AWS re:Invent 2025 - Driving Intelligent Project Portfolio Visibility with AWS + Smartsheet (BIZ210)

Driving Intelligent Project Portfolio Visibility with AWS + Smartsheet

Overview

• Presentation by Ola Ronning, Director of Product at Smartsheet
• Discusses how Smartsheet is leveraging AI to increase visibility and efficiency in project and portfolio management

Challenges in Project Portfolio Management

• Lack of visibility into project status, resourcing, and risks
• Constant manual effort to track down updates and information
• Overwhelming number of projects for limited project management resources
• Inefficient manual processes for project intake, prioritization, and planning

Intelligent Work Management with Smartsheet and AWS

• Smartsheet's vision for "Intelligent Work Management" powered by AI
• Leverages a knowledge graph built on Smartsheet data and AWS services like Amazon Neptune
• Applies AI across the project portfolio lifecycle:

Project Initiation and Planning

• Automated project plan generation from documents and templates
• AI-powered project prioritization and capacity planning

Project Execution and Monitoring

• "Smart Assist" AI co-pilot to analyze risks, summarize progress, and automate updates
• Agent-based automation to take actions like reassigning resources, updating RAID logs

Continuous Improvement

• AI-driven analysis of project patterns and trends
• Automated recommendations for process improvements based on best practices

Technical Architecture

• Leverages AWS services including:
  • Amazon Neptune for the knowledge graph
  • Amazon Bedrock and Agent Core for agent orchestration
  • Amazon OpenSearch for governance and auditing

Business Impact

• Dramatically reduced time spent on manual project management tasks
• Increased visibility and proactive risk mitigation across the portfolio
• Ability to scale project management capacity with AI-powered automation
• Continuous learning and improvement of portfolio management processes

Example Use Cases

• Automatically generating project plans from documents in minutes
• AI-powered project prioritization based on factors like budget, alignment, and capacity
• Smart Assist co-pilot providing real-time risk analysis and progress reporting
• Agent-based automation for resource reallocation and RAID log maintenance
• AI-driven recommendations for improving portfolio management practices

In summary, Smartsheet is leveraging the power of AI and AWS services to transform project and portfolio management, enabling organizations to gain unprecedented visibility, efficiency, and continuous improvement in how they execute strategic initiatives.