People, Planet, Profits & Projects

Chapter 4 of our book, Green Project Management, is titled, “A Rainbow of Green”.  In that chapter, we make what we think is one of the most important points of the entire ‘sustainability in PM’ thought process: all projects need to have sustainability thinking integrated.  But we acknowledge that there is a spectrum of projects, some of which don’t have an intuitive sustainability element (perhaps the project of upgrading an accounting software package) and some which have a noticeable sustainability component (perhaps the project of building a new highway segment).  Still others are “green by definition” – that is, they are projects dedicated to reducing contaminants, saving species,  creating better working conditions, or producing renewable energy.

The cover story of UMASS magazine, the magazine for alumni and friends of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has a cover that caught our attention.  Their Summer 2013 issue features a major story on “Climate Change: Searching for Solutions, Local and Global.

If you’re interested in science, technology, engineering, and/or management, you’ll enjoy the story.  As individuals involved in all of the above – plus being on staff at the University level in teaching PM, International Business, Qualitative and Quantitative Decision Making, and of course Sustainability courses, it’s even more intensely interesting to us.

We won’t duplicate the story, but we do encourage you to read it.  What we would like to do is to underline the connection between projects and sustainability in this story, but before we do we want to warn you that this is at one end of that ‘rainbow’ we talk about in our book.  Do not – repeat – do not forget that the aspects of sustainability so obvious in these projects still deserve attention if your project does not (on face value) have any sustainability elements in it.  So we recommend you see these intersections as inspirational but NOT as an excuse that your project is exempt.

First of all, the word “project” is prolific in the article.  The simple fact that the word comes up repeatedly is a reminder of the fact that as PMs we contribute greatly in the efforts at the University level to research, discover, and act on climate problems.

To illustrate this, we zoom in on Rick Palmer,  Head of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UMass and Director of the Northeast Climate Science Center, of which UMass is a part.  We adapt this text from the article:

Since coming to UMass five years ago, the head of Civil and Environmental Engineering has gotten involved in several new projects. 

1. With the Nature Conservancy, he’s studying the effects of climate change on the Connecticut River.

2. With faculty in Environmental Conservation, he’s helping to design better fish passageways.

3. With researchers at Columbia and Drexel University, he is studying the impact of climate change on urban areas.

4.  Recently spearheaded the successful effort to have UMass lead and host the Northeast Climate Science Center (NECSC).

5. His engineering career began with a project calculating the number of drinking water reservoirs needed by Washington, DC to meet its future needs.

6. The CSRC (Climate System Research Center) faculty is working on a project to examine the impact of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.

7. Another CSRC project is to analyze sediments on the Japanese coast to descover the record of fierce Kamikaze Winds which twice destroyed the Mongol fleet when it attempted to invade Japan 1,000 years ago.

Project, project, project, project, project, climate change, project, sustainability, climate, project, sustainability.  All are incredibly intertwined here.

 “Our primary goal is to help people come to grips with the changes from global warming, plan accordingly, and make good decisions,” Palmer says.

Think about that one powerful paragraph for a moment.  Think about the connection to our discipline no matter what type of PM you happen to be.  The elements are striking:

·         Collaboration between diverse organizations

·         Collaboration even between competitive universities

·         “Coming to grips with changes”

·         Aiding managers and policymakers in making good decisions

Sound familiar?  Isn’t this what you already do on your projects?  If not, you may be in the wrong career.

But remember – this is a spectrum, a rainbow.  As the projects move towards the ‘Green in General’ side, the effort to find the linkages, the integration, the interworking with longer-term thinking needs to increase significantly.  And we assert that it’s you – the change-agent project manager that can bring that integration, the gold at one end of the rainbow, to the other side.

Question: Did the ancient Egyptians recycle?

• Answer:  Not unless you count an entire city

Question: Did ancient Egyptians feel the effects of climate change? 

• Answer: Not unless you count a branch of the Nile silting up – which actually caused the aforementioned relocation of the city.

