Welcome to the Everyday PM Podcast, a podcast where we discuss project management principles for your everyday life. My name is Ann Campia, I'm the host and founder of the Everyday PM, and I'm so excited to bring the topic of mastering AI literacy as a project Manager to you all today. Joining me is my very special guest, Cornelius Fischer, who is the host of the Project Management Podcast. He's also an author, speaker, course creator, all of the things having to do with project
management. Cornelius, I'm so excited to welcome you to the podcast. For those who have not met you either through the Prep cast or your own podcast, please take a brief moment to introduce yourself. Yeah, thank you very much for having me. I'm very excited to be here, Yes. So where to begin? I guess at the beginning I, I started my career as a software developer long time ago and within just about 3 years I moved in to project management.
And then I, I LED projects in, in a paper mill, in a supermarket chain, an Internet start up in a bank. And then I decided, you know what, I'm going to go out on my own. Started the project management podcast around the same time there in about 2005. Went out on my own in 2008 as AP and P trainer and I did the what was back then very revolutionary.
I started the Project Management Prep cast which was pretty much the first of its kind audio slash video PMP exam prep training course that was available. Been doing that ever since. Expanded on the products there and about two years ago when I came across AR I, I started to realize the potential that this new tool has for project management. So I developed a course for it and I got into teaching. I had a keynote presentation on
it, the webinars, seminars. So that's currently my passion there, helping project managers understand that artificial intelligence is more than where do I click in Chachi PT to make it do something. All right. And I guess that's that's also where we're getting into here today. Well, I'm so excited to bring this topic to our audience. I'm so excited that you've chosen the everyday PM to share this with our audience. Now I have a bit of a story to tell before we get into our our
discussion today. Cornelius, I've been a big fan of yours for quite some time. You probably don't know this because you're learning about it for the first time right now. I have not only used your courses and promoted your courses through the prep cast because I tremendously believe that you put out wonderful information for project managers who are looking to XLS well as pass the PMP exam.
So that's number one. Number 2, I actually had the honor of helping your your staff update your prep cast. I think it was back in 20/21/2020. Yes, that's right. Yeah, you were on the team. When the PMBOK updated, you had to update your courses as well. And it really gave me tremendous insight into your thought process and the level of detail and, and thoughtfulness and attention that you give to, to the material you put out for
project managers. And I was just blown away by the amount of, like I said, love, as well as the amount of attention that you put into what you put out in the PM community. So for all of that, I just wanted to kind of give you your flowers today because I have been a tremendous fan. And so when you reached out to be on the podcast, I was trying to kind of downplay the level of excitement I had when I saw your message come through the everyday PM.
But as things stand, you know, I, I'm just so honored that you're here. I love the topic that you're bringing to our audience today in terms of mastering AI literacy. So I want to just get into our first question around this idea of AI obviously is around us. You're bringing this concept of mastery over tool mastery, AI mastery or the understanding of it over tool mastery. So I want to better understand, number one, what is your idea of or how do you define mastery when it comes to AI?
And why do you argue that AI literacy over tool mastery is the true competitive edge for today's PMS? OK, before I get into that, thank you so much for saying all those beautiful words. For those of you watching this in the video, I have a lava lamp behind me and it's pretty bright but my face is now blushing. Just as. Red as the lava lamp back behind me there. All right. So mastery and and literacy and and and the tools. So tools change everyday, right?
And, and we know this because not a day goes by when you're not looking into the news and, and a new function comes out or something new about whatever Chachi PT, Google, Gemini or some other AI tool out there is, is in the news and they're presenting one of these new things to us. So being able to use those tools and, and knowing where to click, yes, that is important. And that mastery can only be achieved over time as you are using those tools and you're
applying these tools. But for a project manager who can evaluate these tools, understand where they fit strategically, be able to apply them, employ them, and also deploy them, that's where we as project managers should go. So I talked about the, the seminars and my keynotes and I speak very little about tools and using those tools. And I kind of used that as a little bit of a showstopper. So after about 20 minutes into my seminar, I kind of pause and break the 4th wall to the audience.
And I go by the way, have you noticed that I've really not mentioned any tools and, and how to use the tools and what to do with the tools and, and, and all of that? And, and there's a reason for this. Imagine if I told you that in order to be a modern project manager, you need to know how the Internet works, what a browser is, how to network on LinkedIn, how to use a search engine, how to use YouTube to do some basic research. You would laugh at me, absolutely.
