You will be leading a discussion on “Harnessing Machine Learning Applied to Portfolio Success,” what are some key takeaways the attendees can expect from your session?

We will discuss how to leverage new capabilities in the Machine Learning space to screen innovative ideas, look for marketplace trends, and balance investments based on pre-set strategies as defined by your organization. 

How does leveraging machine learning make it easier for end-users?

Machine learning can eliminate a lot of the manual work historically required to read and interpret large amounts of data and allow the business analyst or decision maker to spend more time deriving insights on a smaller subset of relevant data for your particular business. 

What does developing machine learning do for overall projects? 

Machine learning has many potential capabilities including eliminating manual data entry, suggesting recommendations for investment and resource ranges typically used for similar types of projects, and automating financial analyses which have historically been very manual. This will help save the organization time and increase the overall efficiency/turnaround of maintenance and decisions on a given project. 

Why is it beneficial to track the actual versus the current baseline of projects?

As new information becomes available, priorities can quickly change and a given project portfolio may need to be adjusted. Tracking the actual status of many data elements as compared to the initial baseline assumptions is essential for knowing when to stop, pace, or accelerate certain project activities. 

In your experience, what are the best strategies when integrating machine learning? 

A key strategy when evaluating how and when to use machine learning, is identifying the key pain points in your current business process and then assess them against a list of tasks that the organization is struggling with, or severely dislikes doing. You must then assess the business value gained by potentially automating or streamlining those activities via machine learning. 

You have historically being involved at marcus evans events. What key drivers motivated you to participate once again? What about this particular conference made you interested in speaking?

These conferences have consistently provided a great external perspective for me in the project portfolio and resource management space to challenge the internal thinking within my company and push us to think differently when appropriate. The speakers have consistently brought relevant topics for me to listen to and the network I have made here has been invaluable to lean on when I need an outside perspective on challenging topics I regularly face in my current job. This particular conference is enticing because I still feel most companies struggle to connect the Strategy to the overall execution in day to day operations and I would love to hear more on how others are facing this challenge in their roles.