Green isn’t just for infrastructure: Sustainability in digital and change projects
Categories:
Social Impact
Categories: Social Impact
When we talk about sustainability in projects, the conversation often jumps straight to physical outputs: buildings, infrastructure, manufacturing, or environmental mitigation plans. Which is great if you are working on that kind of project, because it makes sense. Those impacts are visible and measurable. But it also creates a blind spot, because the flip side of those conversations is that we don’t need to consider sustainability for the many other types of projects. Many digital, organisational change, and transformation projects are assumed to be ‘sustainability neutral’ simply because they don’t produce something tangible, and if you’ve ready anything about the power and water requirements needed for server farms, you’ll know that isn’t the case. The impact might be less obvious, but it’s still there. As project managers, we are well placed to influence those outcomes, and bring to people’s attention that there are perhaps hidden impacts that we can do something about. For example, digital projects often drive increased data storage, additional processing, new ways of working, or changes in travel, energy use, and consumption. Ignoring those effects doesn’t make them disappear. So we should be documenting and recording them, even if the end result is that you aren’t actively tracking the carbon impact. You can at least include them in the business case as non-tangible benefits (or costs) to highlight the fact that they should be considered as part of the decision-making process. One challenge is that while many organisations now have sustainability teams, ESG leads, or environmental experts, getting their time for smaller, less ‘construction’ projects can be difficult. In some organisations I know, the team is one person, and they can’t support every project. So it’s for the project manager to shape where they can, and we can! Where project managers can influence sustainabilityProject managers influence sustainability in several practical, low-key ways, often without realising it (see, you’re doing it already!). Procurement is one obvious lever. Choices about suppliers, contract lengths, hosting arrangements, and service models all have sustainability implications. I know we don’t have the power to choose suppliers directly most of the time, but you can write sustainability requirements into statements of work or ask the procurement team to include them in tenders. Ask the questions – you never know what impact that might have. The other easy area to get people talking is in data usage. Digital and change projects frequently increase data volumes, reporting demands, or system integrations, API calls and so on. Which uses power and often all this is done in the cloud these days, so we don’t even have the physical aspect of adding a server to the server room on site to see the impact. We can ask questions about what data is genuinely needed, how long it should be retained, and whether duplication can be avoided. Are we migrating data from the old system ‘just because’ or are we following retention policies? If there aren’t retention policies for this type of data, should there be? (Then we can delete some of it.) What PMOs can do differentlyPMOs have a valuable role in normalising sustainability thinking without turning it into bureaucracy, because that isn’t going to land well. One effective approach is to ask sustainability-related questions early. Put some prompts in the kick off template, or in the business case slide deck template. Asking the right questions helps teams think through what the choices might be at a point where they still have choices. It’s the thinking – and getting teams to do the thinking – that is the valuable bit. PMOs can share examples of good practice too. Highlighting how teams have made sensible, proportionate choices helps sustainability feel achievable rather than abstract, so ask teams, get some case studies and share what is working in your organisation. Sustainability as a cumulative effectSustainability isn’t going to hinge on one dramatic decision. Across the company, it’s going to be impacted by lots of small choices made across projects and programmes, and BAU work. We don’t need to be sustainability experts to make a difference, which is lucky! We’re seeing sustainability threads woven through the PMBOK® Guide and other project management literature now, and I’m sure the same thing is happening in other disciplines. By being curious, asking thoughtful questions, and considering the longer-term effects of change, we can become everyday influencers shaping more sustainable outcomes, often without adding any extra process at all. Have you got any examples of sustainability at work that you can share? Let us know in the comments below! |
Posted on: July 02, 2026 12:00 AM
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Making social impact part of everyday delivery
Categories:
social impact
Categories: social impact
Social impact isn’t limited to special projects. As we’re seeing on this website, there’s more chatter around social impact and social returns. And this isn’t just for the projects where social impact is the main goal. Every project shapes people’s experiences, and people are social, right? We should be factoring in the impact on our environment and communities for every project. As project managers already influence outcomes through the work we do facilitating other people’s work, there is quite a lot of scope for us to help shape our projects.  Where social impact shows upSocial impact is about:
