Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
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The Northern Lights are in my mind...
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Several things come together for this particular post. First, I’ve been a longtime fan of a ‘prog-rock’ group called Renaissance. They’ve been around since 1969 and are currently in their Farewell In Gratitude tour - and I went to see them in Boston. One of their most popular songs is Northern Lights. Here they are in their early days, performing this song – and I have to say that 45 years later they still perform it pretty well, with lead singer Annie Haslam still hitting those super-high notes.
Secondly, recent solar storms have triggered astounding Northern Lights in our area (New England, USA), making the sky bright magenta and aqua for a few nights in row. The blog feature image above is pretty much what many of us in New England were able to see (although our phone cameras did better than our eyes in capturing the images). And finally, I saw a news item regarding new funding for Arctic sustainable development – and that’s what put me ‘over the top’ to write this post. The news item, ’EU boosts innovation for Arctic sustainable development’ reviews results from the Arctic Circle Assembly 2024. Highlighted as results from this meeting was its focus on four main goals:
In turn, these goals serve as the basis for the launch of projects – some quite large – which will need project leaders. Billions of euros are involved in this funding program. Examples of projects, which will require a wide set of knowledge and skills, including, of course, project management skills, are:
Copernicus is particularly noteworthy. It’s worth a visit to its website. It’s the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space program, “looking at our planet and its environment to benefit all European citizens. It offers information services that draw from satellite Earth Observation and in-situ (non-space) data. At the heart of Copernicus is a constellation of satellites – the Sentinels – that make a huge number of daily observations of the Earth ecosystem. The technological prowess of Copernicus, especially in terms of availability and accessibility, has made Copernicus the largest space data provider in the world. Anyone can access this data – it’s a free and open platform. You can find it here: https://dataspace.copernicus.eu/. Overall, Copernicus provides these features Health Hub - The Copernicus Health Hub brings together all the Copernicus environmental data and products pertinent to Health, including that related to physical health, mental health and well-being. Coastal Hub - The Copernicus Coastal Hub provides open and free access to a selection of coastal Earth observation data from the Copernicus Sentinel satellites and all Copernicus Services. Energy Hub - Copernicus Energy Hub: Connecting environmental data and Earth Observations to the green energy transition. Arctic Hub - The Copernicus Arctic Hub provides access to data and information in the Arctic. Explore interactive maps and thematic use cases and empower decision-making and sustainable practices. This video summarizes the data capabilities provided by Copernicus. So as you look up at the Northern Lights, know that a network of Sentinels is looking back at YOU. And perhaps that’s a reminder that project leadership opportunities abound above, below, and all around you! Being aware of and focused on the intersection of project management and sustainability may just be not only the right thing to do – but the right thing for you. |
Weather is not Climate. But they're linked - ask Helene.
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As I write this post, Hurricane Helene is 1 hour away from landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm. While hurricanes are ‘weather’ events and not climate, the intensity of storms has increased. I draw your attention to this article from the BBC. It asks the question: Is climate change affecting hurricanes? The article provides plenty of evidence that the answer is yes. Below is a chart showing the number of powerful hurricanes over time. You can see as we move from left to right the number of strong storms has increased.
In short, from the article, these effects of climate change may contribute to more intense hurricanes:
The article concludes: The number of tropical cyclones globally is unlikely to increase, according to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). The report referenced there is a treasure trove of information in knowledge in the relationship between extreme weather events and climate change. Check it out! But as the world warms, it says it is "very likely" they will have higher rates of rainfall and reach higher top wind speeds. This means a higher proportion would reach the most intense categories, four and five. The more global temperatures rise, the more extreme these changes will tend to be. The proportion of tropical cyclones reaching category four and five may increase by around 10% if global temperature rises are limited to 1.5C, increasing to 13% at 2C and 20% at 4C, the IPCC says - although the exact numbers are uncertain. Overall, the IPCC concludes that there is "high confidence" that humans have contributed to increases in precipitation associated with tropical cyclones, and "medium confidence" that humans have contributed to the higher probability of a tropical cyclone being more intense. If you compare 2017 plus (recent) with 2006 to 2016, here's the stark contrast:
As a project manager – or rather, a project leader, this means you’ll want to take this into account when assessing risk, and in considering sustainability in your project planning. That’s what this blog is about, so stay tuned (or look through the archives) for ideas on how to do that. Here is a video showing the damage from Helene (over 50 people have been killed so far, unfortunately).
