Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
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Hidden Figueres
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No, that's not a typo. Hidden Figures was a 2016 film which conveys the true story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who played a vital role at NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program, with little recognition, until well after the fact. This blog post is not about those particular women, but it is about a woman (with a similar surname) who also has been working in planetary science, and from whom, I think we can draw some PM lessons learned. A recent interview in Scientific American by Jen Schwartz, caught my attention. This isn’t normally where a project manager would go for information about our discipline of PM, but that doesn’t mean it is not a good source of inspiration and information. Indeed – it’s a very good source. The interview is with Christiana Figueres, a career diplomat from Costa Rica. Recently she orchestrated (you could read that as “project managed”) the 2015 Paris climate agreement, in her role as UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Now I realize that some people and organizations have politicized climate change, and even Ms. Figureres herself, but again, I want to point out that I am drawing not from a political journal but one dedicated to credible, reviewed, consensus-based science.
As I often do in this blog, I like to go to the mission statement of an organization to orient myself around the source. In this case it helps point out how this is a valid source of information.
Here is Scientific American’s mission statement: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN is the world’s leading source and authority for science and technology information for science-interested citizens, delivering understandable, credible and provocative content to an audience of more than 5 million people worldwide. The magazine is independently ranked among the Top 10 US consumer media for “Most Credible” and “Most Objective.”
Founded in 1845 on the commitment to bring first-hand developments in modern science to our audience, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN is the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. SA boasts over 140 Nobel laureate authors in our 165 years -- the most of any consumer magazine.
The magazine prides itself on being credible and objective. And with 165 years of experience, besides making me feel young again, that’s a pretty solid basis. So – back to Ms. Figueres. After a failed COP15 Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2010, she spent the next six years rebuilding the global climate change negotiating process based on fairness, transparency and collaboration. Check the PMBOK® Guide – 5th Edition, 6th Edition… any edition, and corroborate that with the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct – and its values of honesty, responsibility, respect and fairness - and you’ll see that connection. I’d like to spend a moment highlighting a few extracts from the interview that I’d assert apply to the intersection of PM and sustainability. I’d like to start with this one from the preamble: “Figureres achieved unprecedented cooperation not by flexing her authority (the position carries very little)…. Trained as an anthropologist, she bet that humans are motivated to work toward a common goal if given a structure of trust and hopefulness. In the face of high stakes and daunting complexity, she created an even bigger mess, imbued it with optimism, then navigated through it.” There is a lot to unpack there, starting with what should seem like a familiar refrain for PMs: influencing and motivating without authority. Next, the bit about creating a mess seems to evoke the concept of Tuckman’s model of Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. She wisely understands the innovation and creation that occurs during “a mess”, so (excuse the kitchen analogy here) while she was “stirring the pot”, she was also making sure that all of the chefs knew the recipe and got along with each other. Sounds like deliciousness will ensue. And it did.
In the interview itself, she talks a little about what I read as Agile methodology: “Looking back, I’ve always had a willingness to be vigilant to where the opportunity is. You don’t have to progress in a straight line; you can be creative. Perhaps it’s like a sailing strategy, taking left and right, left and right. Or sometimes it’s stepping back one foot so you can then step three feet forward.” And later: “To all those who suggested that ‘this is too complex, let’s delay six months’, I put my foot down and said, “We are not even considering it”. You must allow for the process itself to be muddy because that is the space in which innovation occurs, ingenuity sprouts up and surprising alliances come forward. You want to be not only tolerant but even encouraging of messiness – but with a hard deadline and a clear destination. Next, and perhaps without knowing it, Ms. Figueres provides expert judgment on Identify Stakeholders and Manage Stakeholder Engagement with this gem: “From my anthropology background, I drew a conviction that this had to be an inclusive process, not just federal governments. So we opened it up to the private sector, the spiritual community, and scientists…. There is sort of a self-organizing force that occurs, and better decisions are made when they are informed by as many different perspectives as possible…. Then we allowed for everybody to use the tools they have to apply the science to their particular country, sector, or issue.”