Of what do we speak?  We’re referring to the Pharaoh Psusennes, pictured above, as told on a recent Public Broadcasting System (PBS) show called ‘The Silver Pharaoh”.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/featured/the-silver-pharaoh-about-this-episode/669/

Here's some of the transcript of the show, adapted a bit for this posting (but not changed in fact or intent):

Among the most extraordinary findings about Psusennes was his relocation of the metropolis of Pi-Ramesse to Tanis. Pi-Ramesse was the fabled riverside capital built by Rameses II. Its location had puzzled archaeologists for years until Montet discovered its ruins in Tanis. However, archaeologists began questioning Montet’s assumption since the river Nile often changed course. Using radar scans along a previously discounted delta settlement 12 miles from Tanis, they discovered the foundation of Rameses’ lost city. Historians knew that Pi-Ramesse became unlivable when the Nile became too silted at this location and around that same time, Psusennes took the throne ordering the city be moved stone by stone to Tanis, over 100km to the northwest of Pi-Ramesses. obelisks and statues, the largest weighing over 200 tons, were transported in one piece while major buildings were dismantled into sections and reassembled at Tanis. Stone from the less important buildings was reused and recycled for the creation of new temples and buildings

Only a king with matchless power and wealth could command such a colossal task.  And only the best project managers, using Microsoft Project 0.00001 or Oracle Primavera 1900BC had a shot at overseeing the undertakings, given the dependencies and scope creep involved.  Imagine the change requests coming in from top leadership!  Talk about a Work Breakdown Structure- this was a Metropolitan Breakdown Structure – literally.

They moved the city to the new branch establishing Djanet (Tanis) on its banks, 100 km (62 mi) to the north-west of Pi-Ramesses as the new capital of Lower Egypt. The Pharaohs of the Twenty-first Dynasty transported all the old Ramesside temples, obelisks, stelae, statues and sphinxes from Pi-Ramesses to the new site.

The root cause of this recycling

It is now known that the Pelusiac branch of the Nile began silting up c. 1060 BCE, leaving the city without water when the river eventually established a new course to the west now called the Tanitic branch.  So as a result of a change in the environment, major projects were triggered.

Knowing what we know about ocean level rise, ice melt, increased extreme weather and other effects of climate change, will we be moving Washington or Tokyo or Shanghai or Prague brick-by-brick?

Disclaimer:  In this post we will feature two environmental activists.  We do this only to show what they've done, what they've accomplished, and the connection to our discipline of project management.

Project management is about change.

It's literally about change because we try to make projects more effective and efficient, leaving our sponsors with a little bit of change (as in money, thus the image above).

It's also about change because by definition, projects are put in place to make a change.  A bridge where there was none before.  A new release of software which didn't exist last week.  A new drug.  It's all about change, and so by definition, we are agents of change.

When it comes to the environment, this does not mean that we all need to become members of Greenpeace.  However, if we feel the inclination to do something about climate change, we have more power (excuse the pun) to do so, and to pull away from that urge to do so, we deny what should be in our own PM DNA.

Here are two examples of activism with regards to the environment, which are recent and striking - and also which have been effective.

Tim DeChristopher - Bidder 70

Soon, you willl be able to see a movie - a documentary - with this title.  It tells the story of Tim DeChristopher, an environmental activist who went to a US Federal Bureau of Land Management auction, and... well, we'd rather let the movie's web page describe what happened:

On December 19, 2008 Tim DeChristopher disrupted a highly disputed Utah BLM Oil and Gas lease auction, effectively safeguarding thousands of acres of pristine Utah land that were slated for oil and gas leases. Not content to merely protest outside, Tim entered the auction hall and registered as bidder #70. He outbid industry giants on land parcels (which, starting at $2 an acre, were adjacent to national treasures like Canyonlands National Park), winning 22,000 acres of land worth $1.7 million before the auction was halted.

Two months later, incoming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar invalidated the auction. DeChristopher, however, was indicted on two federal felonies with penalties of up to 10 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. Patrick Shea, former BLM Director for Clinton, represented DeChristopher pro-bono.

