AI Driven PM: S2E7 - The Greatest Lie Ever Told in Project Management

Why Influence Is the Only Skill That Actually Matters

Somebody told me early in my career that I owned my project.

Owned it. Like it was mine.

Like I could make decisions, adjust budgets on the fly, tell people what to do, and hold the team accountable because—hey—it's my project.

Let me tell you what I actually owned:

The blame. When things went wrong, I owned that.

Here's the reality of project management that nobody puts in the job description:

• The people don't report to me
• It's not my money
• It wasn't my idea
• I don't set the timeline
• I don't control the strategy

And yet somehow, when the project goes sideways, everybody looks at the PM and says, "Why didn't you see this coming?"

That's the contradiction at the heart of our profession. And it's exactly why influence is the number one skill you need to develop.

Not scheduling. Not risk management. Not Agile certification.

Influence.

You Can't Make Anyone Do Anything

Let me be really clear about something:

As a project manager, you cannot make anyone do anything.

You can't make your team work faster. You can't make your sponsor change the date. You can't make your executive adjust the budget. You can't make your stakeholders show up prepared.

All you can do is influence the outcome.

Here's how I describe our actual job: We increase the percentage chance of hitting a date or budget by doing analysis, building plans, framing decisions, and then influencing whoever we're speaking with—team, sponsor, executive, customer—toward the outcome the project needs.

PMs operate in the influence space between silos.

We're the connective tissue. We're the translators. We're the ones standing between engineering's reality and the sponsor's dream, trying to close the gap without anyone getting hurt.

That's not authority. That's influence. And they require completely different skill sets.

The Three Currencies of Influence

If you haven't read Cialdini's Influence: The Science and Practice of Persuasion, go get it today. It feels like a sales and marketing book. But think about what we do every day:

• Selling a position to move a date
• Marketing the case for a budget adjustment
• Persuading a skeptical stakeholder to trust the process

We are in sales. We just don't call it that.

From my experience, PMs work primarily in three influence currencies:

1. Credibility

People trust your judgment because you've earned it.

Not because of your title. Not because of your certification. Because of your track record, your preparation, your follow-through.

Credibility is the currency you build over time. And it's the one that gets spent fastest when you overpromise, underdeliver, or show up unprepared.

2. Reciprocity

You help others achieve their goals—and they help you achieve yours.

I think this is the most powerful influence lever PMs have access to. When you go to bat for someone, cover for them, solve a problem before they ask, create opportunities for them to shine—you build something that no org chart can give you.

Real influence is banked through real acts of service.

One important note though: Don't explicitly remind people of what you did for them and then ask for something back. I'll come back to this—Claude made this mistake in our live demo, and it's worth discussing.

3. Vision

You paint a picture of success so compelling that people want to contribute.

This is why we develop dream statements, mantras, and team motivation stories. We covered this in Episode 1. The reason I invest so heavily in clarifying the why behind every project is because people don't get inspired by Gantt charts.

They get inspired by a destination they believe in.

When they can see the win—when they can feel what success looks like—influence becomes almost effortless.

Three Common Influence Mistakes (That Kill Your Credibility)

1. Over-Relying on Logic

You build the perfect case. The math is airtight. The risk analysis is complete. You walk into the meeting absolutely certain that any reasonable person will see it your way.

And then the sponsor says, "We're making that date no matter what."

Logic without emotional intelligence isn't influence. It's a monologue.

2. Positional Pleading

"The CEO said so." "This is what the executive team wants." "I have authorization from leadership."

That's not influence. That's borrowed authority. And it erodes trust every time you use it, because people know you're not actually speaking for yourself.

3. Passive Aggressive Escalation

"I guess I'll just have to escalate this to the executive team." "I'll let them know we're going to miss the date."

This is an influence killer. Nobody rallies around a PM who threatens escalation. They shut down, get defensive, and you lose the relationship.

Real influence doesn't require threats. It creates alignment.

The DISC Secret Weapon

Here's something that transformed how I communicate with stakeholders:

One message. Four different ways to say it.

DISC is a behavioral assessment framework with four communication styles:

• High D (Dominant): Bullet points, get to the point fast, no fluff
• High I (Influential): People-focused, enthusiastic, what's exciting about this?
• High S (Steady): Change-resistant, needs context, what's the impact on the team?
• High C (Conscientious): Data-driven, detail-oriented, show me the facts

If you bring a five-paragraph explanation to a High D, they check out at sentence two.

If you lead with data and logic for a High S who's worried about their team, you miss the real concern.

