For the first time ever, three PMI® Chapters Communities of Practice (CoPs) focused on life sciences ( NJ , Germany , Belgium ) collaborated and joined forces with PMI's Thought Leadership team and corporate supporters to deliver a truly global and multi-disciplinary event on June 5th, 2025.
Our virtual "Harnessing GenAI for Project Management in Life Sciences" Hackathon brought together over 75 project management and GenAI enthusiasts from the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical devices sectors to actively share, learn, and collaborate about how to use GenAI to manage product development projects.
(Hack alert - In keeping with our GenAI theme, this blog is written in part by AI with our team’s human-in-the-loop changes!)
The event underscored the growing interest in GenAI’s potential to transform project pipeline management (PPM) in the life sciences. Participants were encouraged to reflect on their attitudes and experiences along their GenAI adoption journeys - whether as trailblazers or as those seeking guidance - and to use the event as an opportunity to benchmark progress, learn from peers, and grow collectively to translate GenAI’s transformative promise into practical, actionable use cases tailored to our sectors’ unique constraints.
Our opening plenary featured a recap of our registrants’ characteristics – geographies (mostly Europe and the Americas), our primary work roles (program/project manager) and the primary product lifecycle phases we work in (development). In regards to GenAI – most of us are users and our attitudes about it are mostly optimistic.
PMI Thought Leadership then inspired our participants with an overview of valuable insights drawn from their recent global research into the evolving role of GenAI in project management, sharing advancements reshaping traditional workflows that enable PMs to drive greater efficiency and innovation.
Our breakout sessions opened for dynamic and interactive discussions centered on three guiding questions:
- What are you doing now?
- What’s working?
- What are your challenges?
Discussions emphasized competency development, highlighting critical skills project managers need to cultivate as GenAI becomes more prominent, such as AI integration, data analysis, and strategic decision-making. Best practices from discussions on challenges, opportunities and benefits were compiled, underscoring the importance of leadership buy-in, cross-functional collaboration, and robust infrastructure while addressing blockers like insufficient training and organizational readiness.
Our hackathon concluded with actionable next steps, including sharing more detailed insights through a variety of media (e.g., articles, videos, etc.) and fostering ongoing engagement within the "AI Hackathon Alumni - PMI Life Sciences Community" LinkedIn group.
A heartfelt thank you goes out to our team, supporters, and contributors who made this event possible. Much more to come – stay tuned!Kamil Mroz, Claudia Campbell-Matland, Joann O'Connor, Sunny Hung, Benoit Schmitt, Joe Stalder, David Dalessandro, John Bufe, Jonathan Rice, Risa Inagaki, Reinhold Roessler, Eric Gustot, Emma Jaikaran, Bart Briers, Philippe Bernard, Archana Narasanna, Brian Majors, Christophe de Vleesschouwe, Emil Andersson, Ian Summers, Rupal Bhandari, Francesca Donofrio, Aliki Courmanopoulos, Aurora Gualtieri, Juliana Correa, Keren Deront, Kyela Bishop, Michael Bianchi, Samuel Pownall, Sergio Jardim, Shauna Mensah, Taiwo Abraham , Edivandro Conforto , Al Zeitoun