You may also want to consider how projects are being launched to acknowledge the frequency and intensity of these storms and to be more READY for them. A follow-up post on this subject is coming. UPDATE: Posting this on behalf of the outstanding author Ruth Pearce: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/copy-ask-all-experts-what-would-beryl-say-pt4-ruth-pearce-pcc-rz89e/?trackingId=GS5SkdCuRWO0EbMMWOj2VA%3D%3D
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AI's dirty little secret - addition by subtraction
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In a previous post, I may have besmirched the name of AI. And since I don’t want the robots to come for me first in anger and revenge, I want to update that post. In that post, https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/74012/ai-s-dirty-little---clean-little---secret , I talk about the carbon footprint of AI. I did (robots, take note!) talk about many helpful applications which may make that carbon investment worthwhile, saying, amongst other things, “Overall, generative AI systems have the potential to help solve the climate crisis by providing more accurate climate modeling, optimizing energy usage, facilitating the deployment and management of renewable energy resources, and improving the efficiency of carbon capture technology.” But the main thing I (and others who were taking this angle) forgot to do in that first post was to subtract the carbon footprint of the humans working on the task that AI was doing either instead of, or along with, the human. To that end, I discovered this article from Nature magazine, which says,
AI is poised to take over roles once thought to be solely the domain of humans—those requiring creativity and the ability to integrate across multiple intellectual domains to synthesize concepts from each. In this study, we have compared the impact of AI to the impact of humans performing two tasks—writing and illustration—to highlight the role that AI is positioned to take in society, as AI transitions from digital tools of limited utility to more complex instruments with high generative capacity. We found that, for these two activities, at least, AI has a substantially lower carbon footprint than humans engaged in the same task. This study provides new insights on the relative environmental footprint of AI and humans, and it highlights the importance of considering the impact of AI relative to a human when evaluating its overall impact on the environment. In their example on creating an image, the researchers created a carbon footprint bar chart (see below) which shows that a human creating one image is greater than a DALL-E or Midjourney image creation by a huge factor.
I suggest having a look at the article as it also provides good advice for project manager who are looking at change management plans. Always remember to include the baseline, and to take into account not just what the change brings (in terms of positives and negatives) but also the broader impact that a change brings, thinking holistically.
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Après les Jeux Olympiques
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The Paris Olympics are over. Medals have been awarded. Folks are generally pleased with a well-organized program. Given that it was in Paris (a city I have been lucky enough to visit many times) I’m sure that food was considered an important element in that success. Indeed millions and millions of meals were consumed... and not everyone was a 'clean-plater'. There was food 'left over'. This post is about the way the Paris Olympic Committee considered, right from the start – actually way, way BEFORE the start - what would happen AFTER the Olympics, with respect to food waste. After all, there are over 10,000 very, very hungry athletes, and a whole mess (pun intended) of spectators. We’re talking about 13 million meals provided each day of the Games- the largest catering project in the world. From this excellent article from the Associated Press They’ve tried to reduce food waste both preventively, when the menus were being drawn up, and during the Games — signing an agreement with three groups so that uneaten food is collected and redistributed. No project (or in this case, program) will be successful in this endeavor without a vision. Of course a plan and execution is needed, but without the vision and the thoughtfulness involved, nothing happens. In the case of the Paris Games, that vision was made clear. The visionary document is here for your review:
In summary: “The games pledged the recovery of 100% of food that’s not consumed, executed by either redistributing it to charities, converting it to animal feed, or turning it into compost.” This comes from a document created two years before the Games. It’s a good read for any project manager who wants to make that shift to a project leader by thinking long-term, thinking holistically, thinking beyond the bounds of a start and stop date and a scope statement focused on a product and its set of requirements. Here's a nice summary of the story. |
Bookin' it: The Green PMO
| This is just a short post to celebrate the availability of a book which is the result of a collaborative effort of nearly 40 project leaders. Eman Deabil took on the challenge of overseeing these project leaders. As someone whose career involved a few decades of supervising project managers, I can tell you from hard-earned experience that managing project managers, to put it in highly academic terms, ain't easy. But she did it! The book (my copy pictured below) is “Green PMO: Leading the Sustainable Project Revolution”. Remarkable in its breadth and depth, the book covers a huge range of topics. The foreword is written by Antonio Nieto-Rodgiquez, a PMI Fellow and past Chair. As an co-author myself of two books (14 or so years ago!) on the intersection of project management and sustainability, it’s great to see that that this book is not only contributed to by so many respected authors, such as Dr. Gilbert Silvius, Dr. Tony Prensa, and Dr. Mustafa Hafizoglu, but that it is aimed at the PMO level. This ‘aim higher’ philosophy is something my co-author (Dave Shirley) and I had to discover the hard way – and it’s the topic of my chapter of Green PMO. Although a strong bottom-up transformation is required, with individual project managers understanding the role they (can) play in sustainable development, the real motivation, and really, the place ‘where the action is” is the PMO. Program and Portfolio Managers need to buy-in to the ideas of ESG and triple-bottom-line thinking, and they are best-equipped to do so, because they should have the long-term and more holistic viewpoint which might be more absent in the ‘get-r-done’ focus of project managers.
I highly recommend the book (I have no financial interest in it) and also steer you towards Eman's 1-hr webinar, “The Green PMO – Creating an ESG-driven PMO”. I invite those of you who HAVE read this book to comment below. Sustainable thinking in PM is finally gaining purchase with project managers – at least those who want to be considered project leaders, and this book literally documents that transformation. Time for you to get on board! |