There are risk trade-offs too. Which risk management activity has the highest negative social impact? Do we want to do that, or is there an alternative trade-off that might give us better results. Finally, think about change design. What’s the impact of the change you are implementing, and how can that be structured for the best possible outcome? How to do itLet’s think about some practical ways you can embed ‘impact thinking’ in your normal project team meetings and conversations with stakeholders. I think it starts with asking different questions at initiation, being more pointed with discussions to bring social impact to top of mind for people. You can be the person who asks everyone to consider unintended consequences. You can make social impact visible in reporting, even if it’s just to say that you haven’t worked out what it will be for this project yet. The role of the PMOI do think there is a role for the PMO to play in helping project teams set themselves up to take social impact into account in a reasonable way. For example, if you’re in an PMO role, you could standardise some good questions so they are added into project initiation and kick off calls, or you could put a section in the PID template that talks about what’s important to consider. Proportionality matters here. Not every project needs a detailed social impact assessment, and trying to apply the same level of rigour to every piece of work will only create resistance – or teams filling in paperwork for bureaucracy’s sake. The PMO’s role is to help teams think and make it easy for them. Providing prompts, examples, and lightweight guidance gives teams permission to engage with social impact in a way that makes sense for the scale and risk of their work. If this is becoming a tick-box approach, then you’re doing it wrong! Social impact should be something the team can actively support and understand, not some documentation requirement to get through the next gate review. So what does it mean in practice? I think it’s about including purpose as part of professional judgement, and understanding that small decisions matter. You can be sensitive to the impact your project is having without having to do big assessments or lots of analysis. Just be aware of what’s changing for people and see what opportunities you have to make that experience of change as positive as possible in as many ways as possible. What do you do to encourage social impact on your projects? Let me know in the comments! |
Posted on: June 23, 2026 12:00 AM
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Who really owns the project budget? Clarifying financial accountability
If you work in a matrix environment, you’ve probably had this thought: who really owns the budget? I’ve certainly had situations in past roles where I’ve thought I could make decisions and then found out these were overruled, or held back from making decisions only to find someone else thought I was empowered to do so.  Budget ownership confusion is common, especially in matrix environments, and leads to weak financial control. It sometimes happens because people don’t know who has final sign off, and sometimes because people don’t want to take responsibility for fear of getting it wrong or overstepping. However, if there are assumptions about budget accountability but these aren’t made explicit, then how is anyone supposed to know what’s going on? It ultimately doesn’t matter where accountability sits, as long as the person who is accountable knows it is them, and so does everyone else. Typical budget ownership modelsTypical budget ownership models, in my experience, fall into three buckets: Sponsor-owned: Where all budget decisions run through the exec sponsor. PM-managed: Where you get given a pot of funding and are expected to manage it. Shared accountability: The hardest type, where there is a mix of what needs to be approved by the sponsor and what the PM can sign off. Different organisations adopt different models. In some cases, the sponsor owns the budget and the project manager runs day-to-day tracking. In others, the project manager has delegated authority within agreed tolerances. And it can differ between projects as well, so just because you used one model on your last project doesn’t mean it will be the same this time round. Risks of unclear ownershipWhen you don’t know who owns the project budget, you risk slow decisions and surprise overruns, neither of which are great for the project. When changes are needed, you should know who to go to for approval for the change, if there is a cost aspect to it. And definitely avoid surprises – I’ve never met a stakeholder who is happy to be kept in the dark about financial pressures! Clarifying financial decisionsWe can help the situation by clarifying financial decision rights early. Who approves changes that affect cost? Who decides how contingency is used? Who is accountable for explaining variances to senior stakeholders? These conversations can feel awkward (especially if the answer is, “you, of course!”), but they prevent much bigger issues later. And clear ownership doesn’t mean working without help. Good financial governance relies on collaboration between the project team, sponsor, and finance colleagues aligned to the project, maybe the vendor as well. When everyone understands their role, financial conversations become more straightforward. At least you know who to ask! Clarity on budget ownership reduces friction and creates space for better decisions, and it’s not that difficult to sort out. As part of project governance, these are the kinds of conversations to have early on, to make sure that you know who’s doing what, and in particular, what falls to you. Then you can plan your time appropriately so you’ve got time to focus on the financial management of the project in the right way. How does it work for your projects? Let us know in the comments whether you’re “in charge” of the budget or whether the accountability sits elsewhere. I’m sure there will be lots of variations! |
Posted on: June 09, 2026 12:00 AM
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How to learn AI the sensible way
Categories:
ai
Categories: ai
