People, Planet, Profits & Projects

Freshly returned from the keynote address at the PMSA (Project Management South Africa) conference, "The Good in Green", we found that South Africa's project managers have a mature and considered view of project management.

One example is this article, from the PMSA magazine "The Project Manager", which questions the very definition of project success. Does it have to do only with scope, schedule, and budget?  Or - as we have been saying - should success include the success of the steady-state, ongoing use of the product of the project?

Although not strictly about sustainability, the article does correctly point out that a project is part of an endeavor of an organization, and success should be viewed in this larger context.

So- consider a highway project which goes over budget because it chose to use a paving material which (although more expensive) provides drivers with a 15% increase in gas mileage.  Is this project a failure? 

We think not. 

Have a look at the article and think about it.  We think you'll agree that it's at least worth considering this longer-term view.

Here's the full link to the article.

http://www.theprojectmanager.co.za/index.php/Other/the-elusive-concept-of-project-success.html

We're interested in your views on project success.  How much should project managers consider long-term operations as they seek to deliver the product on-time, under budget, and within scope?

But don't answer until you've read Terry Deacon's article.

We’ve been “hawking” the word greenality where ever and whenever we can.  It is not just because we coined the word in our book, Green Project Management, but because the concept’s suffix is so important to our world, the world project management.  Also, it connects to a list of “ity” words that affect our world.  And, as bloggers, we are “word”, not necessarily “wordy,” people, and it is so much fun to play with words. 

When we think about greenality, “degree to which an organization considers the green (sustainable) aspects of a project throughout the project life cycle and beyond,” we also think about its influence by those other “ity” words.  Here are some of the connections;

• The most obvious is to sustainability, defined in a myriad of ways, including; the Brundtland definition “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” and from Getting Green Done “being in business forever.” 
• How about longevity?  While not an “ity”, we, as project managers, are concerned with legacy, our own and the projects.  The project, being a unique, temporary endeavor probably won’t have longevity, but the product of the project might.  How the project is perceived, how it is run, how the product performs for instance, results in the project’s, and our, legacy.  That leads us to a couple of other “ity” words.
• If greenality is not considered when making important project decisions, whether in the planning phase, execution phase or any other phase when a project decision has to be made, there could be a proclivity, culpability, vulnerability or susceptibility toward, for or to increased project risks.  There could be an immediate penalty (almost an ity) from regulatory agencies or public backlash from stakeholders.  Because of the possible issues arising there could be an inclination toward project failure rather than success.
• Since greenality considers the sustainability aspects throughout the project and beyond, we need to add maintainability.  We must think about the handoff to operations and whether or not the product of the project is maintainable.
• A combination of the above issues may compromise the project manager’s ability to lead the project team because more and more individuals are looking to work for organizations that are more corporately socially responsible.  Team members are looking to do the right thing and look to the project manager for direction.
• There is quality.  We all know how that affects the project and the project’s processes.  Poor quality, like poor greenality has its own rewards; rework, scrape, fines, loss of credibility and confidence in the market place, etc.
• How about responsibility and accountability?  Those are good words when it comes to thinking about greenality and are linked back to susceptibility and vulnerability for sure.  If we are left vulnerable and susceptible to regulatory issues and public backlash, then who is responsible and particularly, accountable?

We could go on to the point of absurdity, but you get the picture.  “ity” is just a way to remember that greenality is connected to the world of project management in more ways than we can capture here.  But know that we can live in the intersection between green (sustainability) and project management and continue to show a great deal of creativity and productivity when managing our projects.  And, if you so desire, please feel free to add your thoughts here and to infinity, Buzz.

                                                                                        .

No sweat.  More inspiration. That's what you'll find here at P, P, P, & P.

We'd like to draw your attention to an editorial in the 13-Aug-11 Cape Cod Times.

In the opinion piece, entitled "Looking To The Skies", the editors discuss the Dennis Union Church - a 173-year-old building on Cape Cod, and its congregation's effort to get air conditioning into their building.

From the editorial:

"Earlier this year, the church was one of four religious groups in New England to receive an Energy Star label, recognizing the congregation's "environmental stewardship." In the case of Dennis Union, that stewardship includes photovoltaic panels, lights that shut themselves off automatically, and double-pane glass."

The congregation wanted to install solar panels so as to power the air conditioning.  However, "the congregation discovered it could use solar panels to not only offset the energy to run air conditioning, but to turn a profit as well in the form of electricity sold back into the grid. And, as one congregant pointed out, although not everyone agrees about climate change, everyone likes to save money."

But the Editorial really got us thinking about project managers.  As usual.  Why?

What could a church tell us about project management and sustainabililty?

Well, first of all, this is a good example of a "Green By Definition" project.  (See our book for the 4 distinct categories of projects).  But more importantly, it shows how a group of stakeholders, in this case, a congregation and its leadership, decided to think long-term.  Sustainably.

Perhaps the best line in the editorial is here:

"Perhaps religious organizations that look at history in terms of centuries, rather than days or months, are better suited to understand the concept of a big picture than individuals on their own."

We're not saying that project managers have to run out and join a religious organization and become regular church, mosque, or synagogue goers, but we are saying that the type of thinking exemplified here by Dennis Union Church is more appropriate than you might imagine for a project manager.

