People, Planet, Profits & Projects

Today, on Superbowl Sunday* - it seems appropriate to talk about success.

For our local team, the New England Patriots, it was a successful season - to a point.  They had a tremendous year, but did not win in their game against the Baltimore Ravens, who now advance to the Superbowl to play the NFC's winner, the San Francisco 49'ers.

But what about PROJECT success?  This has been getting a lot of dicussion lately, and we've been paying attention, becuase a careless definition of project success would be counterproductive to sustainable project management which is our main focus.

Let's use as an example an article iIn this month's issue of Project Management Journal.  This journal, by the way, is often overlooked by practitioners of our field, becuase authors insist on using words in their article titles (and these are all real examples) like:

• Bayesian
• Orthagonal
• Typology
• Psycotherapy
• Criticality

These are not always the favorites of a casual weekend reader.  Still, there is excellent material in the articles - one needs to just trust that you can get past those academic titles and find that value.  It's there.

In this month's issue, there is one article called, "Managing the Intangible Aspects of a Project: The Affect of Vision, Artifacts, and Leader Values on Project Spirit and Success in Technology-Driven Projects".

Yes - it's a mouthful, as usual, but it's actually quite an interesting article with findings about how motivation and success are related to the amount of effort put into the 'team spirit' and identity of a proejct team. 

But we were intrigued (quite orthagonally and in a Bayesian sense) by the listing they featured on the definition of "project success".  Here it is:

• The project was completed on time or earlier
• The project was completed within or below budget
• The product met all customer requirements
• The customer was highly satisfied
• The product improved the customer's performance
• There is a great chance that the customer will return for additional business
• The project resulted in business success for the company that implmented it
• The proejct increased the profitability of the organization implementing it
• The project had a positive ROI
• The project increased market share or outreach amoung customers/users
• The project will lead to additional new markets or new customers/users
• The project will lead to additional new business or new products or services
• The product has the potential to create new markets or new customers/users
• The project created new technologies or new capabilities for future use

Notice that we have highlighted the bottom chunk of 'success bullets' in green.

Why?

These green bullets - and we applaud the authors for this - go beyond the traditional view that project managers usually take when they look at project success (and therefore project completion).  By taking the view that these 'greener' bullets indicate, the PM takes the longer-term, more sustainable view that we have been talking about now for about four years.  We would of course add some others, and we did in our book, Green Project Management.  But for now, just focus on these authors' bullets.

We will continue to blog on this subject, in fact we have a request in to the authors of this article for more data about these definitions and how they contributed to 'project spirit'; but for now, we'd like to hear from you.  How many of the above bullets do YOU and YOUR PROJECT TEAM use when defining success?

So, as you watch the Superbowl - or during halftime as you count up the money you may have won by selecting squares for the end-of-quarter-scores - think about this.  And take a moment to respond, we really are interested in your definition of project success in the light of these bullets.

*in the United States, this is our celebration of the final game of the American Footbal season, with the winners of the National and American Football Conferences playing each other for the National Footbal League  championship

We have based our company on the intersection of sustainability and project management.

And we're hopeless project management professionals who for better or worse see almost everything through a PM's eyes.

Thats' why it was such a surprise this morning - I literally had to rub my eyes - when I saw what looked like an S-curve right under the top, front-page headline story of the Boston Globe.  We're going to provide that graphic for you below to look at, download, and consider. 

But let's start with a mini-lesson on S-curves for our more casual readers.

For this, we turn to Max Wideman's outstanding resource and glossaries of PM, where we can findthat an S-curve is:

"A display of cumulative costs, labor hours or other quantities plotted against time. The name derives from the S-like shape of the curve, flatter at the beginning and end and steeper in the middle, which is typical of most projects. The beginning represents a slow, deliberate but accelerating start, while the end represents a deceleration as the work runs out."

It all looks like this:

As a project proceeds, we track our progress against this S-curve.  The planned progress is called the baseline.  Changes in scope, budget, schedule - any of these must be reflected by formal integrated change control, which (as the picture above shows) involves acknowledging that change and creating a new baseline.

