For those who don’t know their Dutch, “fiets” means bicycle. But here I use it (in wordplay) to describe a feat – an accomplishment.
I was going to blog about the Blue Orchard Bee, osmia lignaria – in terms of a project in which that species of bee was going to be used to supplement pollination duties for the declining honeybee population in vast fields of almonds in California.
But that “backup bee” post will have to become a backup post. Why? Well, as a good PM and author, I double-checked the status of the project to make sure all was on track - and I’m glad I did this form of mitigation. It turns out, The sponsoring “Wonderful Company” has decided to stop funding the project. It won’t die – it will most likely be taken over by academic and government interests.
So instead of discussing flowerpetals, I’ll talk about bike pedals.
The most recent issue of PM Network features a story with the title “Pedal Power” and it discusses a Dutch project which is building the world’s largest bicycle parking garage. Having lived in Holland* for two years, I know this personally. I think you can get familiar with the context without moving there (although I recommend it) by simply stopping here and watching this 5-minute video. Then, return to the text.
Just in case you missed the video, here’s a summary of some of the key context. The Netherlands has a growing population of 17 million people. All together the Dutch own 22.5 million bicycles. This means that on average they own 1.3 bicycles per capita, more than any other country in the world. Many people might think the Chinese cycle a lot too, but they own only 0.4 bicycles per person, just slightly more than the US with 0.3 bicycles per person. Not everybody has a bicycle though, not even in the Netherlands. The bicycles are owned by 84% of the Dutch. That means there are many people who have more than one bicycle.
So here’s a question for you: where do all these fietsen (bicycles) get parked?
If you have been to The Netherlands*, you know that parking a bike can be difficult.
The PM Network story talks about Utrecht, a city of about 350,000 people in the center of The Netherlands, and the way in which the government of the city worked with other stakeholders to build a E4 million Stationsplein bike parking garage – the largest in the world.
My favorite quote in the article comes from Rutger Siderius, a Senior Project Manager at Procap, the PM consultancy that represented the Utrecht government during the planning and design phase. “The most important benefit is that people are using the garage”.Uitstekend, Rutger! This goes back to my theme that the project is really a success only when the organizations and stakeholders involved are really reaping benefits.
The article is worth reading, from a sustainability perspective and from a project management perspective – the usual project challenges are there: scope and stakeholder management, realized risks (in this case, other projects nearby that caused a crowded work area and delays due to structural design changes in the foundation, caused, in turn by other real-estate developments).
But it all came together and the garage opened in August 2017.
And here is a video that shows how this all came together!
Notice the frequent use of stakeholder engagement throughout the project. I’d assert that this was one of the reasons for its success.
*remember, The Netherlands is the country, Holland is really only the western part of the country. Granted, this contains a large percentage of the population and important cities like Den Haag (The Hague) and Amsterdam, however, when you say Holland, you are only covering 2 out of 12 provinces. It would be like calling the USA “California”. This article is about Utrecht - which is in neither of these provinces, and in fact is a province of its own!
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