View Posts By:
Richard Maltzman Dave Shirley
Recent Posts
Saving the Sahel (Part 1)
You Can't Get They-ah From Hee-yah
Floating an idea into reality: the other side of the AI Project Paradox
The Environment of the Built Environment: an AI Paradox
Is plastic on your mind?
Categories
6th 6th Edfition 6th Edition PMBOK 7th Edition 7th Edition PMBOK 8th Edition PMBOK 8th Edition PMBOK Guide Activism actuarial actuary adapt addition by subtraction Africa africa agriculture airforce ajaita Alaska amazon analogous analytics ancient and more power antarctica anti-science apple apps architecture arctic arrakis Artificial Intelligence asch paradigm Assistant asthma astronomy automobile automotive autonomous cars b bankhar Banksy Crypto basalt baseball bats batter beauty products benefit benefits Benefits Realization beyond epica biases bicycle big data big dfata big dig bike biodiversity biomedicine birdhouse blockchain blood blue blood blue trees bluefin bluefin tuna book review boston boston university Boyce Brazil brazil Breakdown Structures BS building buildings built environment built environment bumblebee cake capacitor car Carbon carbon carbon capture carbon negative carbon neutral carbon pool carbon sequestration carbonate careers CEO ChatGPT chatGPT chatgpt chatgpt chess China china chopsticks citrus cli-fi climate climate change climate resilience climeworks Clumsy CO2 co2 CO2 Utilization coalition cobalt coffee pods cognition cognitive Collabortion colombia concrete Conflict construction 5.0 cool projects xyloscope cooling coral corn cost of good quality cost of poor quality cost of quality crazy criticism of project management cryptocurrency CSR csr data data analytics data privacy datacenter dataset death spiral Decision Making decomposition Defense and Climate definition of a project deforestation dependencies dependency desert DIKW dikw dimopoulos disposal dna DOD dogs dolphins dream drilling drink dune dune dutch early start earth eatlocal eco-tourism ecological economic economics EKC electric grid electricity electronics elysis embodied carbon emerging technologies empower Energy energy efficiency environmental degradation escalate escalation ESG extreme weather fallacy FARC farming finance fish fish brains fishing fix fixing the earth flint water Flint Water Supply flood flooding Food supply chain food waste forest forest for the trees forestation forrestgump frank herbert Fruitcake fungus fusion Galvao garage gas gasoline geese gender equality gender partnerships generational differences Generative AI gladwell gold Goodness google Government GPT great pacific garbage patch green green building green buildings green energy green iguana green project green project management greening guest post gyre harkonnen Harvesting Benefits hawasina hedgehogs heursitics historical data hlb holitsic holland horseshoe crab human-caused climate change hydrogen hydrology ice iceland ignition iguana imagery impact india inequality information initiatives injection insurance intelligence interacting risk internal combustion engine invasive species investment isomer issue escalation issues ITER jobs Jupiter justification kids kill point knowledge koch brothers Kuznets laboratory LAL landscape mode lapampa launch LCA Leadership Leadership life cycle analyses life cycle analysis lifecycle Linkedin liquid lizard local long term long-term long-term thinking look up loud maintenance maker makermovement malcolm gladwell management marathon marine biology market mars Martin Luther King mean megawatt MeHg melting mercury metal Microgrid microplastics migration military millennial mindset minerals mission mitigate MLK mongolia museum museum of london nature nematodes net gain Net Project Success Score net zero netherlands network New book New Jersey New Practitioners new york NFT nitrogen noise noreaster norway nova NPSS NREL ocean ocean cleanup ocean life oil rig oil rigs oklahoma oman only murders in the building opportunity overall risk oxygen packaging pareto PBS permafrost persistence peru Pharmaceutical planet planet.com planning plant plasma plastic playground pm pm education pmbok pmbok guide pmnetwork PMXPO-2018 podcast pollutants pollution poop poor portfolio power power skills privacy privacy concerns professors program Program Management project project leader project leadership project management project management 3.0 project on fire project progress Project Success project success projecticity projectleadership projectmanagement projects psychology pulse of the profession purple bacteria purpose quiet rainforest rationale reef refugees renewable renewables Repair repair repeatable process repeatable processes repurpose research resource breakdown strucuture Resource Management reversing climate change revisionist history rich rigs2reefs ripe risk risk avoidance Risk Management risk mitigation risk response risk responses river robots rocks rules of thumb rural rural India russia Sarcasm/Irony satellite saudi schedule sci-fi Science science science-fiction scientific american screaming monkeys sea sea life Sea-Level Rise sea-level rise seagreens seawall seawater seawater temperature seaweed. beat;es. farming secondary risk selena gomez sequestration shipping skyscraper SLR smart cities smart city smelting social social pressure soil solar solar panels solar perovkites solar saheli sonic sponge cities SRI stage-gate stagegate stakeholder stakeholder management steward stewardship storage strategy stupid success suffer sulphur sunk cost supercapacitor supply chain survey Sustainability sustainability Sustainable Investing Sustainable Tourism sybiosis symbiosis system 03 TBL temperature terraform terraforming test threat threats totem touchscreen tour tower Trains transparency transportation trash tree tree species trees trillion triple bottom line triple constraint truth to power UMass us army corps of engineers USDA vacuum value venus vision voice voltage optimization vw scandal washing machine waste wastewater water we mean business whales Whirlpool wind wisdom women Women in Project Management wood wide web woonerf Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) world breakdown structure worms xian xylotron Yale
Date
As project managers, we don’t hear the word “Ambition” a lot. We often, however, hear these words: Target, Goal, Objective, Target, and Plan. Above you’ll see a dictionary definition of this word, ambition, and what you’ll see is actually quite revealing. Even though we don’t use the word “ambition” a lot, we use the words that are given in the DEFINITION of the word. To put it in language that even project managers would understand (perhaps ONLY PMs would understand), it’s almost as if we are focused on small work packages and missing the rolled-up workstream deliverable. We do have ambition to make our projects succeed. But are they really successful if they aren’t aligned with the ambition of the senior leaders of the enterprise?
Andrew Winston, who was one of the authors that first inspired us to write Green Project Management , recently blogged on this subject – the subject of ambition. It falls right into our ‘preaching’ that project managers need to be sure that the deliverables of their projects and their project work in general, is connected to goals and objectives (mission, vision, values – maybe even use the word ambitions ) of the senior management.
Now, it appears that his new book, The Big Pivot … has a similar message as our upcoming book, tentatively titled, “Sustainability in Projects, Programs, and Portfolios ”. So it’s tempting to use this blog post to begin introducing our book. But suffice it to say that it has the same ambition as Winston’s book.
And, since this is a blog post and not a chapter of our book, we felt it’s better to point you to some of what Winston is saying so that you can have an improved context for what we’ve written – although our book will be aimed more at the program and portfolio manager.
Check out this blog post from Winston regarding “ambitious goals”
https://hbr.org/2015/02/the-ambitious-business-goals-aiming-to-change-the-world
If you have just a few more minutes, and/or if you’re more of a video person, you should watch this recent TED talk by Winston.
VIDEO
And finally, if you want to benchmark your enterprise against more than 4,000 others, he has put together a tremendous resource here which has captured these ambitious goals in a readily-searched database .
Enjoy, and go get ambitious!
Posted
by
Richard Maltzman
on: February 21, 2015 11:30 PM |
Permalink