And, and you would be right to do that today. This wasn't a a perfect statement in the early 2000s because that's what was coming back then. Now let's bring this to today and Fast forward five years. Yes, today we think about those tools, but just like the tools that I just mentioned, they will arrive here on your phone relatively soon and you'll start to know these tools.
So if we Fast forward into the future five years, because you are using those tools almost daily, whether it is professionally or personally, you'll get to know the tools, you know how they work and where you have to click with these tools. The importance is you have to go beyond tool usage. You have to understand how these tool work, how they enhance your project workflows, how you can use these tools and deploy those tools in order to make it
successfully. So future proof yourself by going beyond just knowing, oh, I, I know how to use ChatGPT instead. Think of it as to me, artificial intelligence is a strategic tool that I am capable as a project manager of deploying, you know, with a scalpel precision into the success of my projects. That's where I'm going with that. Did I answer both of your questions? You did, you did.
And you have me thinking about I'm currently in the situation where I'm trying to, we're doing something very interesting at my organization where we are kind of right there at the precipice of trying to figure out our AI strategy. And one of the things that I thought was interesting about what you said is people immediately jump to what are the
tools and how do we use them? Whereas if I'm hearing what you're saying, it's the mastery of AI literacy itself should take precedence before you even start to have a conversation about tools. And I also find it very interesting that there's probably hundreds of tools at this point, right? We'll probably enter into some space where there's there's just like you said, it's everywhere. It's just already built into your cell phone. Where folks still refer to it as ChatGPT.
And I get that because ChatGPT was the kind of the first thing and. Yeah. It's the first thing in the gate. It's kind of the one that started the snowball of everything else. So, you know, you're telling us not to chase every new AI app. So how can project managers decide whether a task is right for AI augmentation or better
left human? And then I want to add on to this question if I can, Cornelius, and ask you to help define for audience what the difference between AI and the idea of AI automation is versus augmentation, because I think the difference in those two terms is important here. Yes. So let's let's start with
augmentation. I really like the fact that you use the term augmentation because when we talk about artificial intelligence, the one of the questions that pops into my head or into many people's heads is, Oh my God, the machines are coming from my job, right?
While that is true in some industries that are really being, being hammered by this, I was just listening to voice over artists and, and how they are beginning to struggle because, you know, AI voices are becoming so good and and so inexpensive in the area of project management. We're not there and I think it's going to take quite a long time until we're there. And I think we'll we'll get to that at a later point as well anyway. So augmentation to me is the importance.
I am not advocating that we need to replace the project manager. I'm advocating that we need to end the project teams, either that we need to give ourselves and our teams the AI tools that take away the busy work, allowing us to be more creative and more human right there. And one of the questions or, or one of the the flips that I make is, is this, if somebody asks, but what will I do once P once, once once AI is here and does all my work, stop that kind of thinking and flip it around and
say, don't ask. What will I do? Ask who will I be when AI is by my side and helping me? And here my answer is clearly I am going to be the project manager. I'm going to be the team member that delivers the human value in all of this equation. And let's also acknowledge these, these tools are fun, right? They're, they're really cool. I'm doing stuff today that five years ago I wouldn't have thought possible. Remarkable.
To do that right, that all these things and, and when it comes to the question of, you know, which of my, which of my tasks on the project are ripe for AI augmentation, which tasks should I actually put there? It's, it's really quite simple. It's the repetitive data heavy tasks that you should consider. And let me give you 3 indicators that you can look at in order to, to determine what might be, might be your focus right there. It it all starts with your risk tolerance.
You should focus primarily on low risk task things like status summaries and and and things like that. You don't want the AI to take over personnel decisions, for example. That would probably not be the right thing, right? Yeah, Personally, I use it to write a well written podcast title for the episode. And what I do is after the after the interview is done, I give the transcript to ChatGPT and say, hey, give me a nine word podcast episode title has to be engaging, it has to be SEO
friendly. You know, my my audience or product managers, it has to be attractive to them as well. It comes back with five to seven and that's where the human in the loop. It also becomes important. I am not just saying, oh, and once you get an output, just use it. No, no, no, put a human in the loop always. So in my case, I will take those, those ideas, those suggestions, I treat them as a
brainstorming session. Sometimes there was a really good title that I can just copy paste, but otherwise I'm like, OK, I'll take this and that and that and combine it together. And now I have my title. So risk tolerance is the first, then data, availability of data and quality of data is next. Because AI thrives on high quality data. If if you can only give bad data to your AI and not a lot of good data, the output is really not going to be there, right?