Meeting people where they are isn't manipulation. It's respect.

And when you combine that with Socratic AI prompting—where you give the AI context about the stakeholder's style and ask it to help you craft the message—you unlock something powerful.

The Three Prompts (And What the AI Actually Gave Me)

I ran three influence prompts live using our Social Wishing app scenario: We need to cut three MVP features—AI recommendations, in-app messaging, and payment integration—to protect the launch date and save the team from burnout.

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Prompt 1: Influence Network Mapper (Your Non-Negotiable)

What it does: Maps the key influencers and decision makers, identifies their positions and motivations, recommends influence tactics for each, and builds you a conversation sequencing strategy.

What I got:

ChatGPT opened with:

"You're not trying to win an argument. You're trying to align incentives around a shared risk. The hidden risk isn't feature loss. It's execution failure."

That reframe alone is worth the price of admission.

The sequencing strategy it gave me:

1. Engineering manager first — Meet privately, turn frustration into structured input. Ask them to quantify velocity trends, estimate burnout risk, and calculate realistic delivery probability. "I need your help protecting the team and protecting the date. I don't want this to become an engineering versus business fight."
2. Product owner second — Pre-align before the CEO meeting. Convert engineering evidence into risk framing.
3. Marketing director third — Build the narrative that gives the CEO something to say publicly.
4. CEO last — Walk in with the engineering risk doc, the product owner's alignment, and the marketing director's framing already in hand.

And then Claude gave me the closing guidance that absolutely nailed it:

"You're not building consensus. You're building a sequence of aligned conversations so that by the time you reach the CEO, the decision feels inevitable rather than contentious. Each conversation should leave the stakeholder feeling heard—not managed. The goal is that no one walks into the CEO meeting as a surprise voice of opposition."

That's the playbook. Pre-wire every conversation so the final meeting is a confirmation, not a confrontation.

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Prompt 2: Stakeholder Persuasion Message Crafter

The specific situation: Convincing the executive sponsor—who loves AI and sees it as a market differentiator—to launch without AI recommendations.

What the AI gave me:

The core message:

"Launching AI recommendations before the user base exists to train them guarantees this feature underperforms at the exact moment it needs to impress the board."

The analogy:

"Netflix didn't launch with a recommendation engine. They launched with the catalog. The recommendation engine came after they had enough viewing data to make it work. An AI feature trained on zero user behavior doesn't differentiate you—it could embarrass you."

And then the strategic opportunity flip:

"A post-launch AI reveal gives you two press moments instead of one. We launched clean. We proved traction. Now we're releasing AI 1.1 with real usage data. That's a story—not a patch."

ChatGPT offered a different analogy:

"Launching without data-driven AI is like launching a Tesla without Autopilot enabled."

Both are strong. Both give the sponsor something to say in the boardroom. Leaders love a reference story that makes their decision sound precise, not reactive.

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Prompt 3: Reciprocity & Coalition Builder

Here's where I want to be honest about the tool differences—because one of the most valuable things I can do in this series is show you where AI gets it right and where it gets it wrong.

Claude's suggestion for the engineering manager:

"I backed their QA resource request. Now I need to go to them first, privately, and name it directly: 'I went to bat for you on QA. I need you to go to bat for me—and for the team—now.'"

I pushed back on that.

Don't explicitly call out the favor. The moment you say "I did this for you, now you do this for me," you've turned reciprocity into a transaction. And the next time you do something generous for that person, they'll wonder what you're banking it for.

Real reciprocity doesn't need to be verbalized. It should be felt.

ChatGPT handled it better:

"You backed their QA request. That built trust. What they want now is team stability and credibility. Help them by making sustainable scope the official position—not a quiet concern. If you carry the political weight, they don't have to."

That's the difference. You're not reminding them of a debt. You're aligning your ask with their interests and removing a burden from their plate.

That's influence.

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The Big Picture

Here's what I want you to take away from this episode:

You'll never have authority over the things that determine project success. Budget, people, strategy, timeline—none of it is yours.

But influence? That's entirely within your control.

Map your influence network. Understand what each person cares about. Sequence your conversations. Build reciprocity through genuine acts of service. Craft messages that meet people where they are.

And then watch what happens when a PM walks into a final decision meeting where the outcome is already inevitable.

That's not manipulation. That's masterful leadership.

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Your Non-Negotiable Experiment This Week

Use the Influence Network Mapper (Prompt 1) on a real decision you need to influence this week.

Then have at least one conversation using the strategy or message AI helps you design.

