January 2024 – Revenue Pulse (RP)

Do you find yourself questioning the value of AI?

You’re definitely not alone.

If you aren’t excited about AI today, you haven’t yet encountered a use case that is meaningful to you.

There’s a good chance you’ll shift to a believer at some point this year.

Here are three charts that tell a story of where we are today and where we’re going in 2024.

The Gartner Hype Cycle

The Gartner Hype Cycle presents the typical journey a new innovation takes to reach acceptance and adoption.

An innovation is released. Expectations are inflated. People naturally become skeptical and become disillusioned with the idea.

We have seen this time and time again with AI: “AI is going to change the world!” “AI is going to take our jobs!”

The truth is, change doesn’t happen overnight. And to the individual, it’s not clear that it will ever meet the hype. So skepticism remains.

Think about flip phones, blackberries, and then iPhones. That transformation didn’t happen in a year. It took some time. Microsoft was so confident about the Windows Phone 7 that they staged a mock funeral for the iPhone in 2010..

In 2024, I think we will start to see a shift. As demonstrable benefits increase, the individual or organization climbs up the slope of enlightenment. They see the technology for what it’s truly worth to them. These days, it’s pretty hard to argue that the iPhone form factor has not impacted mobile telephony.

If you’re not seeing AI as a game changer, then there isn’t a use case that has impressed you yet.

If the AI advocates are true and improvements come exponentially, then this year we should start to see a rapid climb up the slope of enlightenment.

This means more and more use cases with demonstrable benefits are on the horizon.

AI Adoption Model

Enter chart number two, the AI Adoption Model. This chart was something that Liza Adams and I discussed last summer as a spin off of a LinkedIn post she had made.

This chart demonstrates a risk/benefit tradeoff that will serve as an impediment to adoption in the short term.

Changing the status quo when the risks, or perception of risks, outweigh the benefits is a difficult choice for organizations to contend with.

What if you started making decisions for your organization based on GPT 3.5? Or made a massive investment in a product, just to have a new Custom GPT make it irrelevant?

With the clarity of hindsight, we can see that many of these bad decisions were made. Although it’s somewhat arguable that these risks were predictable even a year ago.

So as new innovations are released and the use case benefits become clear to the organization, changing the status quo and adopting new tools and processes becomes a much easier decision.

Risks like using proprietary data in training models have been seen as a major hurdle. New offerings, however, are addressing these issues head-on. For example, this is front and center in the new “Teams” option for ChatGPT.

In the end, there really isn’t a choice at all.

AI adoption will actively or passively take place. Passive adoption will happen because AI will be baked into existing tools that organizations have already adopted.

Use Case and Impact

This final chart was presented by Scott Brinker at a conference I attended last November.

This is another look at the evolution of AI. While Scott included “AI + No Code Tools” in this image, it could just as easily be labeled “AI” instead.

This chart shows that current AI tools have had a low impact on the organization. Things like writing emails, summarizing meetings, creating digital art for social – these aren’t transforming organizations overnight.

But the growth curve is steep, if not exponential. Have you ever seen the original DALL·E image creation? It was abstract if we’re being generous.

However, if we believe that improvements will continue – possibly exponentially – then we’ll eventually have tools that have a medium-level impact on the organization. This could be an AI agent that performs tasks that double the output of an employee, for example.

If you’ve seen some of the text-to-video generation tools, you’ll know that they’re going to transform the creative space. Kanye West just released a music video that is all AI generated.

Change is starting.

History has shown us that with every major innovation, some organizations (and individuals) adapt and some organizations don’t. I used to go to Blockbuster every weekend. I used to have a portable Toshiba CD player with headphones that didn’t skip!

AI is going to bring about changes at a rate we haven’t experienced before.

And if you’re not yet convinced, it’s because you haven’t seen a use case that is meaningful to you.

I’ll bet you a coffee that sometime in 2024 you’ll see something that changes your mind.

TLDR: An agency-side project manager (PM) bridges the gaps between your organization and agency partners throughout a project. A PM ensures you’re on track to deliver the project on time, within budget and scope. During a project, an agency PM will help your organization plan deliverables and timelines, follow coherent processes, communicate effectively between teams, troubleshoot issues, and monitor and mitigate risks to the things you want to achieve.

Which projects benefit from project management? Projects like marketing automation platform (MAP) implementations and migrations are often heavy to plan and coordinate. Migrations and implementations involve bringing many different stakeholders together throughout the project to share updates, deliverables, and decisions against agreed timelines and scope—a particularly complex task in larger organizations.