Although this interview was taken from a Scientific American article on the science of gender issues, using Ms. Figueres a platform to discuss “female energy” and to hold her up as an example, I hope you’ll agree that there’s a great deal of value in what she’s said (even in the snippets I’ve included). And if nothing else, I encourage you to expand your sources of knowledge when it comes to developing yourself and your team – trusted sources that are outside of the usual, but will still boost your capabilities. |
Hey, Moth-Eyes!
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The definition of the word “mimic” is: to imitate (someone or their actions or words), typically in order to entertain or ridicule. During the recent US presidential campaign, Donald Trump did run into some criticism for mimicking a reporter. The reporter, Serge Kovaleski, has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition affecting the joints. In fact, recent polling indicates that this was Trump's single worst offense (among a bevy of candidates) of the campaign. The moment is captured here,and I believe you will be observing mimicry: But this post isn’t about that moment, nor about Trump, nor about the negative aspects of mimicry. I use this to show that mimicry can be a bad thing. However, the same word - mimicry - of nature -can be a huge boon to design projects, to project managers, and to the planet itself. Let’s start by defining biomimicry. On the website biomimicry.org, it’s defined as: “an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies.” The site has excellent examples of this practice here. But I’d really like to draw your attention to this outstanding video. Invest a few minutes – watch it, and return here when you’re done. Notice the number of references which Pawlyn makes to projects, for example, the Mobius project, described in this text from the architects’ website: “The Mobius Project dedicated to revolutionising the urban food production industry by taking what we need less of, food waste, to producing what we need a great deal more of, locally grown, low carbon, nutritious food. The Mobius Project, is a replicable urban infrastructure project with the potential to manage all of a cities biological waste issues through a closed loop systems approach, contributing to the rapidly growing circular economy movement. This project draws its inspiration from the way in which ecosystems in nature work where the waste of one systems becomes the input of the next, maintaining nutrients in a perpetual closed cycle with zero waste. “ It includes:
Lots of opportunities for projects, project managers, project teams at this particular intersection of sustainability and project management. Here’s one example of biomimicry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, which yielded a trademarked product called GeckSkin™, in which biomimicry of a gecko’s foot pads allows a small piece of fabric to hold 700 lbs. of weight onto a smooth wall surface. But wait! I almost forgot to tell you about the moth eyes, as promised so boldly in the title. I want to bring this idea of biomimicry home to you with a device on which you are likely reading this very blog post. Are you (lucky enough to be) reading this at the beach? And if not, I’m sure you’ve faced the issue of trying to read from a screen with glare from any overhead lighting. Well, that may be a thing of the past, thanks to biomimicry of the way moths deal with this. As most everyone knows, moths are nocturnal – they hang out at night. Because of this, moth eyes are covered in anti-reflective nanostructures that prevent light from reflecting off them. This prevents them from giving away their location and making them too visible to predators. So, scientists – for example, Dr. Shin Tson Wu of the University of Central Florida, working in project research teams, have developed an anti-reflective film, mimicking this moth-eye design, to put right there, on your smartphone or tablet, and save you from that annoying glare. It’s not available yet – as it has to be scaled for mass production – but it’s coming. It’s biomimicry in action. You can read the technical details in this paper. The benefits of biomimicry don’t stop with the anti-reflectivity – they also – counterintuitively – make the screens easier to clean. From the NPR Article: "Some commercial anti-reflection films can be contaminated by fingerprints or dust," Wu says. "In our film, we have a special treatment that has a self-cleaning effect," owing to the film's ability to repel moisture left behind by fingerprints. That moisture often traps dust and dirt on your screen. Key your eyes open for biomimicry opportunities – a positive way to imitate nature! |
Val-You
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An outstanding article in a recent issue of CIO magazine article, by Moira Alexander, has significant value of its own, and I suggest you follow the link earlier in this very sentence. The article also includes a couple of key quotes that triggered this blog post. The theme (and the play-on-words title) of the post is… Value. Value that YOU bring as a project manager, that you bring to your project team, and value that you and your project brings to the business. It’s a very positive, intertwined, broadly-based web that I am suggesting you weave. Here’s the first quote. It comes from Gerald Leonard, PMP, author of the book “Culture Is the Bass”.
