Project Management in the Age of AI
Hosted by DGB Live
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
7:00 PM–8:30 PM ET
About
Many people manage project work every day without calling themselves project managers. Entrepreneurs manage launches, customers, suppliers, money, schedules, purchases, priorities, and people. Managers coordinate teams, deadlines, resources, vendors, and changing requirements.
This 90-minute workshop helps participants recognize the project management work already inside their jobs and businesses, then gives them a lightweight set of management disciplines for doing that work more deliberately.
AI is used as a practical thought partner to clarify goals, organize work, challenge assumptions, identify risks, prepare communications, and support better decisions. The emphasis is on better management, not on learning a collection of AI tricks.
IS THIS SESSION FOR YOU?
If any two of these are part of your work, this session is for you.
Do you manage:
- People or teams?
- Schedules or deadlines?
- Vendors, contractors, or outside partners?
- Budgets, procurement, or purchases?
- Tasks, deliverables, or competing priorities?
- Resources, equipment, or logistics?
- Risks, changes, dependencies, or unexpected problems?
If two or more apply, you are already managing project work, whether or not “Project Manager” appears in your title.
For entrepreneurs and small-business owners: If you are running the business yourself, nobody else is automatically project managing the work for you. You are already coordinating priorities, money, suppliers, customers, schedules, decisions, and execution.
The question is not whether you manage projects. The question is whether you are managing that work deliberately, consistently, and with the right support.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Define a clear outcome and success criteria for a piece of work.
- Break work into tasks, owners, dates, priorities, and dependencies.
- Identify basic risks, assumptions, issues, and decision points.
- Run more useful meetings and convert discussion into decisions and actions.
- Communicate status clearly and know when to escalate.
- Use AI to support planning, organization, analysis, communication, and review.
- Recognize where human judgment and accountability still matter most.
PARTICIPANT EXPERIENCE
This is a practical workshop. A small-business scenario will be used for demonstrations, then participants will repeat each step using one real piece of their own work so they leave with something they can use immediately.
Participants will see how the same lightweight management system can be used for a product launch, client project, internal initiative, event, vendor engagement, operational improvement, or other real work.
AI is introduced inside the workflow, not as a separate topic.
HIGH-LEVEL SESSION OUTLINE
1. Recognize the project work already in your job
- People, deadlines, vendors, budgets, tasks, resources, and change
- Why basic project management is a management skill, not only a job title
2. Start with the outcome
- Define success and clarify what actually needs to happen
- Use AI to clarify vague requests and missing information
3. Organize the work
- Tasks, owners, dates, priorities, and dependencies
- Use AI to challenge the plan and identify gaps
4. Manage uncertainty
- Risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies, and change
- Use AI as a structured second set of eyes
5. Keep people aligned
- Meetings, actions, status, decisions, and escalation
- Use AI to summarize, prepare, and tailor communication
6. Apply the system
- Build a lightweight management plan
- Transfer the method to the participant’s own work
DETAILED 90-MINUTE SESSION OUTLINE
0 to 10 minutes | You Are Probably Already Managing Projects
- Complete a self-check covering people, schedules, vendors, budgets, purchases, tasks, resources, and risks.
- Select one real piece of work to use throughout the session.
- Explore why entrepreneurs and managers already do project work.
- Review the demonstration scenario: a three-person service business launching a new offer with an outside vendor.
10 to 25 minutes | Define the Outcome
- State the desired result in clear terms.
- Define success criteria.
- Clarify boundaries, stakeholders, constraints, and assumptions.
- Use AI to turn a vague business request into a clearer brief.
- Write a one-sentence outcome and three success criteria for your own piece of work.
25 to 40 minutes | Organize the Work
- Break the outcome into tasks and deliverables.
- Assign owners.
- Add dates, priorities, dependencies, and decision points.
- Use AI to review a draft plan for gaps and unclear ownership.
- Build a five-line action plan covering tasks, owners, and dates for your own work.
40 to 55 minutes | Manage Risks, Assumptions, and Change
- Identify what could go wrong.
- Separate assumptions from facts.
- Decide what requires action, monitoring, or escalation.
- Use AI to challenge assumptions and generate a first-pass risk review.
- Run a quick pre-mortem on your own work and identify the top three potential causes of failure.
55 to 70 minutes | Meetings, Communication, and Decisions
- Run meetings around decisions and actions.
- Capture owners, actions, due dates, and decisions.
- Build a useful status update.
- Escalate with context and options.
- Use AI to turn rough notes into decisions, actions, risks, and a concise update.
- Draft a three-line status update and one escalation covering the context, options, and request.
70 to 85 minutes | Integrated Exercise: Manage SMARTer
Participants will assemble the pieces above into a one-page management plan for their own real work, including:
- Outcome
- Key tasks
- Owners
- Dates
- Risks and assumptions
- Dependencies
- Decisions required
- Status communication
- Next action
AI will be used as a thought partner to review the plan, challenge assumptions, and improve clarity.
85 to 90 minutes | Close and Transfer
- Recap the lightweight management disciplines.
- Identify one practice to apply immediately.
- Reinforce the principle that AI can strengthen the work, but the manager remains accountable.
- Final questions.
DELIVERY AND PARTICIPATION
- Delivery platform: Zoom
- Session length: 90 minutes
- Style: Interactive presentation, demonstrations, guided exercises, and discussion
- Participant prerequisites: None
- Recommended participant setup: Access to ChatGPT or another general-purpose AI assistant is helpful for hands-on participation but is not required.
- Technical requirements: Presenter screen sharing and standard Zoom chat. Breakout rooms are not required.
Managing People, Resources, and Deadlines? Manage SMARTer with AI.
Managing People, Resources, and Deadlines? Manage SMARTer with AI
Format: 90-minute interactive workshop
Audience: Entrepreneurs, small-business owners, managers, team leads, supervisors, and professionals responsible for getting work done
Level: Practical and accessible. No project management certification or advanced AI experience is required.
SESSION OVERVIEW
Speakers
- Presenter
- Rohan Garricks, MSc, PMP, is a senior project and technical manager with experience delivering complex, multimillion-dollar projects across theme park construction, themed entertainment, museums, audiovisual systems, and lighting. He is PMP-certified and Smartsheet-certified, and he presents project management and AI use training sessions at LDI (Live Design International) in Las Vegas.
- Over the past two years, Rohan has deliberately tested and incorporated AI into his day-to-day project management practice, applying it to planning, risk and assumption analysis, workflow creation, stakeholder communication, meeting follow-up, and decision support. That sustained, hands-on use has given him a grounded view of where AI genuinely helps a working project manager, where it falls short or introduces new risks, and where professional judgment and accountability cannot be delegated to a tool.
- This workshop is built from that combination: real project experience, formal PM training, and two years of practical experimentation with AI. Rohan shares what has worked, what has not, and why, so participants leave with a realistic picture rather than a sales pitch for AI. He also brings this same hands-on, confidence-building approach to free AI training he supports for Caribbean and Orlando Based communities, including groups in Jamaica and across the wider diaspora.
- Contact Information
- Rohan Garricks, MSc, PMP
- Email: Rohan@dgblive.com
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rohangarrickspmp
- Connect with Rohan: connect-with-rohan.rgarricks198141.chatgpt.site
Host
DGB Live