People, Planet, Profits & Projects

I’m a fan of the television series NOVA.  I think it’s one of the better produced TV programs, containing great value and educational content, perhaps second only to Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. 

A recent episode of NOVA was entitled “Life’s Rocky Start” and it covered the ‘co-evolution’ of minerals and life on our planet, spanning back a few years – say 4.5 billion or so.  I’ve also been a rockhound (a person interested in rocks and minerals), so this show was perfect for me. In and of itself, it’s a worthwhile investment of 50 minutes of your time – and since it’s produced by the USA’s Public Broadcasting System, it is available streaming, free, here.  Please do have a look.

While I watched this program and appreciated the insight of professor Robert Hazen, author of “The Story of Earth”, a book which divides Earth’s history into six distinct stages (more on this later), I noticed a theme that got me wondering about climate change.  The theme was that the planet’s minerals contributed to the evolution of life (that’s logical) and that the opposite was also quite true – life on the planet, not necessarily humans, but life in general – had an immense impact on the planet’s development.  A great example is the Stromatolites, a microbial form of life which themselves form mineral, coral-like structures (see photo below) which expelled massive amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere, which at that time had almost none.  The arrival of oxygen meant that the Earth’s atmosphere – at the time consisting mainly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen was increasingly corrosive and also increasingly supportive of life on land.  Not only this, Hazen has determined that 2/3 of the minerals that now exist on the planet are only there thanks to this introduction of oxygen by the Stromatolites.
So in this case, life significantly transformed the planet, moving it from what Haze calls “Blue Earth” to “Red Earth”.
I’ll fast forward to the stage we’re in now: “Green Earth”.

At the end of the show, Hazen talks about humans.  Are we the new Stromatolites?  He doesn’t ask that per se, but this was my takeaway.  He does say note the “power of life to transform a planet” and does say this: “humans are transforming the planet, we change the composition of the atmosphere, we change the composition of the oceans”.  Well, that’s what the Stromatolites did.

Whatever your view on climate change, this show is a very good take for a project manager, if for no other reason than to expand your ‘timeline’ back a ways, having you look back at our planet’s formation, perhaps allowing you to put your own project in more of a long-term perspective.  Looking back that far backwards can only help you look forward, as well, to the product of your project, and its long-term effects, looking past the traditional 'end' of your project.

Speaking of endings, here’s how the show ends: “there are going to be global changes, changes whose consequences are now beginning to unfold.  This is the latest chapter in Earth’s epic story.  A story that began 4.5 billion years ago…with a rock.”

Below: Stromatolites at Shark Bay, Western Australia.

Conflict as an engine for innovation.  What a concept.  We often think of conflict as bad.  Agree or disagree with President Obama’s State of the Union speech (here is the full text), it’s clear that he touched on this topic last night - mentioning conflict and innovation and even linking the two at times. 
 

Here's some of what he said:

A better politics doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything. This is a big country, with different regions and attitudes and interests. That’s one of our strengths, too. Our Founders distributed power between states and branches of government, and expected us to argue, just as they did, over the size and shape of government, over commerce and foreign relations, over the meaning of liberty and the imperatives of security.

To our point, we want to start off by entertaining you.  Have a look at this short, stupendous presentation of a popular classical piece (“Summer” from “The Four Seasons” of Antonio Vivaldi).
 

What these fantastic artists have done is to embody conflict, at the start of the performance.  Individuals are staking their territories.  Musical ideas are almost literally set down like a gauntlet, or a threat.  But as the performance (the project) unfolds, we can see that the conflict is driving new ideas, innovation, and eventually, some pretty incredible collaboration.

We see that as an important lesson for project managers.  We’re not saying that you need to learn to play the piano or cello upside down (these women do both of that in the video – go ON, watch it!), what we want you to take away is that conflict is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it comes to innovating.  

Sometimes conflict arises on projects when the concept of sustainability – perhaps in the form of thinking about the environmental effects of the project or its product is introduced to a PM or to a project team that is cynical about its benefit.  We get that.  No matter which side you’re on, think about this little musical expression of conflict.   Is there a way to harness the ‘argument’ to drive innovation?  Is there a way to make some beautiful music from the apparent dissonance of disagreement?  We assert that the answer is yes.  But you need to give it a chance.

Play the video for your team.  Who knows?  Maybe you’ll end up with a symphonic result!

We  close with these words from the State of the Union Address:  [bracketed words are our own]:

[Our project] grinds to a halt without a willingness to compromise; or when even basic facts are contested, and we listen only to those who agree with us. Our [project communication] withers when only the most extreme voices get attention. Most of all, [project teams] break down when the average [team member]  feels their voice doesn’t matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or [a particular stakeholder].

