Project Management: From Individual Control to the World of AI

Abstract This article details the evolution of Petrobras’ project management monitoring and control practices over the last few years, moving from an individual and local control approach to a time of challenges in adopting tools with the use of artificial intelligence. The main challenges included transforming the local information, without organized data, into a single centralized location, using corporate systems. Another crucial challenge was promoting a cultural shift in how the project team worked with information and how managers accessed it. The process includes the monitoring of Petrobras investment projects, which in the current Business Plan amounts to more than 90 billion dollars in upstream, downstream, and renewable segments. The company identified the need for a more robust monitoring of its portfolio, incorporating several improvements as reducing the number of meetings and optimizing the senior management's schedule, predictability, and transparency of information. Additionally, there was a need to prioritize topics and automate information, reducing time spent preparing materials. As a result, we standardized the project monitoring tools, reinforcing the use of corporate systems, and inhibiting localized management. Now, information is available by both managers and those involved in the projects at any time in near real-time to stakeholders, promoting greater transparency and accessibility. Project monitoring meetings by senior leadership are now conducted through dashboards that utilize information from official monitoring systems. This has reduced the material preparation and prior validations, resulting in better time management and enabling more timely decision-making. The adoption of generative artificial intelligence tools has been happening in an organic manner. This scenario wouldn't be possible without data governance of systems and structuring of routines, and it is allowing significant advancements in project monitoring governance. Ultimately, the perspective of increased adoption of technological solutions and AI is growing, and its utilization indicates that various monitoring and control routines will benefit. Therefore, the relationship is mutually beneficial: improved governance of processes and data enables the use of new digital solutions, and the use of these solutions enhances project governance. This not only optimizes processes but also improves the accuracy and efficiency of project monitoring. The greatest contribution lies in the set of methodologies, along with the use of digital solutions, analytics and the use of artificial intelligence, for agile and asynchronous monitoring and control of project portfolio with reliability and data governance, allowing for uniformity of information and better decision-making. Advances in knowledge and the application of AI in monitoring and control tools open a range of possibilities for the future of project management, bringing continuous and sustainable benefits.