The Question Behind the Question (Survey Links Included)
Written on March 10, 2026
By John Crager, Executive Director, iAPSCC® March 10, 2026
We launched two surveys yesterday. And I want to tell you why.
Not the surface-level why. Not "we want data" or "we're building resources." You deserve the real answer. The question behind the question.
Here it is: We don't actually know what's happening.
Oh, sure. We have headlines. We have vendor white papers telling us AI is about to change everything. We have LinkedIn posts oscillating between "AI will replace all of us" and "AI is just a tool, relax." We've all read both versions about forty-seven times by now.
But what we don't have is the honest, unfiltered view from the people actually living this: the planners, schedulers, controllers, and coordinators on the floor, and the managers and directors making workforce decisions behind closed doors. Not at the same time. Not in a way that lets us compare what each side actually thinks.
That's the gap. And that gap is where the real story lives.
Two Sides. Always Two Sides.
I've been in this profession long enough to know that every challenge has at least two perspectives, and they rarely line up perfectly. That's not a flaw. It's just reality.
A planner sitting in a refinery today has one set of concerns. She's wondering which parts of her job are already being handed to a machine, whether her 15 years of experience still count for something, and whether she should be upskilling or updating her resume. Those are legitimate questions. Real ones.
Her Director of Maintenance has different concerns. He's watching costs, fielding questions from ownership about AI adoption timelines, trying to figure out how to fill roles that are getting harder to staff, and deciding which technologies are worth piloting versus which are just expensive experiments. He's not thinking about career uncertainty. He's thinking about throughput, reliability, and headcount strategy.
Both perspectives are real. Both matter. And they don't always match up.
We built two separate surveys specifically because we wanted to capture both without letting one contaminate the other. Practitioners answer separately from management. We receive clean data from both sides. Then we compare.
That comparison is the insight: where practitioner concerns and management plans align or diverge.
The Questions We're Really Asking
Look past the survey questions themselves for a moment. The deeper questions are these:
Are practitioners concerned about the right things? Or are they focused on automation pressures that management isn't actually planning to act on? And flip it around: are managers planning workforce changes that their teams don't even see coming?
What does "AI adoption" actually mean on the ground? Not what a software company says it means. What it means at a turnaround, during a capital project, in a maintenance planning department, where work orders don't stop coming in.
Who gets left behind? Not as a rhetorical question. Literally: which roles, which experience levels, which regions of the workforce are most exposed? And does management know?
We can't answer any of those questions from a single perspective. You need both sides of the story. Always.
Why April, and Why June
The April 15th roundtable with Ted Lister and other special guests isn't just another webinar. It's where we share what we've learned and have an honest conversation out loud. No corporate spin. No vendor agenda. Just what the data shows and what we think it means for your career and the competitive landscape for your company.
Uncomfortable questions are welcome. Expected, actually.
Then, on June 17th, the iAPSCC AI & Industry Summit is where we go deeper with the full community. Case studies from people doing real things with AI in heavy industry. Track sessions for practitioners and for leaders. Researchers. Futurists. Award recognition for organizations and individuals who've done something worth recognizing. And the survey findings woven throughout, because context matters.
But none of that works without your input now.
What We Need From You
Twelve minutes. That's it.
If you're a planner, scheduler, controller, or coordinator, Survey 1 is yours. Tell us what you're seeing, what questions you're sitting with, and what you need. Anonymously. Honestly. [PRACTITIONER SURVEY LINK]
If you manage or make decisions about planning and control functions, Survey 2 is yours. Tell us how AI is actually affecting your workforce strategy, your hiring, and your headcount plans. We're not here to judge your answers. We need real ones. [MANAGEMENT SURVEY LINK]
Both surveys close on April 7th. Results go to participants first, then get presented at the roundtable and the summit.
We're sharing findings with everyone, not just members. Because this conversation is bigger than any one organization's membership list.
A Final Thought
Pandora's box is open. Has been for a while now. You can't close it, and pretending otherwise doesn't help anyone.
What you can do is understand what's actually in it. Not the sensationalized version, not the "everything's fine" version, but the real version that accounts for both what workers are experiencing and what organizations are planning.
That's what we're building. And it starts with both surveys going live today.
Take one. Share it with a colleague who should take the other. And if you've got opinions, good. We're making room for those, too, especially on April 15th.
John Crager is the Executive Director of iAPSCC®, the International Association of Planning, Scheduling, Controls, and Coordination.