With the threat of prison looming, DeChristopher stepped up his activism and evolved into a charismatic and ingenious climate justice leader. He co-founded Peaceful Uprising, a grass-roots group dedicated to defending a livable future through empowering non-violent action.

After two years and nine postponements, his trial began on February 28, 2011. Outside the courtroom, hundreds rallied in solidarity with Tim. Inside, Judge Dee Benson disallowed every defense his lawyers put forth. After a five-day trial, DeChristopher was found guilty. His sentencing was scheduled for summer 2012.

Refusing to back down, Tim flew to D.C. in April 2011 to give a keynote speech at Power Shift 2011 in front of 10,000 students. He then led students to occupy the Department of the Interior. Tim wisely avoided arrest, but dozens of others were arrested for this mass act of peaceful civil disobedience.

Tim just finished serving his sentence.  Here he is on the US talk show, "Late Night with David Letterman":

Ma Jun's new playbook for change in China

A recent story in Time magazine shows us another, very different, but equally effective form of activism, this time in China.

Ma Jun, who founded the non-profit Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs in 2006, in China, has aimed at cleaning up China's environment.  After all (see our post covering the book, The Devouring Dragon) China is responsible for about 25% of global carbon emissions.

Ma worked with the government to effect change, not by stopping an auction, like DeChristopher, but instead by the power of data.  This snippet from the article makes the main point:

Working with two staffers (he now has 10) in a tiny Beijing office suite, Ma found a creative way forward. Rather than overtly pressuring the government--a strategy that rarely succeeds in China--he embraced the government's data as a tool. Ma cut a deal to put China's records about pollution by Western firms and their suppliers online, then used that information to quietly pressure the companies. The results have been remarkable. A 2011 report on Apple, for instance, resulted in a major effort to clean up environmental violations in the company's supply chain.

Ma hopes for even more impact with his new action against the huge power and energy companies that are responsible for the lion's share of China's pollution. Because they are largely owned by the Communist Party and funded by state-owned banks, they've traditionally been off-limits for criticism. But buoyed by his wins with Western corporate giants, Ma recently announced plans to compile a similar database on these SOEs. "It's a much more delicate issue," he says with a somewhat nervous smile. "We're not sure yet how it will all work out."

Ma's leverage this time is that the government is increasingly concerned about the environment. Leaders know the issue has the potential to galvanize mass protests, bringing out everyone from rural farmers whose land is contaminated by heavy metals to soccer moms worried that their children will get asthma from playing outside their schools in the Beijing smog. The initial goal is to coax the SOEs to grab the low-hanging fruit--retrofitting coal-fired power plants to reduce the worst emissions or stopping overproduction of steel. (China churns out 1 billion tons of it a year even though total global demand is only 1.7 billion tons.)

Whether with auction disruptions (like DeChristopher) or increased transparency (like Ma Jun), we see that it's possible to be a change agent in the area of environmentalism.

As a project manager, we can be change agents in - and around - our projects.  A quick example.  We're trying to purchase some supplies for the project and have a choice of two vendors.  One has a product which is more environmentally-friendly but consts a little more.  How do we justify the more expensive material?  Event though the project itself may only use a little in the pilot period, we know that this material will be used in quantity when the product is handed over to operations.

We could tie the rationale to the company's environmental purchasing policy.  Wait.  We don't have one?  We can be the change agent that suggests a company policy.  Why not?  We are, after all... change agents.

Have a look at the two stories, see if they inspire you to become that agent of change that you already are.

As we research the intersection of project management and sustainability one of the questions we run into is "who's driving?".  Don't take this literally, we're not talking about driving a car, but more from the standpoint of stakeholder analysis.

As our observant readers will know, the PMBOK(R) Guide's 5th Edition, recently released, has a brand new Knowledge Area, called Stakeholder Management.  PMI has correctly surmised that this is a major piece of what we do as project managers.

As we've always said, an unidentified threat is an untreated threat, and an unidentified stakeholder could mean a whole family of both threats and opporunities that are unidentified.

So we should know our stakeholders.  And obviously, one key stakeholder is the customer.  There is hardly much bigger of a customer for many companies as global retailer WalMart.

