This page summarizes our plans for implementing AI based technologies in ]project-open[, our open-source project and project portfolio management software. If you are interested in details, updates, or if you want to pitch your idea or collaborate with us on roadmap items, please send a mail to info@project-open.com.
Chat "channels" can be associated with a project or another business object (program, customer, user, ...). Channel conversations are mapped to ]po[ forum discussion topic objects indexed by the full-text search engine. The plan is to include a chatbot in the interface, in order to process certain natural language phrases in addition to backslash commands.
Status: Our plan is to include this package in ]po[ V5.1. A prototype is working with "backslash" (command-line) interface. First package available: [intranet-slack].
Integration: This package also supports Mattermost , the open-source competitor of Slack and potentially most other enterprise collaboration/chat products.
Disruption Potential: Low. Actually, we are not sure about the added value of a chatbot in the loop. People seem to get used to backslash commands.
Project schedules are usually developed using a Gantt editor that calculates the duration of every activity based on resource assignments and uses finish-to-start and similar constraints to calculate a critical path etc. In specific contexts, optimum project schedules can represent a considerable value to an organization. For these cases, ]project-open[ offers a simple and open [REST API] that can facilitate the development of scheduling plug-ins.
Status: The [REST API] is available and stable. However, the ]po[ team will develop specific schedulers only when requested by a customer.
Disruption Potential: Low. This is possibly high value, but only for a single customer each.
Conflicts in the assignment of resources to projects as part of the resource management discipline could be handled by an intelligent agent that would (similar to a resource manager) propose to re-allocated resources between projects.
Status: Idea
Alternatives: Integration with TaskJuggler . TaskJuggler performs automatic resource leveling using a "classical" algorithm (no AI at all), but performs pretty well in certain use cases.
Disruption Potential: Low. We haven't seen a single organization where such decisions would be taken by an algorithm, rather than a manager of a group of managers.
Train an AI to detect when projects deviate from their course.
Status: Idea
Training Data: Very limited. We believe that every "type of project" requires separate training, because the critical points to look at may vary across types.
Alternative: ]po[ allows to create rule-based notifications for individual tasks or the entire projects using the rule engine. We could pimp this package and implement some more advanced rules, which could be called (symbolic) AI.
Disruption potential: Low. Every project should have a PM looking at the status in a way a lot more intelligent than any possible AI might act, particularly based on a limited amount of training data.
]po[ is designed to be directly exposed to the hostile Internet. Apart from standard security measures, it already includes a number of sensors that report suspicious behavior. together could be called intrusion detection system . Adding some intelligence to this system would greatly improve detection sensitivity and reduce false positives.
Status: Idea
Disruption potential: Low. AI would be very suited for this task, but an IDS is definitely not the core component of a project management system.
Above, we have used the term AI in a slightly fuzzy way. Let's state clearly the available technologies that are frequently subsumed under this term:
Project management is different from many areas where AI is currently applied successfully (classifying photos, matching users with products, ...).
So a stupid, inflexible and expensive AI has to compete with a readily available intelligent human being in taking high impact decisions.
Our prediction is that AI will not be up to core PM tasks in the forseeable future. However, there are a number of support areas where AI could be applied successfully. These are the cases that we want to list on this page.
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Mail: info@project-open.com