People, Planet, Profits & Projects

Continuing with the theme of Green IT, a consortium of major colleges in the Boston, including Boston University (where I am have currently developed and am teaching a course in Green IT), Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, U Mass (Rich’s alma mater) along with industry partners Cisco and EMC, together with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are creating a “world-class”, green data center in Holyoke, MA, on the banks of the Connecticut River.  Why there?  Because, there is a large hydro plant producing clean, renewable energy! 

To date, about $80 million dollars have been committed to the project.  This is really an unprecedented collaboration between industry, universities and a state government.  One of the major drivers for the increase in datacenters, and by extension increased energy use, is the need for scientific and engineering computing.  To do that properly requires a massive amount of computing power.  According to the Green High-Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) website, the facility will include “33,000 square feet of computer room space optimized for high performance computing systems, a 15MW power feed, and a high efficiency cooling plant that can support up to 10MW of computing load. The on-site substation includes provisions for expansion to 30MW and the MGHPCC owns an 8.6 acre site, leaving substantial space for the addition of new floor space. The communication infrastructure includes a dark fiber loop that passes through Boston and New York City and connects to the NoX, the regional education and research network aggregation point. Boston University initially will have a pair of 10 GigE connections from its campus to its resources located in the Holyoke facility.”  Some of the features will include:

• Modern, controlled data center facility for research computing
• 8.6 acre site and 90,000 sq. ft. building provide for future expansion
• High-performance networking between the campuses and the resources in Holyoke
• Inexpensive, renewable and clean power
• Efficient, low power usage effectiveness (PUE) design with a low carbon footprint
• Brownfield cleanup and remediation of an old mill site
• Economic development and revitalization in Holyoke, MA
• Opportunities for shared facilities and services
• Opportunities for collaboration with other institution

This is a phenomenal undertaking and a giant leap forward to green data centers utilizing clean, renewable power, lower carbon footprint, collocation, virtualization, and all the other things that go into a comprehensive greening of IT.  Hopefully, MGHPCC will be a model to emulate.

Earlier this week, US President Barak Obama gave the annual "State of the Union Address", which you can read about here. 

Timed to go along with this, is the GreenBiz.org "State of the Green Business Report". 

The report, which measures 20 aspects of environmental performance, from carbon emissions to paper use and recycling, and attempts to answer the question, "Are we bringing a green economy into being?"

The news for 2012: not so good.

The report shows a slowing of momentum -- or even steps in the backwards direction, in some cases -- on some of the indicators. Among the downgraded topics include investments in clean technology innovations, overall energy intensity, certifications of LEED buildings, and paper use and recycling.

We stress that project managers by virtue of their "Change Agent" mindset need to bring sustainability issues (economic, ecological and social) to the forefront.  Heck, it's even in the name of our blog - People, Planet, Profits, & Projects - so we think we as Project Managers should be stepping up here, and reversing this negative trend, getting the momentum back - all in the positive direction.

We suggest that an informed PM is the best PM.  You can download the full report here.

Want some good news? There is a short video clip from Joel Makower here, which explains how the CFOs of organizations are starting to take sustainability on as a traditional ongoing measure of success.

Of course if you want to be informed we also would recommend our Cleland Award-winning book...

The facts remain: good progress has been made.  Looks like we slipped a little over the past year, but we can regain this momentum and you as project managers play a key role in bringing sustainability thinking to the forefront. 

One of the “real” green impact zones is in the world of information technology.  The increase of electronic transactions (How many of you use e-banking?), the growth of Internet communications, on-line shopping, electronic medical records and global positioning systems have caused an explosion in the IT industry.  Government documentation going digital, digital record retention, disaster recoveries, emergency services, national security and scientific computing also has a huge impact in the IT industry. 

So what are the implications; increased energy usage - costs, emissions, strains on an old power grid and capital costs, and more.  It affects just about every system.  IT is the key to modern business and the way we are using energy is unsustainable!  Green IT is about using IT more efficiently.  Here are some facts from the EPA (a favorite source for us because it is free):

• Energy use has doubled between 2000 and 2006 has doubled again
• Google maintains 450,000 servers, add that to Amazon and E-bay
• According to the research firm IDC, for every $1 spent on hardware, $.70 is spent on power and cooling

 So what should be the goal of Green IT?

• Minimize building footprints
• Low emission (impact) building materials
• Sustainable landscaping
• Initiating water recycling
• Alternate energy sources
• Increased equipment efficiencies
• Server consolidation
• Virtualization
• The Cloud
• Sustainable hardware
• Efficient heating and cooling

In the future, I will be posting about of the issues involved with the information industry including life cycle assessment of equipment, or lack of.  I will also look at some of the best ways to execute on Green IT including basic steps as well as some more complex efforts including its effect on people, planet and profits. 