Here at People, Planet, Profits, and Projects, we have been promoting the importance of integrating long-term thinking, sustainability, “green”, and strategy – into your projects for at least seven years.  Two books (Green Project Management, and Driving Project, Program, and Portfolio Success) and all these years later, it’s very reassuring to see these aspects of PM on the “hot list”.  This article from CIO magazine by Moira Alexander, PMP, features the “5 Trends That Will Transform Project Management”, and these aspects explicitly come out in not one, but two of the trends.  Let’s have a look.

In Trend 1, “The laser focus on strategy over progress”, we see the elevation of strategy and cross-project, long-term thinking as being key.  This is in line with the idea of benefits realization versus simple project metrics, and as you’ll see below, is also very connected to Trend 3 – in which companies (and therefore projects!) had better align themselves with social responsibility and environmental accountability.  Here’s an extract of Trend 1:

"Trend 1: The laser-focus on strategy over projects

Competition, limited resources, internal and external environmental factors, time and budgetary constraints, are increasingly impacting businesses. Leaders will need to transform their PMOs or project management teams to focus all efforts around reaching business goals. 
…
It may also serve the business better if individuals are selected for goal-centric projects based on their high-value core strengths in relation to business requirements, instead of selecting project team members in the traditional style of departmental representation. Taking this laser focus approach to strategy over projects can optimize resource, time and budgetary use."

In summary, it’s important that project managers are not sub-optimizing their projects to accomplish goals that are perhaps aligned with a smaller business unit’s goals but are not connected to the corporate strategy.  And because organizations are increasingly including the social and environmental elements in their annual report and strategy (see below), projects need to increasingly check their goals to look for that “golden thread”.

Here’s an extract of Trend 3:

Trend 3: The increased need for accountability and social responsibility 

With the whole world watching, businesses can no longer conduct themselves in anonymity, while  
People and businesses want to do business with companies that provide transparency, offer visibility and conduct themselves in ways that are ethical, socially responsible and accountable. Projects are no exception.
Safeguards should be identified and implemented to ensure accountability is at the forefront to protect stakeholders, clients and the general public as it applies to the project activities and outcomes. Ultimately these factors do have the power to directly or indirectly influence the bottom line. giving no thought to social or environmental factors.  

Note the important reference here to the word “outcome”.  More than ever, we assert (and the trend says!) project managers should be “thinking through” the long-term application/use of the product of the project and not just the handover and pizza party.  Success should be thought of not only as accomplishing scope, time, and budgetary goals, but (and yes, this does take time and patience) whether or not the project outcome yields the expected benefit it was meant to provide.  That benefit should also be thought of in terms of economic, social, and environmental outcomes.  So, and we know you don’t like to hear this, but if a project is done on time, within budget, and meets all requirements, it’s still not really a success if, for example, one of the side effects of the factory expansion project is that the system is leaking poisons into local streams.- or if the coffeemaker’s steady-state use generates millions (or billions!) of non-recyclable plastic cups.  On the plus side, there are examples of projects in which the outcome reduces energy use or waste, or provides an improvement in the quality of life for the local population.  These minuses and pluses should not be parenthetical discoveries but rather part of the planning of the project, combining 2 of these 5 transformational trends. 

Imagine, just by doing this you are grabbing yourself 40% of the trendiest and important project management trends for 2016!  What a great New Year’s Resolution!
 

Sure, it sounds like a great name for an edgy punk band.  Or not.  But rest assured, it’s just the name of our blog post, for reasons which will make themselves clear presently.

Recently, on our companion blog site we posted a story about an editorial by George Will who wrote about the fact that sometimes (and he’s right here) folks with a message about sustainability can be a bit… preachy.   You can read that post here – our main point there was not to disagree with Will about the preachiness, but rather to take issue with the way he denigrated sustainability as a subject, by putting it in quotes and generally denying any possibility that the science was right – or even that science matters at all.

 The very next day, Will’s editorial appeared literally directly next to an editorial in the Cape Cod Times which we’ll quote from below.

There was simply too much karma here (irony intended).  The story next to Will’s was about how the Pope will be taking action in terms of an upcoming Encyclical which will deal quite directly with Climate Change from the Vatican’s perspective.  Why does this matter to project, program, and portfolio managers?  Well, when 1 billion Catholics are getting advice from their leader, it’s a bit of a game-changer.  These people, this belief system – it is likely threaded through your stakeholders, whether they be stakeholder individuals or stakeholder organizations.  And since stakeholders have influence, interest, and attitudes towards your project(s), it pays to understand the underlying context from which they are driven, and from which they’re basing decisions.

Actually, we think it would behoove you to read both editorial pieces together to see just how diametrically opposed viewpoints can be on this topic.

That said, here is the first piece of this editorial piece, which was entitled "Climate Action":

"Vatican poised to challenge religious, political leaders

Pope Francis is poised to call on all Catholics — more than a billion of them — and political and religious leaders around the world to take climate action.    The Vatican is set to host a major conference on climate change this month that will feature leading researchers on global warming and an opening address by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The meeting is another sign of Pope Francis’ “green agenda” and another potential red flag for far-right conservatives who are already alarmed over an expected papal teaching document on the environment that is scheduled for release this summer."