Here's what I want you to notice:

1. Did mapping the influence network reveal leverage points you hadn't considered?
2. How did stakeholders respond when the message was framed around their priorities?
3. Did the sequencing strategy change how the final conversation landed?

Because here's the truth: The most effective PMs I've ever met don't win by being the loudest or the most technically correct. They win by knowing exactly who to talk to, in what order, with what message.

And now you have a thinking partner that helps you figure all of that out in minutes.

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Next time: The Three R's—Resistance, Revenge, and Resentment. Why change initiatives fail, what happens when people get caught in the Three R's, and how to use AI to navigate your way out.

Want these prompts ready to copy/paste? Head to PMThatWorks.com for the full library.

Now go map your influence network. The decision is waiting.

— Rick A. Morris

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The Prompts (Copy/Paste Ready)

Prompt 1 - Influence Network Mapper

You are an organizational influence strategist and stakeholder engagement expert.

First, ask me 4–5 questions about the decision I need to influence, who's involved, what their interests are, and what resistance I expect.

Then provide an influence strategy answering:

1. Who are the key influencers and decision makers in this situation?
2. For each person, what do they care about, what motivates them, and what concerns might they have?
3. What is each person's current position? (supporter, neutral, or blocker) and their level of influence?
4. What influence tactics should I use with each person? (credibility, reciprocity, vision, data, coalition building)
5. What is my sequencing strategy? Who do I approach first, and how does that set up the next conversation?
6. What message framing will resonate most with each stakeholder type?

Decision and context: [Enter Context]

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Prompt 2 - Stakeholder Persuasion Message Crafter

You are a communication strategist specializing in persuasive stakeholder messaging.

Ask me 3–4 questions about the stakeholder, the message I need to deliver, their priorities, and what objections I expect.

Then craft a persuasive message by answering:

1. What is the core message in one sentence?
2. What framing will resonate most with this stakeholder's priorities? (data, vision, risk mitigation, opportunity)
3. What story or analogy makes the message memorable?
4. What objections will they raise, and how do I preempt them?
5. What ask or call to action do I make, and how do I make it easy for them to say yes?

Provide the message in an email or conversation script format.

Stakeholder and situation: [Enter Context]

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Prompt 3 - Reciprocity & Coalition Builder

You are a relationship strategist helping PMs build reciprocity and coalition.

Ask me 3–4 questions about the people I need to influence, what they care about, and how I've helped or could help them.

Then provide a reciprocity and coalition strategy answering:

1. What have I done (or could I do) to help each stakeholder achieve their goals?
2. How do I frame my ask as aligned with their interests—not just my project needs?
3. Who are the natural allies I should recruit first to build a coalition?
4. How do I leverage early supporters to create momentum with skeptics?
5. What specific conversation should I have this week to build reciprocity and alignment?

Situation and key people: [Enter Context]

 

AI Driven PM: S2E6 - Net Operating Value

Your Project Isn't Competing Against a Standard. It's Competing Against Everything Else.

Have you ever had a project going really well—hitting milestones, staying on budget, team is energized—and an executive pulls the plug?

You're furious. You're confused. You think, "How could they kill this? We were succeeding."

Here's the uncomfortable answer: Because they weren't evaluating your project. They were evaluating your portfolio.

And those are completely different conversations.

Most project managers optimize in isolation. We focus on our project. Our timeline. Our velocity. Our scope. We find our lane and we stay in it.

But executives? They're not optimizing your project.

They're optimizing across a dozen projects competing for the same people, the same budget, and the same strategic window.

And without a shared language for value—one that accounts for all the trade-offs—PMs and executives talk right past each other.

Your project looks green. Their portfolio looks broken.

That's the gap. And that's exactly what Net Operating Value is designed to close.

What Is Net Operating Value?

Net Operating Value (NOV) is a metric I helped develop to tell a more complete story about project value.

Here's the formula:

NOV = Expected Value − Effort Cost − Risk Cost − Opportunity Cost

Let's break that down:

Expected Value: Revenue, cost savings, strategic positioning, user impact. Everything you gain if the project succeeds.

Effort Cost: Budget, team capacity, person-months, timeline. Everything you spend to get there.

Risk Cost: Probability of failure or underperformance × the financial impact of that failure. What you might lose.

Opportunity Cost: What you are not building because you're building this.

That last one is the one most business cases never include. And it's the one that changes everything.

ROI asks, "Is this worth doing?"

NOV asks, "Is this the best thing we could be doing with these resources right now?"

