Real Stories, Real Results
SECOND EDITION
By Greg Saunders
Texas, USA
Introduction
The world is three and a half years into the open GenAI era. With its November 30, 2022, launch of ChatGPT (chat-based generative pretrained transformer), OpenAI offered generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to anyone with the motivation to leverage it. Many more GenAI tools, one-hundred-fifty-plus, are now available and specialize in generating or editing emails, image or video generation, analytics, and project management, to name a few.
Everyone from middle-school students to CEOs are attempting to use and benefit from GenAI’s ability to accelerate delivery of accurate answers to homework and products that give a diplomatic, information, economic (business), or military advantage to him or her. In late March 2026, Anthropic published its summary of the percentage of twenty-two professions’ tasks people are prompting Anthropic’s Claude AI to perform (Massenkoff, Massenkoff, & McCrory, 2026). While this is only one GenAI tool’s actual profession-task-specific-prompt-usage result, it does give insight into the worldwide practical application of GenAI.
GenAI is capable of performing higher percentages of many professions’ functions. One of those functions is processing big volumes of data accurately and quickly to accelerate product delivery to the benefit of students, employees, and governments. GenAI can do that well, but it comes with “growing pains” for the user. With the goal of accelerating an office’s adoption of GenAI, what follows in this paper is a discussion of an EPMO’s failures with GenAI, examples of big data applications of GenAI in the project management domain, and guidance on leading organizations to adopt GenAI.
Failing Fast
Agile has a philosophy of failing fast. Most people avoid failing due to embarrassment or some other form of punishment but in Agile, the goal of failing fast is to learn. Agilists want feedback as to what the market likes and dislikes. If the release’s features are not used by customers, then in the duration of two more two-to-four-week sprints, the agile team will release additional features that the product owner forecasts customers will use.
This is a good philosophy to apply when using GenAI. It is good to engineer prompts across a spectrum of GenAI tools and disciplines and see what works and what does not work. Then use the GenAI tools that best fit your situation.
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Editor’s note: Second Editions are previously published papers that have continued relevance in today’s project management world, or which were originally published in conference proceedings or in a language other than English. Original publication acknowledged; authors retain copyright. This paper was originally presented at the 18th Project Management Symposium at the University of Texas at Dallas in May 2026. It is republished here with permission of the author and conference organizers.
How to cite this paper: Saunders, G. (2026). AI in Action Real Stories, Real Results; Originally presented at the 18th Project Management Symposium at the University of Texas at Dallas in May, republished in the PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue VIII, August. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/pmwj167-Aug2026-Saunder-AI-in-Action-2nd-ed.pdf
About the Author
Greg Saunders
North Texas, USA
Greg Saunders is a Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master and PMP serving at the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, the Exchange, which is an $7B international retailer for America’s Soldiers, Airmen, and Guardians. He’s currently the manager of the Exchange’s Program and Project Portfolio Governance office, setting policy for and managing a $550M portfolio of 90 programs, projects, and initiatives. Previously at the Exchange he 1) served as PMO head with a team of 22, 2) served as the lead PM for the Exchange’s largest program—replacing the accounting systems; 3) worked with PM, governance, and system analyst leads to architect the transformation of the Exchange’s program management approach; 4) served as the systems portfolio manager of 51 primary HR, payroll, & data warehouse systems; and 5) served as the PMO head for a 16-person team managing a $150M portfolio of 60 projects.
Prior to joining the Exchange, he ran a $2.5M/year business in a top-tier consultant firm. During his USAF career he re-established the Denver-based Air Reserve Personnel Center’s (ARPC) PMO; led the upgrade to ARPC’s portion of the Air Force Personnel Center’s call center that supports over 6 million reservists, retirees, and their surviving spouses; and as a colonel at the Pentagon served as both the USAF Reserves Comptroller and the Reservist to the AF CIO Director for Cyberspace Capabilities and Compliance, overseeing a team of 60 managing the USAF’s cyberspace capabilities, policy, and compliance. Over his 35-year career he has also become a Certified Agile Practitioner, been certified in ITIL Foundation, and been certified by the Air Force as a Lean, Six Sigma Black Belt. He can be contacted via Linked at https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg767/.