Photo:  Creative Commons copyright by James Hedberg

Find some really cool physics animations and photos by James here.

What would it be like if we could make roofing surfaces - even wildly irregular roofing surfaces - into highly-efficient solar collectors?

First of all, for those of you who are a little science-minded (and we're guessing there are a few of you here) you'll want to learn a little more about a new "wonder maerial" called graphene.  Graphene is a one-atom-thick layer of carbon.  Want to spend a moment to learn about it?  You know you do.

Have a look at this really nice video from Creative Science, an organization from the UK:

So now that you're familiar with the material, you see there are all sorts of possiblities (read that projects) for what we can do with it.

Especially if the material happens to create electricity when it's sturck by light.  Oh wait!  It does that.  See this link.  Or see this link.

OK, you can see that this has some carbon-fighting applications.  So it's potentially "green".  What does that have to do with project management?  Well, it's actually very simple.  The number of research projects and then actual application-based projects are huge.  This 'wonder material' has reminded those of us old enough to remember, of the advance of silicon as a wonder material, and the cavalcade of electronics that followed that, employing literally millions of project managers and engineers.

So we think this is worth your attention as a project manager.

Stay tuned to this blog - we'll have more.

You may remember that before we sent 2011 off into the sunset and wished it good bye (or good riddance), we played devil's advocate.  Below are some of the objections we hear to planning in sustainability to your projects.   All are real, and all actually have some virtue (it's the ying and yang of PM, we suppose).  We promised that early in 2012 we would play angel's advocate and explain why these objections to resolutions oughtn't, shouldn't, and mightn't make a (negative) difference to you, your projects, planet, people, and profits.

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5.  My project has its own needs and must not be hampered by corporate or other enterprise 'weights'.  I have enough to worry about with my project alone.

We’d actually turn this one right onto its head.  We’d say that if you DON’T take the time to connect your project to the strategic goals of your enterprise, you risk having an “outlier” project which has “success” unto itself, but because of its disconnectedness, is not really contributing towards enterprise success.  Furthermore, your own success as PM and your own career path count on you knowing what’s important to the enterprise.  We suggest you change your thinking.  These sustainability considerations are not weights – okay, well they do carry some weight - think of  them as jetpacks which can help power your project and energize your career.

4.  I don't want to worry about how my project's product/service will be used in the long term - what a bother!  I am a PM – my projects have defined beginnings and endings, and I work in the here and now.

Yes.  You work in the here and now.   And yes, we have to keep our focus on what PMI calls “progressive elaboration” and “rolling wave planning” – where we use the near term to adjust the medium term.  But don’t forget the long term.  And don’t forget the holistic view of your project’s product.  It will help you identify issues and risk you’d be blind to if not considered upfront.  We have real, specific examples of where failing to do this has caused significant failure of the project itself.  We’ve shared these on our blog in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

3. Since my project only runs for a short time, I don't need to run 'the project itself' efficiently.  I just need to get it done.  The operations people can worry about the steady-state.

First of all, we have to give the obligatory answer that “every bit helps”, so that if you do make sustainability improvements within the project, it will contribute, even if in a small way, to the overall global effort.   But the other piece is this.  You are a project manager – that’s a change agent.  Projects are about change, by definition.  So what you do sets a sort of behavioral model for the company.  So even if your efforts to be sustainability-focused are limited, they are likely to be emulated by others you touch in your organization.

 It is true that the steady-state of the project is owned by the operations people.  But you know what?  It’s very much your job as a project manager to empower the operations people to do their job efficiently – you set them up for success, including sustainability success.  Again, if you stay tuned to EarthPM and/or read our book, you will find solid, real examples of these situations.

2. Any money or effort spent to 'green up' my project is money NOT spent on my REAL project.  We’re all splitting one pie, so there is only so much to go around.

The view expressed in this assertion indicates a win-lose situation.  Only thing is…this is not a win-lose situation.  The “pie” – if you wan to keep this analogy – is expandable.  Just as we can give you many examples of how sustainability can enhance an enterprise’s bottom line, there are examples of how a project can actually benefit from money spent to make the project more efficient or ecologically responsible. 

1. They've begun to find planets with similar characteristics to Earth.  So, with regards to the earth and "using it up" -  it's replaceable! So, what, me worry?

Although this philosophy (assumption, really) that the earth has limitless resources has been the basis for much of our carelessness with regards to ecological sustainability (or the lack thereof).  Let’s use this silly assertion above as a way to remind us that as planets go, right now we really only have the one.

And, we reiterate: Have a very pleasant, safe, and fun New Year's and best of wishes to you, your people, projects, profits, and planets in 2012!