And the way I use it is in my PMP training and PMI ACP, I use it to brainstorm lists. Like what I recently did is started working on is a am I ready to take the PMP exam? I want to create a checklist with 2020 points indicators. And I usually start with about, you know, a few in my head already. And I give that to the AI, and then the AI is trained on a lot of data, including PMP tips and suggestions that so many blogs have put out there.
And it will bring these together and probably give me a list of 35. And then I, as the human in the loop, I need to sift through these, make sense of them, and go, no, this doesn't make sense at all. This is not part of what I'm trying to do. I have to go into a different direction and then create my list. And then last but not least, repetitiveness of a task that really brings little insight to you. Things like writing meeting summaries, for example. Were you recording this here on
Zoom? Zoom has this new capability that it will send you an e-mail with a meeting summary. Amazing. Yeah, we had a meeting on Tuesday and I was surprised how well it summarized all those meetings. And then I also chuckled because we were having some fun and we were being silly and we were making up a task that could possibly be done. And we all knew this is this is sarcasm. Nothing, right? Of course, that task got turned and assigned to one of the team members who was on the call.
So. Human in the loop is important, right? And personally I I use the the the repetitiveness when it comes to publishing my episodes. I first published them on the website. Then I have the HTML code. Then I go into YouTube. YouTube doesn't take HTMI take straightforward text. So it's like copy paste, reformat, copy paste, reformat.
I'm no longer doing that. I now have a prompt for Chachi PT. Hey, here's my HTML code, convert it into YouTube text only format, paste it in five seconds later I can copy paste and I save a ton of money in that way. So risk tolerance, data availability and repetitive tasks that really are bring little insight to the person who's doing it. Those are the three key performance indicators that that I would suggest. Let's see, I think you had, Did I answer? Both.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and I think you, you brought something up that I made me think about how even in my space, you know, and those that are listening to can probably
relate. A lot of us are coming from this mindset of our role that we sit in, if we're currently working somewhere, it, our identity is kind of embedded in, in what we do. And I appreciate that when you started the conversation around augmentation that one of the first things you called out was we're not trying to use AI to
take your job. And I think that's first and foremost that a behavior or psychology that needs to be embedded in, in employees before you even start to talk about, OK, well, now let's think about risk tolerance and then then that sort of thing and how we interact with it. I really appreciate that you you said that because I think it's important for people to hear that. And, and the, the methodology you just displayed was so simple, but so relatable, practical and usable.
And I think that all of those, all of those points are important when you talk about AI because it can feel so daunting to tell somebody, well, now you have to master AI literacy. You know, project managers going to say, well, what then they're going to start to ask all the questions that you had just summarized. Is it does that because I'm not good at my job? Is it because you want me to do
something else? And really, really good points there, Cornelius, and, and a good kind of reassurance to the audience that that's the way project management leaders like yourself are looking at it and trying to apply these types of simple steps in order to assess. Let me let me follow up with a couple of thoughts here. First of all, identity. You said identity and I think that is where the Oh my God,
what will I do? What is left for me once, once AI has taken over the world, right, because we often identify so much with the individual tasks that we do, right? Sitting at the computer, hacking at the keyboard, that's part of my job, right? And, and, and we're, we're not looking at the value that we provide. That's why I say don't ask what will I do, but who will I be
once AI is here, right. So that that's really the thing and when it comes to the change that is coming, I am hopeful frankly that with project managers and project teams in particular, that's not such a big issue because we are the bringers of change. Often times we are asked to bring new technologies and and new processes to our organizations. That's our life.
So I hope that now that AI is coming to help us and, and change the way that we do work that we are not going to go not going to do this right, so that we are not going to be, you know, the people opposing that change. Absolutely, Absolutely. That's one thing that are two things we have to keep in mind as well.
Go ahead. Yes, yes, no, and I again, I, I'm very appreciative that yourself being one of the four, you know, one of the PM leaders in our community, PMI, them coming out and saying, you know, we're, we're going to try to figure out this out as we create a partnership with AI tools rather than, you know, seeing it as a, a job taker. So again, I think it's just a really helpful message for the
community to hear. So I wanted to move on to the growth mantra you put out there, because I think this is another practical concept for folks that are listening whether project managers are not to be able to apply. So can you tell us a little bit more about Adopt, adapt and Adept? Yes, I can with an apology because even though I came up with this mnemonic, I when I sent that to you, I gave it to you in the wrong order. Well. It's it's actually adapt, adopt,
adapt. This comes from my keynote presentation. So imagine this and you've been listening to me talk about AI and the promise of AI and, and anything it can do and the great future. The, you know, is so bright, you got to wear shades kind of thing. And, and you're kind of sitting there listening to me and you go, all right, so how do I get into this? Right? And I I was using this mnemonic adopt, adopt, adapt, adapt.