Think sustainably, act projectly.

For those of you more interesetd in the actual project, the architecture, and history of the church, see this case study.

Ray Anderson died yesterday (see press release here). 

Words fail when it comes to discussing Ray Anderson and his importance to sustainabililty and business.  He speaks for himself, and for those who (justifiably) count on results to prove something to be correct, Ray Anderson's company, InterfaceFLOR's results also speak for themselves.

Watch this video to see what this amazing man had to say.

So - nothing to add except we're here to honor his memory and hope that some of you will take some inspiration from this man.

One of the most valuable tools in the project manager’s tool kit is lessons learned.  It can give a twenty-twenty hindsight perspective of a project to help avoid the mistakes of the past.  George Santayana noted Spanish philosopher who, in Volume 1 of his Reason in Common Sense, coined the phrase “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  Sometimes, while we don’t know whether or not a “lessons learned” was conducted, it is good to go back and look at a project to see what we can learn so we don’t repeat history.  Since the connection between sustainability and project management is a relatively new concept, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at an infamous project, Union Carbide’s Plant in Bhopal, India, from a sustainability perspective.

  Just after midnight on December 3, 1984, methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas began leaking from Union Carbide’s Plant in Bhopal, India.   Before it was all over, approximately 10,000 gallons of the highly toxic gas had been released forming a deadly cloud that covered 25 square miles and killed or injured over 100,000 people.  According to the Harvard Business School Case, “Bhopal became a symbol of corporate negligence and risk.”  According to Newsweek, December 17, 1984, “It was like breathing fire…..”  The following morning, while all the buildings were intact, it looked like a nuclear bomb hit.  Dead humans and animals littered the ground.  It was the worst industrial accident in history. 

It is interesting that the Harvard Business Case[1] is that the roots of this disaster could be traced back to the mid-1960s when India was in the midst of its “Green Revolution.”  In a socially responsible move, India wanted to eliminate chronic food shortages by boosting food production.  One of the ways they wanted to do that was to make fertilizers and pesticides more readily available, thus the need for a manufacturing plant like the UC plant that used MIC in the production of pesticides.

As always, we like to give the caveat that we were not in the room when the planning decisions for the project were conducted, so we don’t know for sure what did or didn’t drive the decisions that were made.  What we can do is look at the information available, which includes an organization’s reaction to the crisis, to provide some insight to not “repeat history.” 

So what could have been done that may not have been done in the initial stages of the planning process for this project, specifically, the environmental risk assessment.  Remember, we are looking at this as a retrospective and making some assumptions for the purpose of discussion.  The gas is known to be highly toxic, see warning label above.  UC’s name is on the plant.  A risk encountered is whether or not UC will have enough control over the design and construction of the plant to provide the proper precautions when building this facility in the area of a city with a population of 900,000.  The answer in hindsight is no, for a variety of reasons; vital parts of the plant including monitoring instrumentation and vent gas scrubbers manufactured in India by Indians (no control by US UC), limited safety training, employees selected and trained in India, many changes in design and configuration changes during the 10 years of construction, in other words, ceding of control to the Indians.  Is that a good scenario for a company that has its name on the door?  An observation we make because of the case study and other research into the disaster is that the executives of the US based UC seem to have felt that there was no liability for them because of the role of the Indian Government and the Indian engineers, builders, etc.  Can that kind of accountability be delegated?  We don’t think so.  Sure, some of the responsibility can be delegated, but if your name is on the door, your name is on the door, and some of the profits are being returned to the US.  You have no “case” for delegation of accountability.

Because of the toxicity of the gas, and the lack of control over some of the key safety factors, wouldn’t it be wise to take a very close look at the potential of a leak.  Even if the likelihood is low, the impact will be very high.  We conclude that there wasn’t much of a risk analysis done on the possibility of a leak by the circumstances surrounding the leak and the reaction to it.  The storage tank holding the MIC showed a dangerously high pressure reading, but by the time it was caught, it was too late.  At 2am (almost two hours after the tank started leaking) the plant’s emergency siren sounded.  Thinking that a fire had broken out, “hundreds rushed toward the plant” right into the path of the gas.  “The train station was littered with the bodies of railroad employees…tying up the station for 20 hours making it impossible to flee the disaster area.”  Those who were wealthy enough to have cars tried to escape but were blinded by the gas causing numerous accidents.  We would have thought that if the risk of a leak was more closely analyzed, a better plan would have been in place.

Looking back on the disaster, it is easy to speculate on what should have been done.  But isn’t that what lessons learned are for?  Some questions that could be asked:

• Did they consider their ability to produce pesticides without stockpiling MIC?
• Was the technology used in the Bhopal Plant inferior to that used in West Virginia?
• Did UC know of safety issues at the Bhopal Plant?
• Should the plant have been constructed further from a population center?

We have included sustainability as a criterion, which probably wasn’t as big a concern then as it is today and will be even more in the future.  However, then and now, the consequences are the same; consumer backlash, law suits, devaluation of a company's stocks, etc.  There are clear sustainability issues involved in this case, whether they called them that at the time, or not.  Looking back on some of these “environmental” disasters can give project manager’s valuable insights for the future.