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Date
We know that some project managers are climate change skeptics. We know that project managers aren’t limited to any part of the political spectrum. We get that sustainability may seem like a hifalutin, pompous, philosophical idea that just isn’t that, well, project-managy.
We get all of this.
In fact, it’s important that a project manager be a skeptic. Blindly accepting an overly optimistic estimate, for example, can doom a project.
And yet, take this example: as a team leader, we cannot tell what motives our team members have – we can only observe their behavior. We need to manage our project teams on that observed behavior, and the best of us look for the root motives to understand and work with team members’ interests.
See: http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/motivation/section1.rhtml
Now, take the example and expand it to what we observe (whatever we believe) when it comes to climate change.
Case in point: Boston. There is a cover story in a recent Boston Globe Magazine entitled, “Getting Ready for Global Warming – Boston Under Water”. In it, you will find a list of five things that Boston is doing right now to prepare for the effects of global warming.
Every single one of these “things” is truly an initiative which consumes resources, has a definitive start and finish date, is unique and… well.. does this sound like anything familiar? It should. Because all five things are projects.
So our point is this. Wherever you stand on climate change – you believe it, you’re cynical, you’re skeptical, it’s a sham, a conspiracy, whatever – wherever you stand, real projects are being launched that need real project management expertise and real project managers.
So, for example, would you want to be out of contention for a project to redesign buildings so that their first floors are 42 inches above the current 100-year flood level, with all electrical and mechanical systems on the roof, where a surge resistant reef is built around sites along the waterfront, and it is designed to keep working even after a Hurricane Sandy-like superstorm?
Now let’s open up our blinders even further, beyond Boston, beyond the United States. The EU has just approved more than 280M Euros for new environmental and climate change projects. -
So you see, whatever you think of climate change…wherever you are on the political spectrum.. if you want to expand your own portfolio of project management opportunities, it may pay to get increasingly conversant on the topics of climate change risk and the response that businesses are planning. And executing. Now. Right now.
Ignoring this, by keeping your head in the sand, or letting your own views cloud your view of these opportunities could be hazardous to your career.
Thoughts?
Posted
by
Richard Maltzman
on: May 04, 2014 02:07 PM |
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