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Date
PMI produces excellent research reports called Pulse of the Profession. The most recent one is called “Beyond the Project – Sustain Benefits to Optimize Business Value”. This one – from my perspective – has a split personality. It is very, very good, and falls very, very short.
Let me explain.
The good:
You really should read through this report because it is 100% on target regarding a view of project management that “thinks through the end” to the steady-state project outcome. It’s got great examples and is loaded with data about the rationale for including these considerations in project planning. In fact, it’s so good, it will be covered in an upcoming blog post. There’s too much good stuff to cover here.
The bad:
Since we’re in the middle of baseball’s World Series, I will use a baseball analogy. The document is a total swing-and-a-miss when it comes to the triple (get it?) bottom line. It’s as if they left all the runners on base. In every inning. Of the last game of the World Series. Why do I say this? This was an absolute golden opportunity to talk about all three elements of the triple bottom line (which is made up of economic, social, and ecological benefits). But search through this document, and although you’ll find many instances of the word “sustain” and variants like sustainability and sustainable, you will find no mention of social or ecological sustainability (Corporate Social Responsibility – CSR). There is nothing wrong with sustaining economic value. There is everything right with it. But when a document like this promotes the strong message of sustainability, why not feature - or at least call into play - the other two elements? It’s hard to believe that the 1100+ project managers interviewed on the topic of benefits sustainability had nothing to say about project outcomes that relate to planetary or social benefit (which, by the way, come back to benefit the organization economically -see my post about the payoff of investing in CSR.
And it started out so promisingly. Here is a quote from the opening article:
“Long-term benefits for all should trump the competitive individual or organization. Better accountability models need to speak to the networks of the new normal, not prop up old, crumbling hierarchies—bastions of command and control. This is as applicable to a single organization as it is to a nation–state.”.
And there’s this:
“Even though benefits are realized on the business/operations side of the organization, benefits sustainment is a shared responsibility that should include the project team.”
So close – accountability… trumping individuals and organizations… the exact traits of CSR. But it’s not taken any further. I’m hoping that PMI will consider the reports from MIT/Sloan that we’ve published in creating its next Pulse report.
In my next post, I will shift to a discussion about the outstanding research and reporting in this document which we can apply to CSR; although they failed to make it into this Pulse report, the report still has significant meaningfulness to those of us who think that project managers can – to keep my baseball metaphor going – hit a triple, not only a single.
Shall we start a Wrigley Field or Fenway Park-like chant?
Let's go PMI, let's go!
Posted
by
Richard Maltzman
on: October 29, 2016 11:31 PM |
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