MULTI-CHAPTER VIRTUAL SPEAKER: "How to Run Successful AI Projects and Avoid Failure"

Topic

Despite the buzz around AI and its potential to revolutionize industries, a surprising 70-80% of AI projects fail.  Why do so many AI initiatives, brimming with promise and potential, end up falling short? In this talk we explore the top reasons for these AI project failures, through real-world experiences and “ripped from the headlines” examples. 

We’ll share why many AI projects fail, and the practical ways to navigate these challenges for AI project success, highlighting the project manager’s role in AI projects. Furthermore, we’ll explain how emerging approaches to Trustworthy AI are helping to address a wide range of ethical and responsible AI challenges.

As a way to avoid these common AI project failures, we’ll present the best practice for running and managing AI projects, the CPMAI approach, which is now a PMI training and certification. You will learn how to do AI right by applying a step-wise approach/methodology for AI projects, including an AI project template that gives you a straightforward way to adapt CPMAI methodology to your AI projects. 

Learning Objectives

Value

To gain an understanding of common reasons why AI projects fail and how you can apply successful proven methodologies such as the CPMAI approach to applying a step-wise approach/methodology for AI projects as well as how CPMAI aligns to PMBOK.

Key Takeaways

Speaker

Kathleen Walch

Director, AI Engagement and Community at Project Management Institute (PMI)

Kathleen joins PMI from the Cognilytica acquisition. At Cognilytica, Kathleen co-developed the Cognitive Project Management for AI (CPMAI) methodology that is in use by Fortune 1000 firms and government agencies worldwide to successfully run and manage their AI and advanced data projects. Adopted by dozens of multinational organizations, dozens of government agencies, and NGOs, CPMAI is quickly becoming the standard methodology for AI project management best practices. Kathleen is CPMAI+E Certified. Learn more at: cognilytica.com/cpmai

As an experienced data-focused analyst with a background in marketing, Kathleen’s expertise and experience in project management issues around organizational adoption of data led to the development of the CPMAI methodology. Kathleen is a dynamic presenter, researcher and thought leader on emerging technology best practices. She is a sought after keynoter and presenter speaking to audiences worldwide. Kathleen is also host of the AI Today podcast, regular Forbes contributor, TechTarget SearchAI columnist, and SXSW Innovation Awards Judge. 

Prior to her work at Cognilytica, Kathleen helped to grow TechBreakfast, a national technology-focused innovation demo series. Kathleen founded tech startup-up HourlyBee, an online scheduling system for home services where she quickly became an expert in grassroots marketing, networking, and employee management. Before that, Kathleen was a key part of the direct marketing operation for Harte Hanks managing large scale direct mail campaigns for clients including Bed Bath and Beyond and BuyBuyBaby. Managing big data analytics, she created efficiencies in the process saving thousands of dollars and days of processing time from each campaign. Kathleen graduated from Loyola University with a degree in Marketing.