Not even I'm. Sorry. Adopt adapt in order to help people get something into their head that is easy to remember. So adapt. Adapt is a change in your mindset. You literally have to tell yourself, OK, yeah, this is coming, right? This is something that is changing and I have to move with the times and move forward.
Adopt is then the next step where you look at all the things that you do on your project and you maybe pick a first task from within your project management arsenal and you say, OK, according to what Cornelius said, you know, data availability, risk tolerance, repetitiveness. This might be a task where I can adopt artificial intelligence.
And then adept is lifelong learning, not just thinking, oh, now I know where to click in Cha Chi PT, but understanding the strategic implications that AI has. And, and this is the point where I'm starting to steer people towards going into the AI literacy direction. So building a skill set that is broader than just I know how Cha Chi PT works and, and really going in depth and breadth.
And the reason is twofold. Most project managers think of artificial intelligence as something that is coming into our projects and we will be using AI as a tool managing our projects. Don't forget the marketing department also wants AI and who is going to be the person who will be asked to lead a project to bring AI to the marketing department? You are you are the project manager, right? So you need to really understand what it takes to bring these tools into your organization.
What are the tools out there and how do we best use them strategically in a different department? How do we handle the resistance, the fear of the marketing people who suddenly go, wait a minute, what will be left for me when and, and now we're getting back into that conversation, right? Because that is a question that you will hear all the time. What's left for me once you bring AI here, right?
So all of these, these considerations, that's where I feel project managers need to go and adapt and adopt. That's something that you know, really nobody can help you with. You have to adapt, you have to change your mindset, you have to adopt, you have to really be open to, to try this out.
But the adept, this is where you and I come in as as educators, as trainers helping project manage, the project management community out there to see the direction where they need to go and learn artificial intelligence on a broader basis than just here's where I need to click. Yeah, absolutely. And AI is moving so quickly. It feels like everyday I either get on my phone or I'm, you know, on a browser and there's another tool available.
And I think having project managers have the knowledge and use that growth mantra to to kind of ground yourself and the steps of what needs to happen. I think it's a very simple and practical way of looking at it from a PM perspective and how you can be involved in that particular assessment now with AI moving so rapidly. Cornelius I'm curious.
I'm saying in the future. And when I say future, it's probably going to be in the future like next year, not as opposed to looking five years out is what my question says because I can't even imagine what AI is going to be in five years from now. But you know, kind of forward thinking, which soft skill with AI automation can make PMS more valuable, do you think and why? Yeah. I think this takes me back to who will I be when AI is here.
I will be the person who brings the human factor to the table. So one example is stakeholder communication with empathy. I disagree a little bit with what you have said there, but let me explain. There are people in the AI industry today who say that in just a few years, few short years, AI will be capable to really, you know, be very human like. Frankly, I think they are underestimating what we are and what we do as humans. Think of your own interactions with your stakeholders.
You smile, you nod, handshake. You go out to lunch and and and you're cracking a joke at the right moment. Or you show grief when somebody tells you that their uncle has to go through chemotherapy. The last one AI can do as well, right? AI can indeed. When you talk to a chachi PT and you say you know my uncle has, then there will immediately come back a response. Very sorry to hear that. Always a difficult situation, right? But. That is calculation. That is algorithm.
As far as you know, AI has algorithms and and how exactly that works is, is frankly beyond me. That is not rapport with your stakeholders. So while an AI can mimic today some things that we do naturally and it will get better and better at mimicking them.
Real humanity, real empathy, it's going to take a lot longer than these few short years that some are predicting because yeah, to me, complex projects, and I think this is what we can boil it down to, complex projects, they succeed based on the rapport that we have with our stakeholders and not based on calculated responses that I'm coming up with.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It, it reminds me of one of the core lessons I teach some of my students in a organizational leadership course is there's still this concept of gut instinct or, you know, yeah, gut instinct, really. I don't. I agree with you. I don't know that. AI. Yeah, I don't know that AI, he's ever going to have a gut instinct. You could get it to train to get pretty close. But yeah, I completely agree with you in that it's one of the hardest to me as APM.