That’s absolutely striking when you think about it, almost on a philosophical level. The age-old question, “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?” comes to mind. We often get caught up in the art and science of PM and forget that the project is meant to bring value to the organization, the users, the community, the planet. When we do this, we think in shorter terms than we should, we don’t include all the proper stakeholders, and we may be doing something that matters for only our own purposes, for a very short time, or both.
That’s not why you took on the role of PM, is it? Remember, one of the key differentiators of project work from operations is the fact that projects are unique and are meant to change something. That change had better be a positive change, and, as Leonard says, that change should be to create value for the organization. And, following that logic just a little further, most organizations have, at their mission and vision level, statements about corporate social responsibility, “good corporate citizenship”, or something of that nature, as core values. Is your project connected to those values? Is your project creating value for the organization? Does your project, in a word, matter? To paraphrase The Who, it better, it better, you bet. This may be important not only for this connection in and of itself, it could easily be a motivator for team members, especially those who are more aware of the ‘big picture’ or those who are more focused (as younger employees, ‘millennials’, GenX/GenY folks tend to be) on the organizations’ purpose. The other quote from Ms. Alexander’s article is this one:
Again – that theme of value is coming through loud and clear. We need to ‘hitch’ our projects’ ‘wagons’ to the power, the drive, the overall value of the organization. You better. You better. You bet. |
Re-Volting
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I enjoy blogging about the intersection of project management and sustainability, and sometimes people think this is ‘only’ about project management applied to ‘green’ projects, like building a wind farm or saving a species. To illustrate this, when we published our Cleland Award-winning book, Green Project Management back in 2010, the book covers submitted to us all had themes of daisies, windmills, and solar panels, as if to say, the intersection of PM and sustainability is about doing projects which save energy or whales. While many (perhaps most) of my posts are more about taking a long-term view as a project manager, and integrating sustainable thinking into project decisions, this particular one happens to be one of those posts that is indeed about that ‘pure’ intersection – so feel free to imagine daisies, windmills, solar panels, and (in this case) voltage optimization. What is voltage optimization? It’s a sort of re-volting (if you will) the power supply to a facility – especially one that uses a lot of electrical power. One vendor that makes products that do this is Powerstar, and it’s from their web page that I adapt this explanation of how voltage optimization works: Power from the energy supplier is supplied at a higher voltage than necessary due to old electrical distribution networks in place which were designed to operate at higher voltage levels, as well as electricity suppliers being required to ensure all buildings are supplied voltage within set parameters. If a building is being supplied at a higher voltage than necessary it will likely result in a mass of wasted energy, excessive levels of carbon emissions, and higher than necessary electricity bills in addition to power quality issues, including increased wear and reduced lifespan of electrical equipment. We’re talking about motors and fans and any other electrical equipment lasting longer – a reduction in waste in and of itself. In addition to reducing energy consumption, cutting carbon emissions and providing savings on electricity bills, voltage optimization can also improve power quality by balancing phase voltages and filtering harmonics and transients from the network operators supply. Voltage optimization technologies are typically installed in series between the distribution transformer and the main low voltage distribution board, allowing all of the consumer’s electrical equipment to benefit from an optimized power supply. And here is a more detailed description, for those of you who are just a little more science-minded: http://www.explainthatstuff.com/voltage-optimisation.html Does this voltage optimization technique work? Well, a recent story from excellent sustainability resource edie.net gives an example of a Spanish cheese company that saved 98,000kWh annually after installing such a system. But this cheesy example is by no means an exception. In just a few moments of research I found examples of such levels of savings in government buildings, trailer parks, burger restaurants, Air Force bases – all sorts of enterprises. Here’s a video that shows how Paragon Foods, for example, achieved savings and reductions of its carbon footprint. Powerstar is not the only player in this