AI was the talk of last year, and this year seems like it’s still up there in terms of things we need to know, learn about and absorb into how we do our jobs as project professionals. The AI pressure feels relentless – there’s so much to learn. And yet we are picking it up as we go along – familiarity with AI is rising because it has to.  I talk to project managers who are worried about falling behind. Learning new tech shouldn’t feel like a second job. However, gone are the days when you could go on a 3-day classroom Microsoft Project course and feel like you knew what to do. These days, tech in the cloud is updated regularly and new features come out all the time. And, of course, AI is no different – if anything, the rate of development and adoption feels like it’s significantly faster. What do we actually need to know about AI?The good news is that you don’t have to know it all. It’s worth focusing your learning on where AI fits into delivery work and where it doesn’t. You don’t need to code anything, in fact, even experienced coders are coding less these days as AI responds to natural language prompts as well as it does to code inputs. Low-effort learning areasLet’s say that you do want to put some effort in. You should start with PMI’s courses in AI, which are great, tool-agnostic learning resources which will help you build your vocabulary and the basics. Then think about where you could use the tools you already have access to – likely a generative AI office ‘companion’ type chat tool. Then think about where you could advance your use of AI for specific use cases like decision support, scenario exploration, drafting communications or identifying risks. Boundaries and risks to be aware ofLearning all the cool stuff you can do with AI is one thing, but you also have to balance that with boundaries and risks. Think about how bias and overconfidence might show up in your data or processes. What might data sensitivity look like for your data sets? Is there a risk of over-automation, and what does that mean for the humans in the process? A sustainable learning approachThink about learning in small loops, on a just-in-time basis so you can apply knowledge immediately. Then it’s more likely to stick and also to feel worthwhile, not like you’ve just spent time watching a video on AI theory knowing you can’t put it into practice. Let the experts in the business focus on the larger, complex projects – you’ll be brought in to support with project management best practice as and when you are needed, so ignore the pressure of becoming a subject matter expert in AI if it doesn’t feel like a natural fit for you. You’ll learn better through doing, so think about how you can develop AI literacy over AI mastery. You want to be competent in the tools that you have so you can make the best use of them, but there’s no need to be at the cutting edge, trying every product in your spare time. Organisations are typically quite slow to change, so you’ve got time and the fact that you’re even asking yourself the question about how best to learn AI puts you ahead of some of your colleagues! |
Posted on: June 03, 2026 12:00 AM
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Making sense of project cost reports
| Argh, cost reports have landed in my inbox and now I have to look at them… Do you feel like that? Project accountants are sending out end of month financial reports for us to reconcile or review and somehow cost reports feel harder than schedules. So let’s whisper it: if you receive financial reports you don’t fully understand, you are not alone!  The numbers might look familiar, but the relationships between them are not always clear. This can make financial conversations uncomfortable and reactive – not a good look when you’re sharing the budget position in Steering. Definitions project managers should be confident usingWe should be able to confidently understand and use these terms, as project managers: Actuals Actuals are what has already been spent and recorded. This includes money that has been spent outside the organisation e.g. to suppliers, and any internal costs you have to take like resource costs for colleagues working on the project. Forecast Forecasts are estimates of what the project is expected to cost in total, or in your organisation it might mean what is left to spend. In a view of a year, you’ll have actuals for the months that have closed and forecasts for predicted spend in the months to come. Commitments Commitments sit in between: money that has been contractually committed but not yet spent. These are normally reflected in purchase orders or statements of work, where you’ve told the vendor it’s OK to go ahead but they haven’t invoiced yet, or maybe even done the work yet. However, you can’t look at these figures are viewed in isolation. A common misunderstanding is assuming that unspent money is still available – it’s not because some of that will already be committed to suppliers (through POs or SOWs) or in internal resource costs (for example, if you have fixed term contractors on the job). In reality, committed costs may already consume much of the remaining budget – yikes. That doesn’t give you much to play with if you need to move things around. Another issue is focusing only on current-period actuals, rather than cumulative spend and future obligations. The current month might be looking great, but if all the other months are overspent, that’s not a good big picture. Financial fluency is a core skill for project managers, but I find that we don’t get taught it. The trouble is, you can understand it in theory and read the relevant sections of the PMBOK® Guide, but in practice, your own country-specific accounting rules and organisation-specific processes mean that it’s a bit different wherever you work. You can start building confidence with cost reports starts with asking basic questions. What is included in actuals this month? What commitments are expected to convert into spend next month? What assumptions underpin the forecast? And are these still what we believe? Financial fluency doesn’t require accounting expertise (thank goodness). You can get there with curiosity, a willingness to ask questions, and regular engagement with the numbers. Book a monthly chat with your project finance person. The more comfortable you get with what the cost reports, and all the other financial reports, are telling you, the easier you will find it to manage your project budgets and answer questions about the money side. |
Posted on: May 25, 2026 12:00 AM
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