top of page
Search

The Future Project Manager

Updated: 12 hours ago

Conference 22 April 2026 - Report and Resources



This was a highly successful and landmark conference, looking ahead to c. 2030

The Conference was sponsored by Migso-Pcubed, and jointly presented by their consultants, PIPMG committee members and other invited guest speakers.


Session 1: The Project Manager of the Future and the Projected Skills Gap

Tom Halliwell - Project/Program Consultant and Director of PIPMG


Tom discussed how work is being increasingly 'projectised'; demand for project managers globally by the end of the decade would outstrip supply! Adoption of new technologies would focus demand on people with highly developed social and emotional skills. Relationship building and collaborative leadership were the highest rated future skills in a global PMI survey. 'Soft' or 'Power' skills were under invested in within industry - this must change.


Session 2: The Future Project Manager in the AI Era

Lidia Plartus - AI Consultant


Lidia presented a critical view of global surveys showing the aspirations around AI were not matched by real success in operations. Demand for AI talent - 3x what is currently available! There is a clear 'opportunity gap' between companies' vision for AI productivity and current practice. Lidia also presented an overview of the evolution of AI and 'what it can do for you today'. Some indistry forecasts - and 'what this means for you'.


Session 3: Stronger Together: Integrating Data Expertise & Project Leadership to Accelerate Your Transformations

James Martin-Young, Migso-Pcubed and Ben Johnson, Uptitiude


James and Ben a view from the persepectives of the project manager and the data manager working together. “It’s not about replacing project management” - “It’s about augmenting it with data and AI”. They explained how the future of project management is with data - and that AI depends on good data foundations; without structure, governance, and clear definitions, AI doesn’t work - you can’t just point AI at raw data and expect value.


Session 4: Change Management - A Project Manager's Secret Weapon

Lena Shukla, Jazz Pharmaceuticals


Lena presented the view that the role of Project Managers is shifting from being 'Technical Controllers' of a project to 'Strategic Change Leaders'. she introduced several helpful models - firstly the PROSCI model - explaining that strategic challenges introduce change. For the PM this requires 'EQ' not just 'IQ' - change management - leading people through 'bumps' along the project timeline. Then, the Kubler-Ross curve, and ADKAR - illustrating that moving people through change needed a leader to sense the needs of people, diagnose the barriers at any point and use (e.g.) storytelling to engage them.

 

Session 5: Influencing Beyond Authority

Evan Gorgees, Effectiveness Consultant


Evan led participants through a practical exercise to build a more intentional stakeholder influence strategy. Each person mapped the stakeholders connected to one of their projects, then labelled both the current strength of each relationship and the level of influence each stakeholder had on project progress. Participants then focused on a small number of stakeholders and worked through four key questions: What do I need from them? What do they need from me? Which influence tactic(s) will I use? What will I do or say next? Gary Yukl’s influence tactics gave people a useful framework for thinking beyond authority and choosing a more deliberate approach to stakeholder engagement. The result was a practical action plan that each participant could take back into their own project context.


Session 6: Designing B2B Relationships to Drive Innovation in Life Sciences

David Whitmore and Juan Sandoval


David and Juan introduced reasons why the need for collaboration is extremely important in life sciences. Essential for faster, safer innovation and rapid decisions. Project managers must actively manage relationships to ensure success. They talked through 'strategic' and 'transactional' relationships - both are critical to understand and manage and they presented several tools to understand them and inform organisations of current strengths. In addition, they conducted some survey research with the audience identifying most common drivers for success in a set of partnerships dimensions, The results can be viewed at the end of the slides file.


Session 7: Can We Develop New Skills in Time?

John Faulkes - Trainer/Consultant and Chair of PIPMG


John reflected on the needs identified during the day for project managers to develop relationship, leadership, change skills and the difficulties this presented in many organisations. Manager's first thoughts often were for training courses - but these in isolation typically provided a kick-start that could be lost without coaching and support in ensuing day-to-day work. Understandably, manager's found it difficult to assess power skills capabilities. John concluded with some key tips and setting out what PIPMG can do to assist organisations, particularly those without significant HR/L&D support, to develop skills in the workplace.




 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page