It's one of the hardest skill sets to try to convey to folks who aren't project managers in that we have these soft skills, this humanity that we really do utilize on a day-to-day basis, the relationship building and that sort of thing that comes with just being a human being. That really plays into a role and it's become more and more significant today more than ever because you're working with diverse teams, you're working with global partners, you're working remotely, you're working
in hybrid situations. The more of that humanity we can bring into being a project manager, I don't know that AI will ever be able to. I'm a bit of a sci-fi nerd, right? So something like AC3PO from Star Wars or Mr. Data from Enterprise, Star Trek. And I think eventually, yes, we'll get there, but probably not in my lifetime. Yeah, somebody who is born today, Why not? That might happen, but it's going to take a lot of hard work in order to get there.
That's that's kind of where we're going. So that's also why I'm saying, you know, project managers, we are because there is so much rapport needed, so much interpersonal trust that needs to be built in projects. And we are at least for the time being, pretty safe in our choice of, of of the work that we do. Yeah.
Absolutely, absolutely. So I'm going to ask you probably the hardest question of this conversation, Cornelius, because there's been so much wisdom that you've shared with our audience today and so many great practical takeaways as well. But if you're to synthesize our conversation around mastering AI literacy for project managers, if there's one action item that you want project managers or the non project managers to take away from our conversation today, which one would you
choose? Yeah. So I want to send you off towards AI literacy. And really the first step into that direction is data literacy. And so that's my recommendation, become data literate. And data literacy is being able to read data, being able to understand data, being able to make sense from data, being able to and understand the quality of data, being able to use data to make decisions, being able to visualize data.
And even though I'm saying you know the, the data, that's the thing that AI will crunch through and, and in within seconds be able to, to make sense and, and bring results back. But again, human in the loop, if you are not data literate, you won't notice that there is a problem. And here is an easy way that you can start applying data literacy today, tomorrow. Ask yourself this, ask your team this on my project, on our project, which single data set should we use in order to make
project decisions? What is the data set that we use as the basis to make project decisions? And most importantly, why is that data set trustworthy? A potential answer could be it is the Sprint burned down chart and it is trustworthy because we put in the data every day. We have somebody in the back office who compares the input to
to the actual deliverables. We regularly look at it during our daily stand up and we look at outliers and make sure that this is correct and less regularly, but still we do it. We compare it to our definition of done and make sure that is this truly done, this particular item that has been labeled as done and that's what makes it trustworthy.
If you hesitated or if the answer is, you know, it's, it's the burn down chart still, but you realize, man, we don't actually check that it is accurate. We don't have all these checks and balances there.
You have just applied data literacy in action because you realized I'm using the that, that that burn down chart and it probably has faulty data in it. I have to immediately take steps in order to improve the data quality so that the decisions I make are based on sound information and not just whatever gets put into the system on a daily basis. So this has to be audited. So my recommendation is you want to go towards data literacy, about 17 core skills and
competencies. And data literacy is one of these AI literacy core competencies that you should really start with. So go into that direction. Right. You heard it from Cornelius. If there's one easy step you could take just after listening to this conversation, I think, yeah, absolutely. And that completely makes sense. Now I know our time's up now I'm more intrigued to hear more about what you were just talking
about. South Cornelius, we're going to have to have you back on for another episode. But thank you so much for for this discussion today on Mastering AI Literacy for project managers. It's been very enlightening and especially timely for us in this community to, to learn more about how you're thinking about it and how you would, you know, take action to, to embed yourself as a project manager in this space. So, Cornelius, thank you again for your time.
If folks want to continue the conversation with you, where can they follow you online? Yeah. So, well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. Much appreciated. And while AI is my passion and I really love talking about it, what really pays the bills is obviously my P&P training. And if any of our audience is currently preparing for thinking about the PMP exam, then my PMP exam simulator ACP and CAPM as well is at pm-exam-simulator.com, not PMP Exam simulator,
pm-exam-simulator.com. Or if you simply want to connect with me, then look for my name, Cornelius Fischner on LinkedIn. I'm currently the only one with that name on LinkedIn. And if there are suddenly more than one, I'm the good looking one. I'm the good looking. 1 Absolutely. Thank you again for having me. Of course, of course, and thank you for coming on the podcast
with this awesome topic. For folks that want to follow me, you can find me online at Ancampia, especially on LinkedIn, connect with me, please. Happy to continue the conversation there as well as connecting with the correct Cornelius if there is like a three or four of them. But we will make sure that we drop all the links to all of your material because like I said when we started this conversation, Cornelius, I'm a huge fan of what you put out there for the community.
And I can't help but promote it to everybody that I talked to who's preparing for the exam. So thank you for that too. And for those listening in again, thanks for joining us in this conversation. Latest installment of the Everyday PM Podcast. Make sure to like, subscribe, follow the podcast, leave us a comment on what you thought about this episode today. And until next time, take care.