In an age defined by technological advancement and a growing fascination with AI, the workplace is undergoing a significant evolution, reshaping how businesses operate and redefining people, culture roles and responsibilities.
According to a global AI survey by McKinsey, AI adoption in business has skyrocketed from 50 percent to 72 percent in the past six years. Despite this acceleration, businesses waste trillions of dollars on digital transformation, with over half of digital initiatives ultimately failing.
To keep pace and stay competitive during this next era of digital transformation and AI, businesses must go beyond simply implementing the technology. They must focus on facilitating the adoption by empowering people and leaders.
This requires not only redefining and reshaping traditional roles within organizations but also ensuring that those leading the charge are equipped with the skills, agility and vision needed to navigate and thrive in this rapidly evolving landscape.
While 2024 saw the business world adopt AI faster than ever, we are currently seeing the dawn of new roles, showing how businesses are adapting to this new and evolving era. These include the emerging roles of the ‘accidental’ project manager, ‘evolving’ CFO and chief AI officers.
Let’s talk about the ‘accidental’ project manager
What is the ‘accidental’ project manager?
Well, it’s when an organization is taking on a new project, typically to help evolve or grow the business, and someone naturally takes on management duties, despite it not being their primary role. This could include overseeing the execution of the project, managing deadlines and budget, leading different teams, tracking progress and managing resources and stakeholders.
As companies try to adopt more technology and embrace new tools that support productivity and workflow, the reality is that projects tend to increase in complexity and different skills and departments are required. Suddenly, we see roles expanding, departments merging and a unique flow of collaboration.
We are currently seeing the dawn of new roles, showing how businesses are adapting to this new and evolving era.
Some employees, by nature, may feel the need to lead the team to deliver on strategy and see themselves fall into accidental project manager roles purely by circumstance. The impact on companies can vary. On the one hand, these individuals can bring technical expertise, a new perspective or an ability to combat technical issues.
However, the lack of formal training or skills could result in missed deadlines, while others may not have the soft skills needed to lead and manage teams and stakeholders effectively.
Blurred lines
While providing formal training will help employees navigate these new roles successfully, particularly in the absence of a formal project manager, ongoing mentorship, realistic goal setting, soft skills training and the implementation of innovative and easy-to-use project management tools will also prove helpful.
The concept of the ‘accidental’ project manager aligns with our ‘2024 Project to Product State of the Industry Report’, where over 50 percent of respondents forecast that in five years, over 80 percent of their work will be product-oriented – a 60 percent increase from today.
Companies now prioritize strategic oversight to balance AI’s transformative potential with its ethical, regulatory and operational complexities.
As projects demand tighter collaboration across departments, tools like Planview’s Connected Work Graph revolutionize dependency visualization, enabling accidental project managers to instantly identify bottlenecks and optimize resources through an intuitive interface.
Coupled with Planview Copilot, generative AI delivers role-specific insights, transforming how these managers connect strategic goals to execution.
Over the next year and beyond, ‘accidental’ roles won’t solely be limited to project managers and businesses, and employees will find the lines continue to blur between roles. As technology evolves, so too will the face of roles within organizations, and responsibilities and capabilities will continue to expand.
The evolution of the CFO role
The role of the CFO has evolved significantly over the last few years, shifting from a primary focus on financial reporting and budgeting to a strategic leader. Today, the modern CFO supports and even drives digital transformation initiatives.
With a CFO involved in and supporting such initiatives, inefficient processes, waste and slow launches are more likely to be addressed and mitigated – it is in their best interest as CFOs to ensure the company is getting the most value from its investments.
Embracing flexibility, adaptability and agility will be essential for business success and a competitive edge in 2025 and beyond.
CFOs also often have a big-picture view, allowing them to facilitate collaboration between technology teams and the wider company. This is essential given the crucial nature of technology teams in today’s age. While they may not necessarily have the technological prowess, the evolving CFO should still speak the same language as tech leaders and understand their needs.
In turn, CFOs can educate tech leaders by helping them understand the impact of budgets, profit and loss, shareholder value and more, allowing them to view projects from a business perspective. This bridges the gap between teams, fosters more meaningful collaboration and ultimately leads to more successful project outcomes.
With trillions wasted on failed digital transformation initiatives each year, the evolution of the CFO role is more important than ever. While financial leaders may naturally be resistant to change, embracing flexibility, adaptability and agility will be essential for business success and a competitive edge in 2025 and beyond.
Chief AI officer
While the role of the chief AI officer has been a point of discussion for years, few organizations have appointed one. This role is now gaining traction as the impact and use cases for AI start to emerge. This surge reflects a post-hype reckoning – companies now prioritize strategic oversight to balance AI’s transformative potential with its ethical, regulatory and operational complexities.
As AI becomes ‘the new electricity’, these officers now act as enterprise-wide architects, designing AI roadmaps that align with core business objectives while ruthlessly prioritizing initiatives to eliminate fragmented or redundant projects.
This centralized oversight ensures AI investments directly drive revenue, efficiency or competitive differentiation, which is critical as 73 percent of CEOs report AI will fundamentally reshape their business models.