How PMs help: It’s easy to underestimate the demands of aligning communications and actions between various accountable stakeholders in an agency-client relationship. As a result, organizations may decide not to involve an agency’s PM to steer the progress of a project. This decision adds a high level of risk for big projects like migration or implementation.

“Having an agency-side PM is essential to keep your internal teams and agency partners on the same page.”

Do you need an agency PM? Even if your organization has an internal PM assigned to the project, having an agency-side PM is essential to keep your internal teams and agency partners on the same page.

What’s in this article for you? In this Tough Talks Made Easy, we’ll help you navigate the intricate space of project management, particularly in the context of complicated projects. You’ll learn how:

➡️ To effectively communicate the value of agency-side project management to key stakeholders and decision-makers across departments.

➡️ PMs drive collaboration, alignment and risk mitigation.

➡️ PMs bridge the gap between your organization and the agency, ensuring timely input, decisions, and updates to prevent project delays.

The PM’s value

At a high level, PMs ensure that your team and the agency are working towards the same goals to deliver a project on time and within the budget and scope.

PMs accomplish this by:

👉 Planning and setting up meetings between teams.

👉 Coordinating the delivery of action items.

👉 Raising awareness of risks and causes for delay.

👉 Pushing stakeholders to make timely decisions to keep the project moving as planned.

“Stakeholder alignment is the key area where PMs make a constructive impact.”

Stakeholder alignment is the key area where PMs make a constructive impact.

Migrations and implementations involve many different tasks and decisions. These projects also involve various teams in your organization — such as Marketing, Sales, IT, and Digital — each has responsibilities and decision-making power.

PMs track when input and decisions need to be received and connect these teams to provide timely and relevant updates. Without an agency-side PM to play this role, deliverables, and decisions can slip under the radar and delay project completion.

How PMs work

Involving a PM right from the beginning of a project maximizes your ability to succeed.

During the initial kickoff session, PMs create the spine of a project by constructing a plan for deliverables, responsibilities, and timelines. A clear understanding of these pieces is essential for stakeholders to deliver and communicate as needed to progress the project.

“PMs bridge the gaps between your organization and the agency throughout the project.”

PMs bridge the gaps between your organization and the agency throughout the project:

Agency-side PM responsibilities include:

Ensuring that the agency has captured all the relevant discoveries.
Establishing who from your organization is required to participate.
Following up with stakeholders to ensure that input and decisions follow the agreed timelines.
Helping to identify, mitigate, and monitor delivery risks.

Through mediation, agency PMs help you achieve success.

Stakeholders from your workplace can go to the agency PM to discuss and address feedback on the project’s progression.

Should a colleague raise concerns about the project or develop new requirements, PMs work with agency teams to find solutions.

An agency-side PM will ask questions like:

Is your organization’s request in scope?
How can we make this work?
What impact will any changes have?
How can we address any risks?

Having a PM to ask these questions lets teams get organized, make improvements on the move, and solve potential issues as they arise.

Alleviating project management challenges

PMs experience some persistent challenges when project managing MAP migrations and implementations.

Timelines are often compromised when organizations lack the resources to participate and provide input as planned or juggle competing projects (e.g. a web launch) that are likely to interfere with the process.

“PMs proactively work to anticipate and minimize risks to project delivery.”

Unclear ownership of tasks and scope creep born from underestimating complexity can also cause disruption and delay. In these scenarios, PMs proactively work to anticipate and minimize risks to project delivery.

For example, an agency PM can help your organization involve the most relevant stakeholders and sensibly delegate tasks and responsibilities. PMs can also factor competing projects into the initial plan and continuously monitor the risk of interference.

Tips for working with an agency PM:

👉 Scope creep: Avoid strain from scope creep by taking time before the project begins to review the steps involved and decide where your organization needs the most support from the agency.

👉 Project delivery: Define clear goals and priorities to help the PM organize stakeholders and deliver the most pressing items and achievements.

👉 Identify stakeholders early: Identify the people within your organization who need to be involved and establish ownership and accountabilities for the project.

Steering projects to success

MAP migrations and implementations are complex undertakings, and the agency PM plays an indispensable role in guiding them to success.

From the start to the end of a project, agency PMs contribute effective planning, process management, risk mitigation, troubleshooting, and alignment between your teams and the agency to deliver results on time, within scope, and within budget.

For any further guidance with MAP migrations and implementations, Revenue Pulse is here to help.

Month: January 2024

Do you believe in AI?