Project Portfolio Management in the Age of AI
Every organization now has a portfolio of AI initiatives. Most portfolio managers are managing them with frameworks that weren't built for them. This course is aligned with the new PMI AI Standard published June 2026.
Alina Piddubna
years of training practice
professionals trained
years managing advanced technology portfolios
years managing AI transformation portfolio
PMI AI standard aligned
Who this course is for
Portfolio or Program Manager responsible for AI transformation
You are managing a portfolio that includes AI programs, or you have been asked to build governance for one. Standard approaches no longer hold up under the actual complexity. You need frameworks designed for the environment you are actually in, not the one the textbooks describe.
PMO Leader navigating AI governance alongside traditional programs
Your organization is running AI initiatives alongside classic programs, and the governance model that worked for one doesn't work for the other. You are looking for an approach that holds up under constant change and executive pressure simultaneously.
Senior Manager or Executive making portfolio decisions in an AI-driven environment
You are accountable for strategic investment decisions involving AI transformation, and you need a clear decision framework, not a technology briefing. You want to be the person in the room who asks the right questions, not the one who defers to whoever sounds most confident.
PfMP candidate who wants deep practical grounding before the exam
PfMP certification requires 8+ years of portfolio management experience for a reason. This course is built at that level of seniority, it will deepen your practice, not introduce you to the concepts. It is not exam preparation, but it will make the exam feel like a formality.
This Course Is NOT for You If...
You have no program or project management experience This course assumes you already know what governance, benefits realization, and portfolio balancing mean in practice. It does not explain them from scratch. You are looking for an AI tools course or a technology briefing. This is a strategic management course. It engages with AI seriously, including agentic AI, governance of autonomous systems, and AI tooling for portfolio management, but from a management perspective, not a technology one. You expect clean frameworks with clean answers. The questions this course works through do not have clean answers. If you are looking for a framework to apply mechanically, this is not the right fit. If you are looking for sharper thinking about genuinely hard problems, it is.
Why we created this course
What you'll be able to do
Concrete skills and outcomes you'll walk away with
Distinguish genuine AI transformation from AI-themed investment
Recognize when an AI initiative is a real strategic priority versus executive FOMO with a large budget attached, and build the selection logic to make that call defensibly at portfolio level
Design governance that works for AI portfolios
Stop applying classic governance models to initiatives they were never designed to handle: build governance architecture that accounts for emergent scope, evolving technology, and outcomes you cannot fully define in advance
Make the capacity decision the market makes harder every year
Plan and allocate resources in an environment where the skills your portfolio needs barely exist, AI tooling is reshaping what those skills even mean, and the AI transformation programs are consuming talent that the rest of the portfolio depends on
Evaluate AI portfolio tools without being misled by vendors
Separate genuinely useful AI portfolio management capabilities from dashboards with a chatbot, and build a portfolio management practice that can evolve as the tools evolve without rebuilding from scratch every 18 months
Measure AI transformation value honestly, and report it to leadership without losing their confidence
Redesign KPIs that measure activity into metrics that track actual value; know how to tell the board that the AI portfolio is underperforming and keep their support for what needs to happen next
Know when to stop an AI initiative and how to make that call stick
Make the governance decision to terminate an AI program when the technology is working but the organization cannot absorb it, which is the decision most governance bodies avoid until it is too late
Lead the portfolio through AI transformation with judgment that frameworks cannot provide
The standard frameworks will not tell you what to do when your AI program succeeds technically but fails organizationally. This course builds the judgment for those situations.
Understand the new PMI AI Standard and where it applies to your work
PMI published The Standard for Artificial Intelligence in Portfolio, Program and Project Management in June 2026 - the first global AI standard for the project profession. This course references it throughout and will give you a solid working awareness of its eight guiding principles, five performance domains, and governance framework - so you can apply it in your own organizational context. Read the standard →
Multiple sessions. One coherent program.
Module 1: Portfolio Management Has Changed. Have You?
What's actually different about managing a portfolio in an AI-driven environment - and what classic portfolio principles still hold?
When everyone wants to "do AI" - how do you govern a flood of AI initiatives without becoming a bottleneck or a rubber stamp?
How do you tell a genuine AI transformation program from an AI-themed project with an inflated budget and executive sponsorship?
What does a portfolio manager need to understand about AI - without becoming a technologist?
What does it mean for a portfolio to be "AI-ready" - and how far is your organization from that?
- What's actually different about managing a portfolio in an AI-driven environment - and what classic portfolio principles still hold?
- When everyone wants to "do AI" - how do you govern a flood of AI initiatives without becoming a bottleneck or a rubber stamp?
