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Becoming a Sustainable Organization
Categories:
book review
Categories: book review
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This is a brief review of a book that deserves more – and will get it with a few focused future posts on its particular topics. The book, “Becoming a Sustainable Organization – A Project and Portfolio Management Approach”, by Kristina Kohl. This is a solid, thorough, and very meaningful treatment of the fundamental and necessary shift taking place in business, and the important role that projects, programs, and portfolio managers need to play in the transformation. From defining and stating the business case for sustainability, through support and alignment of leaders, to the integration of sustainability thinking into projects, the book is absolutely loaded with cases, and interviews that support its assertions, and it also provides templates to assist project managers who want to help integrate sustainability into their projects. We’ll focus on these tools and templates in a future post, most likely starting with an excellent “Sustainability Project Charter” template and a guide to specific connections between project planning components and project impacts on triple bottom line (TBL) results. As a co-author of a book which covered this intersection (of PM and Sustainability) in 2011 - Green Project Management - I must congratulate Kristina on an impressive book that gives the subject (I must say) even better, more focused, more meaningful coverage. Even though we had no contact during the creation of our books, this actually is quite complementary to our follow-up book, Driving Project, Program, and Portfolio Success. The book's excellence is exemplified by a couple of quotes that describe the all-important intersection of sustainability and project management so well: “From a project management perspective, the relevance of sustainability is pervasive and can impact each step of the project management process. From initiation through closing, sustainable concepts impact all aspects from developing the business case and understanding the stakeholders, to planning each phase. Project, not just green projects, require greater project management awareness of organizational sustainability principles and best practices…” Kohl’s book is relevant even to the very last post from this blog – the "Frankenstein" post that references the latest PMI “Pulse of the Profession” report which connects benefits realization management (a PM/Sustainability foundational principle) with a recent rise in project success rates. “The project charter should clearly state the goals of the project, including the benefits to the organization in terms of meeting business and sustainability goals. Stakeholder engagement is a key aspect of implementing a sustainability project successfully, especially identification and requirements gathering from both internal and external stakeholders. I highly recommend this book. Get it. Read it. And stay tuned to this blog as we will provide what I hope to be additional context and linkage to our own work in this area. |
It's alive. IT'S ... ALIVE!
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In a way, we’ve felt a little like Dr. Frankenstein, trying to put together a living, breathing body (of knowledge) on sustainability thinking in project management. A small group of us who have labored in this area, writing books, presenting at conferences, starting LinkedIn groups, tweeting, working within our own organizations, even suggesting over 25 specific changes to the PMBOK® Guides over the past 5 years… we have been pushing for the fundamental idea that if project management – as a discipline – thinks PAST the end of the project, good things will happen. This focus on benefits realization is only one element of what we mean by sustainability thinking in project management, but it’s an important part – maybe even the monster’s heart. Well, we are beginning to see the monster stir. Recently, the PMI Pulse of the Profession report was released and it had some good news about PM – Project Management Success Rates Rise. It’s a headline. You can see it in press releases and on the PMI.org site itself. And the part we’re proudest of: it’s at least partially attributed to this focus on benefits realization and long-term thinking. Here are some examples proving that our monster is alive: From Medianet of Australia: “organisations are becoming more mature with project management and are distinguishing themselves by: · Managing project benefits. There’s growing attention to benefits realisation management, which is the collective process of identifying benefits at the outset of a project and ensuring, through purposeful actions during implementation, that the benefits are realised and sustained once the project ends. One in three organisations (31 percent) reports high benefits realisation maturity. From CIO magazine: What's changed? The bottom line, according to Langley, is that organizations are becoming more mature with project management, and are focusing on benefits maturation and realization, instead of solely on cost, time and resources. In other words, there's less focus on the means by which a project is deemed successful and more on the ends: does the project deliver the business benefits promised? "We're seeing this as a macro trend -- in the past, organizations might only think about benefits maturation and realization once the project had closed! But now, we see they're looking at that from the beginning and using that as a measure of success or failure," Langley says.
