“Prod-ject” Management
From the People, Planet, Profits & Projects Blog
by Richard Maltzman,
Dave Shirley
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Richard Maltzman
Dave Shirley
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Date
With this introductory blog post we’d like to introduce our view of what is sometimes called “Green Project Management”, or as we like to more accurately describe it, sustainability thinking in project management.
You can get a great digest of our philosophy with EarthPM’s five assertions, but the gist of it isfairly simple. By taking a longer-term, more holistic view of your project’s context, you do better, your project does better, your stakeholders do better, and – the focus of today’s posting – your project’s product does better.
What do we mean by better?
That’s really the key. We realize that stepping back and doing a ‘deeper dive’ into how your project – and its product – fit into the areas of corporate social responsibility and environmental, and expanded economic concerns (the so-called Triple Bottom Line) is going to cause some extra work for your team, and may even involve more expense and schedule. So why the heck would you do it?
We remind you of the Cost of Quality teachings of Philip Crosby, who, in effect, said, you can pay me now or pay me later. Build quality in. If you try to bolt it on later, you will pay dearly later.
To answer the question, “what do we mean by better?”, we assert that investing in up-front sustainability thinking pays off in:
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Better (more thorough and correct) risk identification, analysis, response, monitoring, and closing
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Improved linkage to enterprise goals
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Improved morale
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Enhanced image for your organization
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Increased transparency
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Possible huge cost avoidance in the operation of your project’s product (see first bullet)
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And yes, a lower environmental impact (although, you can see it is only one of several benefits, and is not meant to be the ONLY reason for including sustainability in your project’s plan)
Doing the above does require a sort of mind-shift for many project managers. These folks – for very good reasons – will tell you (paraphrased composite of actual quotes):
“I am not a product manager, I’m a project manager. As long as I deliver a product that meets customer requirements, I’ve done my job. I could care less about long-term impacts of the product, especially if dealing with them now them makes the project more expensive, late, or causes the product to fail to meet the basic requirements. Also, I have enough to worry about with the constraints I already face. I don’t need more constraints. Go away and leave me alone”.
We’re here to tell you that it’s not that simple today.
We’re here to tell you that your enterprise likely has mission, vision, and value statements aspiring to new heights of corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and transparency, and that they are intended to reach you as project managers.
In fact, “reach” is way too weak a word. The president of Shell Oil, Marvin Odom, was recently quoted as saying that he has to drive his project managers to convey these sustainability goals into their projects and the products of their projects. Yep, he specifically calls out his project managers! You can read the entire interview (a very good one!) right here.
Even better, watch the video of the interview here.
We think one way to do that is to think of yourself as a “prod-ject” manager, using the double meaning of the word “prod”, first to evoke the word product, and also to use its meaning “to rouse or incite”.
So this is the crux of our posting. Think about your project’s outcome. Think hard not only about what it is supposed to do when it is ‘first turned on’ or ‘thrown over the wall’, but when it is running in its steady state. Are there any attributes of that steady-state operation that are warning signals to you as project manager on CSR, environmental, or long-term economic problems? Shouldn’t those signals be read and used in your planning?
Of course they should.
Projects, programs and portfolios are the essential channel for your organization’s ideas and strategies into longer-term operations.
For reference, see Stanford Univerisity/IPS Learning's Stragegic Execution Framework, pictured below.
We’ll blog again about that soon. But for now, know this: without you as the key “prod-ject”manager, the full and true intent of your company’s mission, and its resulting execution strategies, which NEED to get to your organization's operations, could get clogged-up right under your watch.
Don’t be a bottleneck, be an accelerator. Be a prod-ject manager.
Posted
by
Richard Maltzman
on: May 09, 2011 10:09 AM |
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