That's a completely different question.

The AI Capacity Trap

Before we get into the prompts, I want to call out something I'm seeing happen in organizations right now.

They're seeing AI increase team velocity. Story points per sprint are going up. Delivery speed is improving.

And their first instinct is: Let's throw more projects at the team.

I've already had clients say, "If our team's capacity was 270 points before AI, shouldn't it be 390 now? Let's plan accordingly."

And look—maybe. You might see velocity increases. But here's the question you're not asking:

Can we build it? That's the wrong question. The right question is: Should we build it, given everything else we could build?

More capacity doesn't mean more projects. It means more opportunities to choose poorly.

The 2-1-0 philosophy exists precisely for this moment: You need to be two full quarters ahead in ideas competing for quarterly planning, and two full sprints ahead in fully defined, designed, and architected user stories.

Not so you can do more. So you have the tension to choose better.

Can we do this feature? Sure. Should we—given what else is in the queue? That's the real conversation.

Now Let's Do the Math

I ran three prompts live against our Social Wishing app—the bucket-list social platform we've been building throughout this season.

And the results were... illuminating.

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Prompt 1: NOV Calculator (Your Non-Negotiable)

What it does: Calculates a full NOV assessment—expected value, effort cost, risk cost, and opportunity cost—and compares your project to a baseline threshold for approval.

I gave it this context:

• 10,000 users in 90 days
• 4.99/month premium, 10% conversion)
• $300,000 budget, six months, eight people
• Fully dependent on Facebook API
• Opportunity cost: A flagship product feature we're not building that could drive $500,000 in upsell revenue with 80% confidence

ChatGPT asked me:

• "What's your gross margin on subscription revenue?" (70%)
• "What's your expected monthly churn rate?" (30%)
• "Are you planning paid acquisition or assuming organic?" (Paid, $11 CAC)
• "If Facebook API access is restricted, what percent of core functionality breaks?" (Total shutdown)

Then it ran the math.

Unit economics summary:

• Monthly price × 70% margin ÷ 30% churn = $11 lifetime value per premium user
• CAC = $11
• Net unit contribution per premium user: 63 cents

ChatGPT's verdict:

"You're spending 50,000 in premium lifetime contribution. This is deeply negative unit economics."

Claude's NOV calculation: Negative $702,000.

"This project has a strongly negative NOV. Your alternative project produces positive expected contribution of $280,000 with far lower uncertainty. Build the flagship feature."

And just like that—in under four minutes—we had a business case analysis that would have taken a finance team days to produce.

That's the power of the NOV calculator.

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Prompt 2: Value Assumption Stress Test

This is the one I love most.

It doesn't just tell you what your project is worth. It tells you which assumptions, if wrong, kill the entire value case—and what you can do about it.

I gave it the Social Wishing business case with these underlying assumptions:

• 10,000 users in 90 days via viral Facebook sharing
• 30% wish fulfillment rate
• 10% premium conversion
• Users will trust the platform with personal bucket list information
• Facebook maintains stable API access
• Organic network effects keep CAC low

Then I answered honestly:

• Never launched a consumer social product before
• No evidence users will share wishes—just a hunch
• No waitlist, no beta, no validated demand
• Not solving an urgent problem—creating new behavior
• No relationship with Facebook's API team

Claude's response:

"Good. Now we're thinking clearly. You just removed most of the illusion from the business case."

Then it walked through each assumption with best case, expected case, and worst case scenarios.

And then it said something I think every PM needs to hear:

"This is not a 25,000 behavior experiment."

It recommended a 45-day validation sprint instead:

• Build a landing page, spend $3-5K in ads, measure cost per email signup
• Start a private community of 100 people manually, see who posts wishes and who engages
• If cost per signup exceeds $5-7 or organic growth assumptions weaken, you have your answer

Then it gave me the framing for the sponsor conversation:

"The question you should be bringing to your sponsor isn't 'Should we build this?' It's 'Can we spend 285,000?'"

That one reframe changes the entire conversation.

You're not saying no to the idea. You're saying yes to being smarter about how you validate it.

How many of us have had a CIO come back from a conference with a "cool thing" they saw? And six months and $300K later, we find out nobody actually wanted it?

This is how you avoid that.

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Prompt 3: Portfolio Trade-Off Analyzer

Now let's zoom out. Three projects. One six-month window. Capacity for two.

The options:

• Option A: Social Wishing (new product) — 300K cost, high risk
• Option B: Flagship product feature (upsell to existing customers) — 200K cost, low risk
• Option C: Infrastructure modernization (tech debt reduction) — 250K cost, medium risk

Which two do you choose?