"Since organizational performance includes an organization’s benefits realization maturity level, we have evolved our measure of success to include the percentage of projects that are completed on time, on budget, and meeting original goals and business intent with levels of benefits realization maturity. The organizations we are calling “champions” enjoy more successful business outcomes. They waste nearly 28 times less money due to poor project performance—and fare better at other measures of project completion Benefits realization management (BRM) is a powerful way to align projects, programs, and portfolios to an organization’s overarching strategy. But the discipline has intimidated many, because there is no single, widely accepted BRM process to follow. Despite that, more organizations are taking steps to establish procedures for identifying benefits and monitoring progress toward achieving them throughout the project life cycle and beyond. In fact, 31 percent of organizations in our survey report high benefits realization maturity. Organizations that report high benefits realization maturity also report better project outcomes – in the range of 30 to 60% improvements in budget, scope, and schedule, and, of course, meeting original goals and business intent." The 2017 Pulse findings continue to show what we’ve learned in the past: that when proven project, program, and portfolio management practices are implemented, projects are more successful. At the same time, the definition of success is evolving. The traditional measures of scope, time, and cost are no longer sufficient. Projects must deliver what they set out to do — the expected benefits. So, for the first time, when determining project success, we looked at levels of benefits realization maturity as well as the traditional measures. Find out more at the most recent Pulse of the Profession report – available for free download. Just click on the cover page below and we’ll take you there. Or just follow us back to our laboratory…just follow Igor...
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PM Lessons from the Wood Wide Web
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Nope. That's not a typo. I'm going to talk about the Wood Wide Web, not the WWW you've come to know online. In fact, you may never have heard of the Wood Wide Web - perhaps because you haven't been able to see the forest for the trees. Yep, this blog post is a bit different from the rest. It’s about lessons we can learn about stakeholders, sustainability, and communications – all key project management concepts – from, of all things, a combination of beagles, fungi, trees, and little critters called springtails. The inspiration for this post came from Radiolab, my favorite podcast. If you don’t listen to this podcast and you have even a remote interest in science and/or comedy, you are missing out. Check it out here: http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/ The particular episode that caught my attention was called “From Tree to Shining Tree”. The story begins with a beagle (Jigs) that falls into a waste pit while their family is camping. The beagle happens to belong to Suzanne Simard, a Forestry Professor at the University of British Columbia. During the rescue, the digging to reach the dog exposed a network of roots of the rainforest (yes, British Columbia has a temperate rainforest!). This stimulated Susanne to research how trees may share nutrients in this underground network of roots. The story gets more complicated and intricate when the research indicates that the roots are further intertwined and interconnected by the mycelium (root structure) of fungi – a webwork of threads that looks like a combination of vermicelli and neurons (see photo below) but in which the threads are hollow – meaning that the white lines are actually fine capillary tubes. These tubes carry nutrients – minerals, for example, between trees – even between different species of trees.
Photo Credit: Nigel Cattlin/Alamy This is amazing because trees of different species usually compete for sunshine and nutrients. But here, the trees were collaborating. The trees were, in fact, healthier when they were mixed rather than homogeneous. The trees – and this threading - are acting like a giant telecom network, with hubs, represented by the older trees. This network actually has been given a nickname – the Wood Wide Web. The fungus that makes up this capillary threads has been associated for eons with plants in a very symbiotic relationship. The tree gets nutrients from the fungus. The fungus gets sugar from the trees. And here’s where it gets weird – almost science-fiction weird. The fungus gets these minerals from the soil, of course, but also from animals, including, in some cases, live animals – particularly a hexapod called a springtail. And the fungus has also developed a way to paralyze springtails and draw nitrogen from them. In some cases, they do this (here’s the sci-fi part) while the springtails are still alive. Yeah. We know. That’s creepy. And cruel. Much of this discovery is new – the relationships between the fungus and the trees, the idea that the nitrogen from springtails was getting into the trees… this is all discovered within only the last few years. You really should have a look at this TED (see below) talk by none other than beagle-owner Suzanne Simard.
The TED talk ends with some very strong messages about ecological sustainability that – of course – are also important to heed. So what are the messages for project managers?