business. Here’s a site that shows some of the other top players. And yes, I did mention an Air Force base, it happens to be a Royal Air Force (RAF) base, and here is an example of a PowerPerfector® deployment. Case Study from PowerPerfector – RAF Does this really work? It sounds a bit too good to be true, but it does work. See this study, written up by the Environmental Defense Fund’s blog: A study by Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd) looking at this technology’s potential within Chicago and northern Illinois found it could reduce the need for almost 2,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity (enough to power 180,000 homes) each year at an amazingly low cost of less than two cents per kilowatt-hour – more than is achieved now from the utility’s other efficiency programs. This translates to $240 million per year in savings for ComEd’s customers, of which 90 percent could potentially benefit. The study also suggested full deployment of voltage optimization would only take about five years. And the connection to project management? Well that should be obvious. Each of these deployments of a voltage optimization system is – you guessed it – a project. Here's a visual to accentuate this point: Here is (from Powerstar) their project management process:
Now, I would argue that the project management element of this chart should be at the hub, overseeing the whole process, but that is a blog post for another day…
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Clarity Parity
Categories:
transparency
Categories: transparency
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This post is about transparency. It’s based on an article in a special edition of Scientific American. For full disclosure, we should notice that this special edition is produced by Scientific American Custom Media, produced for SC Johnson, the article’s subject. By telling you this, I want to be transparent about the transparency about which I’m writing. Here are some of the highlights from an article called “The Deepest Family Trust”: I’ll key in on a few points which will be of interest to project managers. The Greenlist™process (and program) Going back to 2001, SC Johnson developed and instituted Greenlist, which evaluates ingredients on environmental and human impact. The four steps are shown below.
The Greenlist process may look familiar to those of us in product development – a sort of gate process for release of hardware or software products, in which the criteria are not feature and functionality focused but rather ‘impact’ focused. The Greenlist program has yielded results. See the chart below for an illustration.
It’s a risk assessment on an ingredient level, which results in elimination if an ingredient doesn’t meet standards on effects on human health and environment. SC Johnson intends to publish the scientific criteria behind the Greenlist program. The process looks to be a good benchmark for others to follow, however, in the name of transparency, here is an alternate view. Regardless of your view, it is clear (excuse the pun) that SC Johnson has put significant effort and has the “right” idea. From the section of the article which contained an interview with CEO Fisk Johnson, he says: “It was not a small task. There were tens of thousands of raw materials and components, and countless ways to classify and rate them, so we had to figure out how to simplify and systemize the approach. The biggest challenge by far was one of internal resistance. People were concerned it would increase costs or reduce efficacy of our products and put us at a competitive disadvantage. That certainly ended up being the case in certain instances, like when we eliminated some of the insecticides in our bug killers. But, because it was so important to make those changes, we accepted those costs or changes efficacy. What’s Inside SCJohnson is indeed focused on ingredients. In addition to the Greenlist program which helps determine what goes in to the products, you as a consumer can find out what’s in the products – and what each ingredient does. Visit http://www.whatsinsidescjohnson.com/us/en to look up a product for detailed ingredient information. Since Windex® is a product used to clean glass and make it more transparent, we chose it as an example to illustrate the website for you, and focus on one ingredient - Lauryl dimethyl amine oxide.
Lauryl dimethyl amine oxide is a cleaning agent, or "surfactant," that can also be found in a variety of products including shampoos and dishwashing detergents. We use it in our products to remove dirt and deposits by surrounding dirt particles to loosen them from the surface they're attached to, so they can be rinsed away. Are your projects transparent? More importantly, are the products of your projects focused on ‘trustworthiness’? And, probably most importantly, is your organization’s culture such that it promotes this form of transparency in its portfolio of projects? Do you have parity with this level of clarity? The SC Johnson story can be a trigger or inspiration.
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