ChatGPT and Claude gave me the same answer:

Option B + Option C. Kill Option A in its current form.

And here's the framing that I would use in the executive meeting:

"Option B is the cash generator. Option C is the capability builder. Together they fund growth AND protect our future velocity. That's a balanced portfolio."

That's not a financial argument. That's a story. Two sentences. Executives get it immediately.

For communicating the trade-off on Social Wishing, both tools gave me the same counsel:

"Don't frame this as killing creativity. Frame it as disciplined capital allocation."

Script:

• "Our priority this year is predictable revenue growth and operational stability."
• "For every dollar invested in the flagship feature, we get approximately $2 in risk-adjusted value. Social Wishing does not meet that threshold today."
• "Social Wishing is interesting—but unvalidated. We will test demand with a capped experiment before committing full capital."

That's not a no. That's a responsible yes.

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The Full Circle Moment

We spent all season building the Social Wishing dream. We clarified the vision. We wrote the team motivation story. We built the backlog. We ran the health diagnostic.

And now the NOV says: Don't build it. Not yet. Validate it first.

That's not failure. That's exactly how great project management works.

Dreams deserve data before dollars.

And the PMs who can have that conversation with their sponsors—who can say "here's the math, here's the risk, here's the smarter path forward"—those are the PMs executives trust with their most important projects.

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Your Non-Negotiable Experiment This Week

Run the NOV Calculator (Prompt 1) on a current project.

Then identify: What is the one assumption that, if wrong, kills the entire value case?

Test it. Find the cheapest way to validate or invalidate it before committing more resources.

Here's what I want you to notice:

1. Does calculating NOV change how you talk about your project's value?
2. How do executives respond when your business case includes opportunity cost?
3. Did the stress test surface an assumption you've been avoiding?

Because here's the truth: Protecting your project isn't about defending it. It's about proving it deserves the resources over everything else competing for them.

That's thinking like a portfolio manager.

And that's how you earn a seat at the table.

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Next time: Influence without authority—how to lead when you can't command. It wasn't your idea. They're not your people. It's not your budget. So how do you actually move a project forward?

Want these prompts ready to copy/paste? Head to PMThatWorks.com for the full library.

Now go run the math. Your dream deserves to know if it can stand up to the numbers.

— Rick A. Morris

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The Prompts (Copy/Paste Ready)

Prompt 1 - NOV Calculator

You are a portfolio strategist and financial analyst for project investments.

First, ask me 5–7 clarifying questions about the project's expected benefits, costs, risks, and what else the organization could be doing with the same resources.

Then calculate a net operating value assessment by answering:

1. What is the expected value of this project? (revenue, cost savings, strategic value, user impact — quantify as much as possible)
2. What is the total effort cost? (budget, team capacity, person-months, timeline)
3. What is the risk cost? (probability of failure or underperformance × financial impact)
4. What is the opportunity cost? (what alternative projects or initiatives are we not doing because of this?)
5. What is the calculated NOV, and how does it compare to a baseline threshold for project approval?
6. What assumptions are most uncertain, and how would changing them affect the NOV?

Project context: [Enter Context]

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Prompt 2 - Value Assumption Stress Test

You are a critical thinking coach and risk analyst.

Ask me 3–4 questions about the value assumptions underlying my project's business case.

Then stress test those assumptions by answering:

1. What are the 3–5 core assumptions that must be true for this project to deliver its expected value?
2. For each assumption, what is the best case, expected case, and worst case scenario?
3. How sensitive is the project's NOV to changes in each assumption?
4. What evidence or data exists to validate or challenge each assumption?
5. What experiments or MVPs could we run to de-risk the biggest assumptions before committing fully?

Project business case: [Enter Business Case and Assumptions]

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Prompt 3 - Portfolio Trade-Off Analyzer

You are a portfolio management consultant helping executives make investment decisions.

Ask me 3–4 questions about the competing projects or initiatives in our portfolio and the organization's strategic priorities.

Then provide a trade-off analysis answering:

1. How do the competing projects compare on NOV?
2. What projects are must-dos (strategic imperatives) vs. nice-to-haves?
3. What is the optimal portfolio mix given current capacity and risk tolerance?
4. What projects should we greenlight, pause, or kill based on NOV?
5. How do I communicate trade-offs to stakeholders in a way that builds alignment rather than resentment?

Portfolio context: [Enter Competing Projects and Constraints]