On Trends in Project Management, and learning, growing, and contributing to the success of projects and organizations
Interview with Prof. Prasad S. Kodukula
Author, Coach, Inventor, Popular Speaker
Executive Advisor to Industry & Government
Award Winning PMI Fellow
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Interviewed by Yasmina Khelifi
International Correspondent, PM World Journal
Paris, France
Introduction to the interviewee
Prof. Prasad S. Kodukula, PhD, PMP, PgMP, PMI-ACP, DASM, DASSM, BCES, is a PMI Fellow, USA Today best-selling author, thought leader, speaker, coach, inventor, and entrepreneur with more than 35 years of professional experience. A global ambassador for project management, Dr. Kodukula has lectured on project management topics in nearly 50 countries and worked with 40 Fortune 100 companies (e.g., Abbott, BP, Caterpillar, Chrysler, Dow, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, Kraft, Motorola, Stryker, United Technologies). He has also taught project management courses for the U.S. government, including Departments of Commerce and Defense and NASA, as well as for intergovernment agencies such as the United Nations and the World Bank. He is Adjunct Industry Professor of Project Management at Illinois Tech and adjunct faculty at University of Chicago. He is the co-founder and CEO of two companies: Kodukula & Associates, Inc., a project management coaching and consulting company; and NeoChloris, Inc., a renewable energy company.
Dr. Kodukula has been recognized three times by the Project Management Institute (PMI) as “Best of the Best in Project Management” receiving the 2020 PMI Fellow Award, the 2016 Eric Jenett Project Management Excellence Award, and the 2010 PMI Distinguished Contribution Award. One of the companies he co-founded was recognized as the most innovative environmental technology company in the State of Illinois in 2005. In 2009, he was honored with the Illinois Tech Alumni Association Professional Achievement Award. He has also received prestigious awards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Kansas for outstanding leadership in education/training and environmental improvement. An accomplished author, Dr. Kodukula has co-authored or contributed to 12 books and more than 40 articles and holds four U.S. patents.
Dr. Kodukula can ba contacted on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prasadkodukula/
Website: https://kodukula.com/
Interview
Q1: First, thank you for accepting an interview request from PMWJ. You have been working in project management and teaching for many years. What are the two major trends you foresee for 2025 in project management?
Dr. Prasad Kodukula (Kodukula): Thank you, Yasmina. I appreciate the opportunity to be part of this conversation. It’s always a pleasure to discuss project management with someone as passionate and dedicated as you.
The first transformational trend that I see is the use of AI tools. The project management industry is already starting to adopt generative AI—albeit slowly, I must say. What’s emerging now is agentic AI—AI that can autonomously plan, make decisions, and take actions to achieve specific goals. This will particularly transform project controls, ranging from schedule, cost, and risk management to performance measurement, tracking, and forecasting. AI will empower teams to transition from reactive issue resolution to proactive risk mitigation. Plus, AI-based tools will make project managers’ jobs easier by helping them with resource allocation, change management, and supply chain management, among many other areas. I must add a caveat, though, that the integration of the human element remains critical. Project managers must ensure that AI complements, rather than replaces, strategic decision-making and the development of high-performance teams.
The second trend that I’m observing is the divide between traditional (waterfall) and agile project management rapidly disappearing. More organizations are embracing hybrid methods that blend structured planning with agile adaptability. For example, large-scale capital projects may retain waterfall-driven governance while incorporating agile sprints for iterative workflows such as software integration and stakeholder engagement. Hybrid methodologies will become the standard approach rather than an exception. The challenge for project managers will be to navigate these blended frameworks effectively, ensuring alignment across teams while retaining the flexibility to innovate.
More…
To read entire interview, click here
How to cite this work: Khelifi, Y. (2025). On Trends in Project Management, and learning, growing, and contributing to the success of projects and organizations, Interview with Dr. Prasad Kodukula, PMI Fellow, PM World Journal, Vol. XIV, Issue IV, April. Available online at http://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/pmwj151-Apr2025-Khelifi-Interview-with-Dr-Prasad-Kodukula.pdf
About the Interviewer
Yasmina Khelifi
Paris, France
Yasmina Khelifi, PMP, PMI- ACP, PMI-PBA is an experienced project manager in the telecom industry. Along with her 20-year career at Orange S.A. (the large French multinational telecommunications corporation), she sharpened her global leadership skills, delivering projects with major manufacturers and SIM makers. Yasmina strives for building collaborative bridges between people to make international projects successful. She relies on three pillars: project management skills, the languages she speaks, and a passion for sharing knowledge.
She is a PMP certification holder since 2013, a PMI- ACP and PMI-PBA certification holder since 2020. She is an active volunteer member at PMI France and PMI UAE, and a member of PMI Germany Chapter. French-native, she can speak German, English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and she is learning Arabic. Yasmina loves sharing her knowledge and experiences at work, in her volunteers’ activities at PMI, and in projectmanagement.com as a regular blogger. She is also the host and co-founder of the podcast Global Leaders Talk with Yasmina Khelifi to help people in becoming better international leaders.
Yasmina can be contacted at https://yasminakhelifi.com/ or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasminakhelifi-pmp-telecom/
Visit her correspondent profile at https://pmworldlibrary.net/yasmina-khelifi/
To view other works by Yasmina, visit her author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/yasmina-khelifi/