Great!  Lovely.  Now what the bleep does that have to do with the picture on the front of the Boston Globe?  Well, there is a connection.  Turns out, the chart is not cumulative spend of resources but rather temperature from January through December for decades (of Boston data), plotted to show the 'normal' baseline of that pattern and also to show that 2012 was the Boston's (and the USA's) warmest on record.

So although the S-shaped curve's shape was only  a bit of a bizzare coincidence (it had to do with the natrural fact that temperatures in the USA go up from January to December in that particular pattern), the idea of it being a representation of an old baselie and a new baseline was actually seen properly through my tired eyes.  In fact, the last line of the article sums it up well:

It was “a huge exclamation point,’’ said Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch at Climatic Data Center. “This is consistent with what we would expect in a warming world.’’

So, just as we have to re-baseline a project when we face reality and acknowlege triggered risks, issues, scope change, and so on, it appears that we have to acknowledge (and we would assert act on) factual information presented to us as PMs - or in this case, folks who happen to live on Earth.  We're both.

Some of the 'new-baseliney' facts from the article:

• seven of the nation's 10 warmest years have taken place in the past years (measurements taken since 1895)
• 443 weather stations in the US recorded the warmest years ever.  1 single station recorded the coolest.
• The new average temperature of 55.3 degrees F beat the former high from 1998 by a ful degree.  So it's not only a new high, but a new high with a singular 'jump'. 

Have a look at the graphic.  Are you a project management nut like me?  Do you see an S-Curve there?  And...once you realize that it isn't, do you get a feeling, like we do, that this is even more ominous than a project going bust?  It's more like an eco-system giving us a 'risk trigger' that something is quite wrong?

At least consider that possibility.

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Well, here in the US, we have just ended the year with a hearty debate on the so-called "fiscal cliff", and head into 2013 with not too much solved, mostly just delayed and deferred.

The cartoon above, from Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Toles, shows our view.  We, as a large rock (i.e. Earth), have 'other fish to fry'.  That's not to say that the financial problems of the US or for that matter, the world, are not important.  They are.

But as the drawing aptly shows - with comic exaggeration and irony - we, as citizens of any state or - for that matter, any country - have world-wide problems that we as project managers can help solve.

Recently, one of the LinkedIn groups we participate in had a survey, asking people to summarize Project Management in 3 words.  Hundreds of people chimed in.  There were some good ones:

• Plan, execute, integrate
• People, Profession, Pride
• Who, What, When
• Achievement through others
• Time-bound Satisfaction
• Master Cat Herder

..and so on.

Our contribution was: Ideas Into Reality

That's what we are all about as project managers.  We take an idea and make it real.  We are at that precious intersection of Strategy and Operations.  Which means that we are the ones who can help make a browning world into a greener one - by taking on projects which are oriented towards sustainability, or by molding our existing projects to incorporate sustainability (or both).

Our point in this post: it shouldn't matter where you are in the world.  It shouldn't matter where you lean politically.  You, as a project manager can help make a difference. 

Make it a resolution to stay tuned to this blog and others like it (http://earthpm.com, for one). Join the PMI Global Sustainabiity CoP.  Be aware that beyond the fiscal cliff is a much larger fissure, loaded with both threat and opportunity.

Have a healthy, safe, and prosperous 2013!

English is a quirky language.

Winding - usually pronounced "wine-ding" - is associated with the winding of a clock, or in the case of our post title, winding down, as in closing up and relaxing a project (or a year).

We intend for the title to have a double meaning.  We want you to think of wind as in gust or breeze.  So with that in mind, we're talking about the ups and downs of wind power, as well as using this post as a way to close out 2012 and look forward to 2013.

Our attention was drawn today by a very nice editorial by Derrick Z. Jackson in today's Boston Globe. 

In the article, Jackson laments that the US will be facing the "Fiscal Cliff" and that production tax credits will be on the chopping block.  While Europe moves ahead full blast (pun intended), the American Wind Energy Association is actually predicting a loss of 37,000 jobs without the extension of the tax credits - and this is on top of the 10,000 jobs lost from a peak of 85,000 three years ago.

Let's have a look at some of the comparative statistics.  While Jackson's article did not have graphics representing the figures, we couldn't help ourselves and created some of the world's finest graphics from the data in the article.

