Project Management

Watt is Success?

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A short but 'power'-ful post.  Say watt?  No: Watt.  As in James Watt.  As in the guy for whom the unit of power was named.  His LinkedIn profile photo is shown above.

As I have pointed out in many prior posts and in my talks to PMI National Conferences with titles like “Giving You The Green Light to Think Past The End of Your Project”, project success is an elusive, hard-to-define, holistic, not-at-the-ribbon-cutting-ceremony measurement.

I want to practice what I preach.  So I didn’t want to declare our project to add 24 solar panels to our home’s roof a success when the nice folks from Vivint told me that we were generating power.

But today, 17 months in, as we cross well over the 10 Megawatt level, and I continue to see the electric meter run backwards, and as we continue to have the electric company pay us each month, I declare project success.

It seems appropriate to make this statement in May, which last year (and probably this year) seems to be our best month (see figure below).

I will continue to update you from time to time on this blog about the ups and downs, but I feel confident that we can now say we have delivered value to the key stakeholders – ourselves as well as the environment.  According to my solar calculator provided by Vivint, it looks like we’ve saved about 9 acres of forest in carbon offset equivalency, and according to the EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency) calculator (try it for yourself!): https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator

It appears that we have taken the equivalent of 1.5 cars of the road for a year.  Not bad.  So here’s to you, James Watt!

More power to you!

 


Posted by Richard Maltzman on: May 22, 2021 10:58 PM | Permalink

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Wolfgang Sosa Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
That's what I call success! 👍

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Manuel Ancizu Program Manager Wind Energy| Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy Pamplona, Navarra, Spain
What's success? no matter whether we talk about more sustainability to the world or even personal topics, success usually depend on your own goals; this is why is relevant to set those goals in advance to gain momentum, keep moving forward and celebrating along the road. So, congratulations! for the solar panels in your house.

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