Oper-AI-tions at Work

I am the first and only resource manager at the firm. The title is an industry term that invites visions of complex schedules and a scramble to get people working. In reality, my role is broader-visioned than this, focusing on resource utilization, project time-budgeting, and staffing needs. In short, I get to play “good cop, bad cop” by myself a dozen times a day.

To call it a one-man department is a disservice to the leadership team and service delivery partners that support me, but the day-to-day operations of the resource management program fall squarely on the responsibility of these fingers and this keyboard. The task: monitor thousands of projects across four time zones, enforcing new corporate policy on resource and revenue operations, challenging two decades of precedent. Nothing a few emails can’t solve.

And email is what I did. But not alone.

With the help of ChatGPT, I wrote scripts for automating email notifications and monitoring projects that fell out of compliance. Project management teams soon became familiar with my wise-cracking signature, “I hope this email finds you better than the state of your project,” and through consolidated reporting, tracked these email notifications to resolution in AI-enhanced repositories.

A couple of pats on the back later, I can say this program implementation was a success. Firm utilization has exceeded goals for each of the past two quarters, and the remainder of the year is set to finish strong. A behavioral shift has made its way across the client-facing organization as our professionals adapt to the new norm of automated and enhanced monitoring.

Leveraging AI, particularly ChatGPT, has been a game-changer in implementing the resource management program. The ability to automate routine tasks and ensure compliance without constant manual intervention has not only saved time but also improved accuracy, efficiency, and transparency with stakeholders up, down, and across the firm. This experiment with AI has demonstrated its transformative potential in business operations, and I am eager to explore new ways AI can continue to revolutionize our operations, making our work smarter, not harder.