Mainly, these speak for themselves.  Look at the investment in the UK between now and 2020.  And have a look below at the comparative percentage of the power produced by wind in Europe and in the USA - and the commensurate project and job creation that goes along with it.

It's interesting (at least for us) to note the comments by project managers in Jackson's editorial.  Project manager Ann Pembroke, from Normandeau Associates of Befrord, NH, said, "It's so disappointing to be surrounded by the number of visionaries here who are deicated to getting this industry going in the US but can't because of divisiveness".  Stuart Clough, of the British-based APEM, said, "Wind will be stillborn.  Many companies will give up on the US".

That's a dreary prediction.  Perhaps we can make it a resolution as project managers to push for more wind power and to end the divisiveness. 

We suggest that you start by becoming informed.  Read Jackson's entire article.  Understand more about wind power and the promise it has both as a renewable source of energy and an engine for more projects (and more PM jobs).  We'll end with the ending of Jackson's editorial:

"For the US wind industry, the question is this: Will Obama's reelection and whichever fiscal plan eventually emerges in Washington keep the turbines spinning - or will the future of energy whirl right on past us?"

If there's one place we hope to see increasing opportunity for Project Managers - especially PM opportunities in the area of sustainability, it's in PMI's own communications.

One of those which is most notable is PM Network magazine.  And in the current issue, threre are a couple of feature stories and sidebars of note which are right at that intersection.

And we'd like to draw your attention to them.

First, let's talk about Japan, using a statistic that we think will amaze you.

Japan has 50 nuclear power plants, which used to generate a third of Japan's energy.  Right now, two of them are operating.  That's right.  Two.

From the article:

"The government is pushing that radical shift in power with a new tariff that requires utilities to purchase renewable energy at fixed rates for 20 years. As hoped, those premium rates are prompting a surge in green energy projects.  The simultaneous meltdown of three nuclear reactors and the profound threat of radiation left a possibly indelible mark on the political consciousness with regards to energy infrastructure,” says Andrew DeWit, PhD, a professor in the School of Policy Studies at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, Japan.  Less than three months after the tariffs took effect on 1
July, more than 33,000 renewables projects had received approval, according to Reuters.

Thirty-three thousand renewables projects, approved in just a few months.

To put this in monetary terms - which we should indeed do, Bloomberg New Energy
Finance predicted Japan’s investment in solar, wind and other forms of eco-friendly energy could jump to US$17.1 billion this year—nearly double the 2011 figure.

So that's one story.  But wait, there's more.

There's a sidebar about the effects of 'Superstorm Sandy' on metro New York City and the efforts to protect it from future storms.  From that article:

"City officials are reviewing a bevy of proposals for projects aimed at protecting against flooding from “superstorms,” such as October’s Hurricane Sandy. That storm knocked out power in New York for days, flooded streets and the public transit system, and killed more than 40 people in the city.  Most of the proposed projects focus on higher sea walls and more storm barriers, according to Fast Company. One early frontrunner is a project to install three moveable barriers under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge that can close under threat of storm. The gates would, in theory,  protect large sections of the city and the neighboring state of New Jersey.

The hefty price tag— an estimated US$10 billion— scuttled the project when the idea was first floated eight years ago, but it is only one-fifth the estimated cost of cleaning up after the most recent disaster. "

And that's not all.  There's even more.

This one comres from the drought which has plagued the USA. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ranked the drought among the nation’s six worst since the late 1800s.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimated that as of October, about 80 percent of U.S. agricultural land was affected.  This is the most severe and widespread drought in more than 50 years.

From this article:

The USDA and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) are responding with US$5 million in grants for projects designed to help farmers and ranchers build resiliency into their production systems, leaving them better equipped to deal with future droughts.The grant program “provides a bridge between researchers and farmers,” says Wayne Honeycutt, PhD, deputy chief for science and technology at NRCS, Washington, DC, USA. “It connects proven research from universities to what landowners need.”

So, there are 3 articles from one issue of PM Network which tells a great story with which to end 2012 and look forward to a great 2013.  So we wish you all success and opportunity in 2013 and beyond.

Cheers!