Walmart has made some news over the past few years pushing for sustainability from their suppliers.  And more recently, this story from Reuters indicates that WalMart has quite literally become a threat to laggards in the field of sustainability.  The threat is this: comply with our environmental rules within 5 years or your projects are off of our shelves.   Off.  Kaput.  Finished.

Here's a key clipping from the article.  We suggest you read it all because there is more to the story, especially surrounding WalMart's contribution to the trade deficit between the US and China.

The new requirements, announced in China where Wal-Mart has more than 20,000 suppliers, will compel workshops that churn out much of the world's toys, clothing and electronics to improve on energy efficiency, waste reduction and other markers on the retailer's checklist.

Wal-Mart said the checklist was voluntary. But if suppliers fall short, they could be cut off from the nearly 4,000 Walmart discount stores and more than 600 Sam's Club wholesale warehouses that the company operates in the United States.

The standards set in Wal-Mart's "sustainability index", which has helped to burnish an image tarnished by criticism from labor groups and local communities, have already been embraced by 500 of the world's major consumer product makers.

The retailer said that by the end of 2017, U.S. Walmart and Sam's Club stores will get 70 percent of their goods from global suppliers that use the sustainability index.

Our take - as project managers?  Well, you're right to identify this as an operational thing more than a project thing, but consider this.  How would a supplier to WalMart start to meet these requirements?  With a project.  What is the entire roll-out of WalMart's initiative to control its suppliers?  A project.

And from our perspective as project managers it helps answer the question we asked up front in this post.  Who's driving sustainability in your project?  Sometimes it's the EPA.  Sometimes it's a group of 'environmentally-minded' employees.  It could be the CEO, after having a sort of green epiphany.  Or, as in this case, it could be a gigantic big-box store which just happens to be your biggest customer.

Since we started asserting that there is a vital, fundamental intersection between project management and sustaianability (since about 2009), we have seen three basic responses, which we summarize below with representative composite "quotes" from these response populations:

• The Purists: "We manage projects for our sponsors and we have to worry about turning over that project's deliverables, period, full stop."

(now leave us alone, we have enough constraints already)

[To you, we say, with the deepest respect, you are missing the boat.  Look at your sponsor organization's website - you will find that they are indeed comitting publicly to CSR goals.  To be honest, as a pure PM you need to take a step back, look at your project's objectives as linked to enterprise-level objectives, and look at the steady state success of the product of your project, not just the project handover - you'll actually be serving your sponsor more effectively]

• The Knowledge Seekers: "Yes, you're right.  How can we help?  Tell us more, what can we do?"

(I'm willing to learn, even to become a change agent)

[To you, we say, welcome.  Join us.  There is a lot to learn.  And here's a secret: there is a lot to gain, both from an altruistic standpoint and for you personally.  As a person well-versed in sustaianbility language and familiar with these issues, you will likely advance more quickly than your colleagues in the other two categories]

• The Busy Ostriches: "I'm very busy, I think you make a lot of sense, but I just can't handle another issue"

(La, la, la, la, I am not listening)

[To you, we say... well, it doesn't matter what we say.  But we'll wait.  One day you will end up unblocking your ears, even if it's because your current projects are successful but there are no more forthcoming because you took the short-term view.]

What's alarming to us is that even some very respected voices in our field fall into to the Busy Ostrich or Purist categories - either straightway disagreeing with us, or choosing to simply not really listen.

One of the ways we realize in which we have to make our point is that sustaianbility issues, only ONE of which is ecological in nature, don't seem to have an impact on our projects.  To that particular end, we wanted to provide a couple of recent videos that show that climate change is not only an environmental challenge but rather one that is economic and more "overall human" in nature.  Sustainability is also increasingly a drivier of innovation, and thus a "launcher" of projects (the Cesara Harada response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an excellent example).  This is evident in the final video from the BBC.  As project managers, overseeing budgets and people, and wanting to understand the rationale of the project's launch in the first place, perhaps this will strike a chord, if you are in the Purist camp.

Consider.  Think.  It really can't hurt.