AI topic with guest expert, Kathleen Walch, who co-developed the CPMAI methodology and the seven patterns of AI (super helpful for your AI use cases!). Kathleen has helpful frameworks and colorful examples to illustrate the importance of setting expectations upfront with all stakeholders and clearly defining what problem you are trying to solve. Her stories are born from the painful experiences of AI projects being run like application development projects instead of the data projects that they are! Tune in to hear her advice for getting your organization to adopt a data-centric methodology for running your AI projects—you’ll be happier than a camera spotting wolves in the snow! 🐺❄️🎥
For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
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