Managing the Managers: How AI Is Transforming HR for Project Teams

Last month, a construction trades executive shared challenges managing multiple project teams—specifically in growing talent, hiring effectively, and keeping execution consistent. If you've ever led a project team, you know this isn’t easy. Project managers are autonomous, work across diverse initiatives, and often find traditional HR processes more obstructive than helpful.

After 20+ years building and scaling PMOs, I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly. With AI project management capabilities expanding, PMO leaders can now tackle persistent talent challenges with powerful tools. Over the past 18 months, I’ve seen a surge in AI-powered HR solutions transforming how we attract, develop, and retain project management talent. I’ve used AI in my own PMO to streamline hiring, cut interview time by 33%, enhance coaching, reduce prep time by 40%, and boost performance visibility—delivering measurable impact. This blog includes tools to help you start your AI journey.

Here’s what every PMO leader should understand about this shift—and why those adopting AI tools now are improving project manager retention and gaining a competitive edge.

The Hidden Cost of HR-Project Management Misalignment

Before diving into solutions, let's quantify the problem. Based on my direct experience and research across multiple PMOs, here are the key challenges every project management leader faces:

Traditional HR Challenges with Project Teams:

• Project managers often feel their impact is misunderstood or undervalued in traditional performance reviews.

• Hiring experienced PMs typically takes longer than other roles, slowing down transformation efforts.

• Career advancement for project managers often feels limited, leading to dissatisfaction and higher turnover.

• Turnover not only incurs high hiring costs but results in the loss of deep institutional knowledge accumulated through project delivery.

The root cause? Project managers operate differently than traditional employees. They work across departments, manage matrix relationships, and drive change—none of which fits neatly into standard HR frameworks.

Where Human Resources Struggles with Project Teams (And Where AI Project Management Helps)

Project managers do not sit neatly inside departments. That makes managing them a unique human resources challenge for PMO leaders. Integrating AI project management tools into HR strategies offers clear advantages for improving project manager retention and performance.. They lead change across technology, operations, marketing—you name it. That makes managing them a unique human resources challenge. Based on my experience and research, here are four common hurdles and how artificial intelligence is already solving them.

1. Challenge: Holistic Performance Reviews

Artificial Intelligence Solution: Continuous, Contextual Feedback
Human resources often struggles to assess project managers beyond budget and timelines. But artificial intelligence tools like Culture Amp use natural language processing to integrate 360-degree feedback, communication sentiment, and work tool data to build richer, real-time performance views.

• Real-world example: A global tech firm uses Culture Amp’s “Skills Coach” to prompt managers with context-aware questions and summarize team feedback in real time.
  Source: Culture Amp

• Outcome: Managers can recognize soft skills like stakeholder leadership and team morale—not just delivery metrics.

2. Challenge: Mentoring Misalignment

Artificial Intelligence Solution: Precision Matching and Timing
Traditional mentoring programs often rely on job titles or availability. Artificial intelligence enabled systems like MentorcliQ and Gloat analyze a project manager’s project type, learning style, skill gaps, and real-time performance data to recommend mentors.

• Real-world example: Booz Allen Hamilton uses artificial intelligence to match mid career project managers in government information technology to mentors with experience in similar high-stakes, cross-agency environments.
  Source: Booz Allen

• Outcome: Better mentor-mentee fit and more meaningful coaching.

3. Challenge: Career Pathing and Internal Mobility

Artificial Intelligence Solution: Personalized Learning and Opportunity Mapping
Project managers often plateau or switch careers when they do not see a future in their current organization. Tools like Fuel50 and Nestlé’s use of Gloat enable internal gig marketplaces and personalized development plans.

• Real-world example: Nestlé used artificial intelligence to match a marketing project manager interested in supply chain with a three-month digitization project—leveraging her stakeholder skills while teaching logistics.
  Source: HBR

• Outcome: Better retention and development tied to real business needs.

4. Challenge: Bias and Subjectivity in Reviews

Artificial Intelligence Solution: Language Analysis and Equity Checks
Performance reviews are vulnerable to unconscious bias. Platforms like Textio and Eightfold use artificial intelligence to detect gendered language and offer neutral phrasing before reviews are submitted.

• Real-world example: Eightfold flags patterns of inconsistent feedback across demographics and suggests interventions before reviews are finalized.
  Source: Eightfold

• Outcome: Fairer reviews and stronger diversity, equity, and inclusion outcomes.

How I Used AI in My Own PMO

“In a high-growth project management office leading major transformation, hiring and developing a 12 person team of project managers became time-consuming and inconsistent. Artificial intelligence changed that for me.”

Here is how:

Hiring: Automating the Screening Process

• I recorded a 3 minute video using artificial intelligence to communicate to candidates general information typically covered in an initial interview such as introducing myself, company background, who the team is, team culture, and projects underway.

• Artificial intelligence generated job descriptions, resume screening, and interview questions made hiring more consistent.

• Initial interview times dropped from 45 to 25 minutes, while candidate quality increased.

Coaching: Artificial Intelligence-Driven Performance Insights

• I used artificial intelligence to assess project status, risk trends, and delivery patterns for each project manager.

• Based on the data, I created tailored coaching topics for each bi-weekly one-on-one.

That shift moved our team from generic feedback to focused growth and saved hours of preparation time per month.

Legal and Ethical Considerations You Cannot Ignore

Artificial intelligence in human resources is not plug-and-play. It raises valid concerns:

• Bias Amplification: If your data reflects biased human behavior, artificial intelligence might reinforce it.

• Transparency: Employees deserve to know when artificial intelligence is involved in hiring or evaluation.

• Data Privacy: You must comply with data laws like the General Data Protection Regulation and keep sensitive data secure.

• Over-Reliance: Artificial intelligence supports decision-making—not replaces it.

In my AI Guide for HR, created with input from human resources professionals, we cover these risks in depth and provide a framework for responsible use. It is a resource I offer clients to help them implement artificial intelligence ethically and effectively. Contact me if you would like a copy.

Tools I Built to Help You Get Started

To make this real for you, I created two tools:

1. Custom GPT Assistant for Project Management

To help you explore this for yourself, I built a sandbox-ready Custom GPT preloaded with realistic project data:
👉 Project Management Assistant GPT

This assistant uses the kind of Word and Excel files most PMOs already manage—project charters, resource lists, task breakdowns. No specialized tools required.

It’s designed to show you what’s possible, even before integrating AI into enterprise platforms.

Use these prompts to start explore its capabilities:

1. “Based on project data, provide topics to use for coaching the project management in bi-weekly one-on-one sessions”

2. “Summarize project schedule risks based on task delays and resource gaps”

3. “What project managers are likely struggling with their project, what coaching could help ”

2. AI Guide for HR

This practical guide helps human resources leaders adopt artificial intelligence with clarity, confidence, and compliance.
📩 DM me to request a copy.

What You Can Do This Week

If you are wondering how to start, here are five simple actions:

• Audit your performance review process—what could artificial intelligence enhance?

• Identify one talent challenge (for example, mentoring) and explore artificial intelligence solutions like Gloat or MentorcliQ.

• Try the GPT assistant to see what coaching insights you can uncover.

• Request a copy of the AI Guide for HR to review with your leadership team.

• Start tracking how much time your team spends on repetitive human resources tasks—and ask how artificial intelligence could help.

Artificial intelligence will not replace human resources. But it will amplify your ability to support, grow, and retain your most strategic talent: the people who lead change.

If you are ready to bring artificial intelligence into the way you manage project talent, you are not alone—and you do not have to start from scratch.

Let us build a smarter future for your project management team—together.

— Grant