PSO Excellence: The Evolving Project Management Landscape
As professional services organizations seek greater efficiency and competitive advantage, project management practices continue to evolve. The emergence of AI technologies presents both opportunities and questions for PS leaders committed to operational excellence.
At Top Step, we work with hundreds of professional services organizations implementing Professional Services Automation (PSA) solutions. Across our client base, two persistent challenges consistently affect project success: effective resource management and accurate project estimation.
Recent data from the 2025 Professional Services Maturity™ Benchmark offers a revealing snapshot of the current state: while approximately 13.5% of consultants are now dedicated to AI practices, 75.4% of organizations use AI in less than 20% of their projects. This suggests most PS organizations are still in the exploratory phase, asking practical questions about where and how to begin.
From our perspective working with PS organizations daily, this article discusses how these critical aspects of project management are likely to evolve as AI capabilities mature, focusing on practical considerations rather than hypothetical futures.
Resource Management: Enhanced Visibility and Allocation
Resource management remains one of the most challenging aspects of project delivery, particularly as organizations scale. The benchmark indicates that organizations using AI-enhanced tools for resource management report 15% higher billable utilization rates—a significant advantage in today’s competitive talent market.
What’s changing in practice? According to the benchmark study, PSOs are beginning to implement more sophisticated approaches to matching consultants with projects. While traditional resource management typically relies on basic skills matrices and availability, emerging tools can analyze additional factors:
- Historical performance data on similar projects
- Project complexity and required experience levels
- Team composition considerations
- Career development needs
For organizations with established PSA systems, this represents an evolution rather than a revolution. The core processes remain familiar, but the depth of analysis and insight available to project managers is expanding.
We’ve observed that organizations improving their resource management processes typically see reductions in bench time while improving consultant satisfaction. These improvements don’t necessarily require complete system overhauls, but rather building on existing PSA foundations with targeted enhancements.
Practical starting point:
Before investing in advanced capabilities, ensure your organization has a solid foundation of resource data. This means standardizing skill categorization, maintaining accurate availability information, and consistently tracking historical utilization patterns. Without this foundation, even sophisticated tools will struggle to deliver value.
Project Estimation: Moving Beyond Educated Guesses
Accurate estimation remains a persistent challenge that directly impacts project profitability. The benchmark found organizations employing AI for estimation reported project overruns of 8.6%, compared to 11.3% for organizations not leveraging these capabilities—a difference that translates directly to bottom-line results.
At Top Step, we’ve observed that estimation challenges typically stem from several sources:
- Overreliance on individual expertise without systematic knowledge capture
- Failure to incorporate lessons from past projects
- Inconsistent templates and approaches across the organization
New tools show promise in addressing these challenges by analyzing historical project data to identify patterns that human analysts might miss. For example, they can highlight phases or activities that are consistently underestimated or which project types typically require more support than initially planned.
When working with clients, we often find that analyzing historical data reveals consistent patterns in estimation accuracy across different work types. By adjusting templates based on this analysis, organizations can significantly improve overall project predictability. While this provides project managers with better insights about estimation accuracy, the final decisions still rely on professional judgment. This pattern—technology enhancing rather than replacing expertise—will likely define successful implementations going forward.
Practical starting point:
Review your estimation process to identify where inconsistencies occur. Implement standardized templates and ensure completed projects are systematically reviewed to capture estimation lessons. These foundational steps will not only improve immediate results but also create the historical data needed for more advanced analysis in the future.
Implementation Considerations for PS Leaders
As PS organizations consider how to evolve their project management practices, several practical considerations should guide their approach:
Start With Clear Business Objectives
Any technology implementation should begin with the business challenge it’s intended to solve, not the technology itself. For most PS organizations, priorities typically include:
- Improving resource utilization
- Increasing project predictability and on-time delivery
- Enhancing profit margins
The benchmark data indicates that 73.9% of surveyed leaders express support for adopting AI, but successful implementation requires moving beyond general enthusiasm to specific use cases aligned with business priorities.
Build on Existing Foundations
Organizations with established PSA implementations have a significant advantage when incorporating new capabilities. Before exploring advanced features, ensure you’ve maximized the value of your existing systems:
- Is resource data comprehensive and up-to-date?
- Are project templates standardized and consistently used?
- Is historical project data captured in a structured, accessible format?
- Are key performance metrics clearly defined and consistently tracked?
The answers to these questions will determine your organization’s readiness for more advanced capabilities. According to the benchmark, organizations expect a positive ROI from AI within 12-13 months, but this timeline in our opinion, assumes a solid operational foundation.
Conclusion: Evolution, Not Revolution
For most professional services organizations, the integration of AI into project management practices represents an evolution rather than a revolution. The fundamental principles of effective project delivery remain constant, but the tools and techniques available to implement those principles are expanding.
At Top Step, we recommend PS leaders focus on building strong operational foundations first: standardized processes, comprehensive data, and clear performance metrics. With these elements in place, organizations will be well-positioned to incorporate new capabilities as they mature from promising concepts to practical tools.
The organizations that will gain the greatest advantage are those that view technology not as a replacement for human expertise, but as an amplifier of the judgment, experience, and practical knowledge that have always differentiated exceptional project delivery.