- How do you tell a genuine AI transformation program from an AI-themed project with an inflated budget and executive sponsorship?
- What does a portfolio manager need to understand about AI - without becoming a technologist?
- What does it mean for a portfolio to be "AI-ready" - and how far is your organization from that?
Why learn with INSTAR and this trainer
The harsh truth, not the hype
Most AI transformation programs fail to deliver their promised ROI. Most AI governance frameworks are cosmetic. Most organizations are not ready to absorb AI-generated value even when the technology works. This course engages with that reality directly — because that is where the real portfolio management work actually happens. If you want a course that tells you AI transformation is straightforward and the frameworks will hold, this is not it.
Agentic AI as a live portfolio management question
Beyond AI dashboards: the course examines how agentic AI systems — those that autonomously analyze, recommend, and act — are beginning to reshape how portfolios are monitored, prioritized, and optimized. Where should AI be in the decision loop? Where must the portfolio manager stay? These are not theoretical questions. They are live, and this course treats them as such.
Learning from a practitioner with the highest PMI certification
Alina Piddubna holds PfMP, PgMP, PMP, PMI-ACP, and PMI-CPMAI - one of fewer than 5,000 professionals globally to hold PfMP, and one of the first in Ukraine. She has been directly managing a portfolio of advanced technology programs since 2021, where AI adoption intersected with portfolio governance, benefits realization under uncertainty, and organizational change at scale. This course is not adapted from a generic AI curriculum. It is built from cases she has actually run, including the ones that did not go as planned.
Built in alignment with the PMI AI standard
The course is also aligned with the PMI AI Standard published in June 2026: participants will come away with a working awareness of its principles and how they apply at portfolio level.
Who leads the course
Alina Piddubna
Principal management consultant · Director
Alina is one of very few practitioners worldwide to hold both PfMP® and PgMP® — the exact combination the PfMP exam tests for. She has managed portfolios of advanced-technology programs since 2021, where governance, benefits realization under uncertainty, and organization-level stakeholder management are daily work. She also holds PMP, PMI-CPMAI, PMI-ACP, PMO-CP, PSM, CLSSGB, SAFe Practice Consultant, AWS certification, and a PhD in Economics.
Graduate results and what they say
PDU from PMI ATP - and a mindset that changes the way they manage the portfolio
Graduates of this course lead portfolio of AI transformation with clarity about what works, what doesn't, and what the standard frameworks simply aren't designed to handle.
Learning approach
Socratic Dialogue Instead of Lectures
AI-era portfolio thinking is built through questions that do not have clean answers. Alina does not present answers, she asks questions that surface the real complexity of portfolio decisions and challenge assumptions you did not know you were making. Every session is a live intellectual discussion that changes how you see the problem.
Miro Instead of Slides
The entire course runs on interactive Miro boards: AI transformation portfolio structures, governance models for AI initiatives, capacity maps that account for AI tooling: everything built visually, collaboratively, in real time. Not a presentation to watch. A working session to participate in.
Real Cases, Including the Ones That Failed
AI transformation portfolios examined without the marketing layer, including programs that delivered their outputs and still failed to create value, governance models that looked good on paper and collapsed under the pace of change, and initiatives that succeeded technically while the organization missed the benefit entirely.
6 Live Online Sessions
In Socratic dialogue and small-group discussion format. Structured intellectual work with the trainer and peers facing the same challenges. Every session runs on interactive Miro boards: portfolio governance models, capacity maps, AI initiative assessment frameworks built visually and collaboratively in real time.
Original Practitioner Templates
Designed for real work, not PMI exam preparation: - AI initiative assessment framework - Agentic AI risk register - AI transformation benefits tracker - Portfolio AI tooling evaluation matrix - Capacity planning model for AI-constrained environments - Portfolio management lexicon extended for the AI transformation context No homework assignments. The templates are designed to be applied to your actual work immediately, that is the practice.
18 PDU Certificate and Group Chat
INSTAR certificate (PMI ATP). 18 PDUs eligible for PMP, PfMP, PgMP, and other PMI certifications. Group chat with Alina and fellow participants throughout and after the course.
Format and price
Course information
- Dates
- 24 October – 28 November 2026
- Sessions
- 6 sessions × 3 hrs (Saturdays)
- Time
- 09:00–12:15 CEST
- Level
- Advanced
- Format
- Live online · Small group
- PDU
- 18 (PMP, PfMP, PgMP etc eligible)
- Language
- English
- English level required
- B2 or higher
- Cohort size
- up to 10 participants to preserve discussion quality
FAQ
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