By now we hope you agree that wherever you stand – religiously, politically, and demographically – the fact that there is significant information transfer that involves the UN Secretary-General and the Pope, and at least one billion people – is good to know.  We are not saying that you must agree, just that it is good to know.

It’s not just Catholics, by the way:

The one-day summit on April 28 will also include participants from major world religions and aims to “elevate the debate on the moral dimensions of protecting the environment in advance of the papal encyclical,” as the papal document is known.

The pope is looking at the Bible’s mandate to “subdue the earth” in terms of stewardship and sustainability, in contrast to the rapacious exploitation of fossil fuels executed by the most profitable companies in history.     The Catholic Church has embraced the issue of climate change as a moral and social justice issue, giving voice to what should be hollered day in, day out: Our consumption-based economy of global trade, travel and transit is reliant on fossil fuels, and the energy giants that enable it are serving a very small group and punishing the rest of the planet … and in the end, no one will profit.

Stanford researcher Mark Jacobson is quoted in Naomi Klein’s 2014 book, “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate”:

“This really involves a large-scale transformation. It would require an effort comparable to the Apollo moon project or constructing the interstate highway system. But it is possible, without even having to go to new technologies. We really need to just decide collectively that this is the direction we want to head as a society.”

Again, we’re not asking you to agree.  But we think you should agree that the transition of which they speak is going to involve many of us as project managers – quite directly in some cases, as new projects and programs (and even portfolios) will be launched.  However, there will also be just as large, if not larger, of an indirect effect because of the not-so-subtle shift that this will create in existing and planned projects that have nothing to do (apparently, anyway) with sustainability.  Certainly, as we started off the post, it should cause you to step back and reappraise your stakeholder set.

The editorial from the Cape Cod Times ends with this piece (note the stress on long-term decision making):

"We like to argue that China and India should account for their emissions, but can we be so blind as to ignore for whom their factories are running? It is for our appetite as well as theirs -- we in the world's largest markets in Europe and North America.  Too many of our energy decisions are made based on current market conditions rather than long-term solutions.

It is our hope that Pope Francis’ anticipated encyclical to the world’s 5,000 bishops and 400,000 priests will offer practical things that anyone, not just a billion-plus Catholics, can do: reducing demand for power, and for goods that come from across the planet; shifting taxes from fossil fuel subsidies to public transportation subsidies.  The Pope is right. It is a moral and social justice issue. And action is needed now, not only from policy makers and corporate executives, but from each of us responsible to one another for the future survival of our world."

We hope you agree.  Not necessarily with Pope Francis, nor with George Will.  But rather, we hope you agree with us.  That is, we hope you agree that it makes sense to look at sustainability in a new light – that of an influencer of your stakeholders, who in turn, are going to influence your projects, like it or not.

Okay – that’s enough preaching from us, at least for today.

As project managers we are mightily aware of the fact that our Monitoring and Controlling processes look at the difference between planned (forecasted) and actual results.  We watch, for example, how a vendor actually delivers compared to what they said they’d deliver, and if it’s different – either better or worse – that difference is a variance.  We’re of course very focused on what that variance means in terms of our project deliverables.

Let’s kick it up a level.  In fact, let’s kick it all the way up to the planetary level.  That certainly is a move from project to portfolio level if ever there was one.

In a recent article in Scientific American (May 2015 – Waves of Destruction), the story is one that begins with seasickness – in this case a risk trigger that had oceanographer Jim Thompson realizing that larger-than expected waves were a root cause.

And the root cause of the large waves?  Well, let’s go back to variance.  Remember – that’s planned or forecasted versus actual.  Artic simulations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change- the very organization often accused of overestimating the effects of climate change, ice melt, and global warming, were not predicting ENOUGH ‘ice retreats’.  The decline in arctic ice is outpacing most of the models.  The variance is there.  Why?

We created the drawing below based on the effects identified in the article.

Notice a couple of things about this cycle, whether you believe in the science or not, and even if we got the cycle incorrectly:

·         There are significant interdependencies between ocean currents, air currents, presence and absence of ice, and strength of waves

·         If there are to be changes in the amount of sea ice, it will have effects not only on the arctic but also those which are geo-political and military (new drilling areas, changes in how nations can ‘reach’ each other by sea.

So what’s our point?

Well. For one thing, it cannot hurt to have some scientific background around what’s going on relative to our planet.  You don’t have to agree, but making yourself aware of the research is a good thing.  We suggest that you have a look at this article and the references that it in turn makes available.  I suppose that’s not as much a point as a ‘point of order’.

Next, our point is to look for overarching variance.  Just as we coach our PM students to look for overarching risk (see the video below, which has an ironic connection to ice, about overarching risk), we think you can look for overarching variances – things that will affect many of your projects, for which you may want to set aside management reserves.  As we seem to be dealing with larger and more extreme weather, for example, this idea of overarching variance may unfortunately require that skill and capability more and more often.