ITM Nord Europe is offering a second session of its AI Project Manager training for 2022. The creation of this certification aims to support the transformation of skills around artificial intelligence, an essential issue for many professionals. Emmanuel Renaux, co-educational director of the AI Project Manager trainingat ITM North Europe, agreed to answer our questions about this certification, the need for skills and the specificity of AI project management.
ActuIA: Who is this training for?
Emmanuel Renaux: The IA Project Manager training at ITM Nord Europe is a level 7 RNCP title. It is therefore intended for Bac+4 and 5 and also for those who do not have these degrees via the Validation of Professional and Personal Acquired Skills (VAPP). We are in an evolution of the job of Project Manager taking into account the specificities of artificial intelligence.
What profiles are you looking for?
There is no typical profile. During the first session, our trainees did not necessarily have the status of project manager, but it is important that a candidate has had experience within an IT project, either as a project manager or as a member of the project, or even in a transversal way. He/she must have already worked with resource, time, product and customer constraints. This is why the profiles are broad in their functions and can be more or less experienced. For example, we have been able to take on trainees who are fairly young, with 3 or 4 years’ experience, particularly from Orange, as well as people with 20 years’ experience.
In our recruitment criteria, we especially appreciate a candidate who has a real project, either within his or her company, or a personal project to create a new business or retrain. This necessarily increases his or her motivation throughout the course, as it requires a real investment. It is important to note that the training time is often added to a rich professional schedule and takes on private life.
Is it an individual initiative on the part of the people who come to do this training or is it at the initiative of their company?
We have both. AI is gradually entering all companies. They therefore need this new type of resource, people capable of managing AI projects. The company can therefore initiate the training and support the trainees financially or by giving them time. But there are also personal initiatives, as for example a self-employed project manager who wanted to add a string to her bow and be able to support her clients in their new AI projects.
Today AI is opening up to the world but remains quite opaque for many people, do you share this observation? If so, why?
The question is interesting because it is precisely an issue that we address in training. When a company develops an AI solution for its client, how do you get people to accept that a sort of “black box” makes decisions, gives direction, and helps with the choice that needs to be made? How to make people accept the results of an algorithm so sophisticated that they are not able to explain it? Indeed, AI has the particularity that humans cannot reconstruct the reasoning leading to a result. AI algorithms are probabilistic and therefore sometimes the result can be surprising compared to a reasoning made by a human. Moreover, this can open new perspectives. AI should be considered as helping humans when there is too much information to process. AI will process a large amount of data and provide a result and it is up to the human to decide in the end. AI can replace certain jobs, but it creates new ones, hence the need to train for these new jobs, to make them more competent.
For you, what is the difference and the specificity of an AI project management compared to an IT project management?
I am a teacher-researcher, but AI is not my main field. However, by designing this training with the help of AI project professionals, I was able to get a feel for what we are talking about. The specificity of an AI project compared to a classic IT project such as a Java backend, with established specifications and technologies that have been tried and tested for several years, is that you have to manage uncertainty. When we implement an AI solution, we are not sure of the quality of the result, so there is a risk for the client. Another difficulty that emerged from the codeign days that led to the creation of this training course with industrial partners is data control.
In an AI project, you have to manage several data sets, which is complex. When designing a pilot, you have to be sure to have the right data set, the one that corresponds to the data in production, that is, the data that will really be used. Because in the constrained case, the AI will not work.
Another specificity of the AI project is its multidisciplinary nature. New roles come into play: data scientist, data engineer, roles that are often transversal to the projects. Finally, we must not forget the support of the end user. They will have to be trained in the use of these new tools. Finally, I find specific features of digital transformation projects from the late 1990s, when the Internet was born and information systems were opened up, with new security problems, problems of personal data regulation, data access and new uses. That’s what’s motivating, we’re starting a new cycle!
The field of AI is growing, there is a growing demand and therefore we are seeing an increase in skills. For you, how will this happen in the years to come for training and the new jobs that are coming?
It’s a training program that’s essentially taken care of by teacher-researchers. We have to be at the cutting edge and even ahead of the technologies. As scientists, we work on future solutions, which is why we are funded. We are able to anticipate and therefore create training courses on innovative themes.
The company constantly needs new jobs due to these new technologies and therefore necessarily these will be professionals to train, to develop, and this is what we do more and more.
I would add that the training is not only theoretical and that it puts into practice the concepts. What better way to assimilate an algorithm and the underlying concepts than to develop and manipulate it? In the training, we create small programs to try and get a feel for the algorithm and make it work. The training contains a number of projects, practical applications and this is very much appreciated by the trainees. Moreover, the follow-up is ensured by the availability of the teaching team and specialists (teacher-researchers). In addition, the exchanges between and with the trainees necessarily enrich the content of the training.
Who are the lecturers, are they more academics or people from the business world?
We have both equally. In the technical part of the course, they are mainly professors and researchers, and in the management, legal or knowledge management part, they are more professionals.
More information on the ITM North Europe’s AI Project Manager training on the school’s website.
