The International Project Management Association (IPMA)’s 12th Annual Global Research Conference took place April 19-21, 2024. Along with serving as the President of the IPMA’s Member Association for the United States, an industry group that provides professional development opportunities for its membership of project management professionals, I was fortunate to chair the conference. 

The annual event, themed this year as “Project Management in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” featured an amazing Global Awards Gala, 2.5 days of thought-provoking presentations of 45 research papers, and 130+ attendees from 20 countries. And endless discussions on the complex and fascinating intersection of AI and project management. 

For me, one of the best parts of research conferences is hearing the compelling insights and ideas from fellow experts in my field. And, the thought leadership shared at the conference did not disappoint. This year, both Full Research Papers and Early Stage Research concepts were accepted for submission. The full papers will be indexed at the World of Science and selected papers will be submitted to leading journals for publication. The best paper award went to Nargiza Mikhridinova, Furkan Ali Yurdakul, and Carsten Wolff for their contribution entitled “Using Large Language Models for Project Staffing: Evaluation of GPT-Based Mapping of Teams to Projects.”  Some of the excellent talks we heard covered topics, including: 

• Industry 5.0 as a Driver for Sustainability, Resilience & Circularity
• Decision Making in Large, Complex Portfolios
• Leveraging Chat Bots for Project Management Efficiency
• Emerging Use-Cases & Tools in Project Settings
• Business & Digital Transformation Projects
• Creating Trust and Collaboration
• Ethical Challenges in Project Management

I also had the pleasure of sitting down with keynote speaker Ben Royce, who heads business development efforts at Google’s Cloud AI Services, to discuss all things project management and AI (watch our interview here). 

But it wasn’t just business at conference HQ at the University of Maryland. I took a post-event side quest into Washington, DC with some out of town attendees to show them the city and continue our conversations from the conference. Time to compare notes, reflect, and plan for what comes next – in our own work and for next year’s conference – is so necessary when wrapping up a huge event. 

Big thanks to my fellow IPMA board and conference planning team. All told, it was a magical event and much needed in this time of rapid advancement. Looking forward to what will come in 2025!

(Image courtesy of conference attendee via LinkedIn).