Check out these links for more information on this fascinating natural phenomenon that has great lessons for us as project managers. http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden-internet
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Listening to Those Voices
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Three pioneers in PM and Sustainability have published a survey of over 200 project managers, called "The Voice of Sustainability Project Managers" and I’d like to share some highlights with you and even offer some partial answers to the challenges they identified in their analysis. The authors of the survey, Kris Kohl, Pedro Echeverria, and Tom Baker(respectively from the USA, Brazil and Canada) have posted their survey as well as some introductory context here: https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/14656/The-Voice-of-Sustainability-Project-Managers In order to keep this posting brief and to-the-point, I am going to quote their central findings and identified challenges below, and then invite you to look at the data in detail by clicking on the link above (or right here). Then, I’d like to have you see some of the ideas that I have in response to the challenges – because in our books Green Project Management and the follow-up Driving Project, Program, and Portfolio Success – The Sustainability Wheel, we clearly are of the same mind as the authors of the survey (as well as at least some of the participants). --- The central finding of this report is that organizations have adopted Sustainability strategically and are executing Sustainability initiatives, but their project managers do not have the resources they need to competently manage this process. Their challenges range from project methodology gaps to specific needs in achieving organizational change. Our survey results indicate that 50% of organizations have their Sustainability program to a point that is consistent with a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach. Survey results suggest that the project management community is increasingly viewing Sustainability as relevant to their organization with 86% of respondents indicating that their organizations engage in some kind of Sustainability activities. The large percentage of respondents reporting that their organizations are on the Sustainability Continuum suggests that incorporating Sustainability into organizational strategy is a priority for senior management. This finding is not exclusive to this report. From a program and project management perspective, 69% indicate that their role is related either directly or indirectly to Sustainability but that incorporating Sustainability into projects remains a challenge. Respondents affirm that their roles as PMs are increasingly related to Sustainability and that more than 60% have professional experience working in the field of sustainability. Yet, most respondents felt that there are significant barriers in working with Sustainability projects especially from lack of strategic planning and coordination, weak organizational support, and lack of training. With respect to project management, respondents are seeking a better understanding of how to integrate sustainability into project management, especially around developing a culture of sustainability, engaging stakeholders and change management. Key Challenges:
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Let’s look at these one at a time with our “angle” on the topics, as well as pointers to resources:
What does YOUR voice say on this topic? |
Oscars for Sustainability Leaders?
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Well, it’s that time of year. Directors, producers, actors and actresses, the key grip, and of course audiences around the world await the big show that is the Academy Awards, in which that little (but heavy) golden guy, Oscar, is handed out. We’re in that “in-between” zone, after nominations but before the award ceremony (in late February). This year the films up for “Best Picture” are: “Arrival” If you want to know more about the Oscars, you can check out this video: But let’s shift our attention to another glamorous award show that just took place a couple of days ago. One of the best sources I’ve found for news about how business integrates sustainability thinking into business – including projects and project management – is edie.net. edie (they leave that first "e" in lower case!) delivers daily news and commentary, expert advice and business tools, downloadable industry reports and white papers, access to video and webinars, opt-in daily and weekly newsletters, recruitment news and a comprehensive directory of sustainability suppliers via thier online portal edie.net, as well as a year-round portfolio of high-level business conferences, award ceremonies and an annual flagship exhibition. Turns out that edie.net also does a fantastic job in the area of recognition and awards – and sometimes that’s newsworthy in and of itself. As PMs, we know that we learn a lot from storytelling and best practice exchange, and that’s what these awards are all about. Here from the edie.net website is some background on the awards:
AWARDS WITH HERITAGE, YET ALWAYS INNOVATING Organised by specialist sustainability publishing house Faversham House, the awards began life in 2007 and since then the event has continued to grow and expand to include all key aspects of business sustainability. Now for their 10th year, the awards have moved from November to Wednesday January 25th 2017 to coincide with all-new, two-day conference and exhibition, the edie Sustainability Leaders Forum, taking place on the Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th January 2017 at the Business Design Centre, London. Conference and exhibition by day; prestigious awards by night – combined these two established events offer the unique opportunity to bring together the most forward-thinking businesses and ambitious business professionals looking to move beyond environmental objectives; deliver transformational change in society and create more value within their organisation. OPEN TO ALL, LARGE AND SMALL The awards are open to all businesses and organisations across the public and private sectors and of all sizes from the largest multi-nationals to the smallest micro-organisations. As long as the initiative,project, product or strategy shows commitment, credibility and concrete results, we want to hear about it. WHAT MAKES A WINNER? By embedding sustainability in their operations, business models and products, our winners are in the vanguard of sustainability and are driving demonstrable results through innovation, engagement and a commitment to doing business better. RSA ACCREDITATION The edie Sustainability Leaders Awards are included in the highly regarded RSA accreditation scheme – one of only a handful of environmental schemes to be chosen for this honour. This means that award winners have the opportunity to gain further accolades on the international stage, as they are automatically given access to the European Business Awards for the Environment. The good news here is that there’s a significant learning opportunity here. You can get a 59-page report (PDF) by clicking here: http://www.edie.net/downloads/Meet-the-2017-Sustainability-Leaders-Awards-winners-/201 We’ll focus for a bit on Interface – the carpet company whose story towards sustainability integration is one of the main factors that drove us into this space in the first place. It's featured in our first book - Green Project Management. Interface has taken on a company wide effort called Mission Zero. From Interface’s own web page: Our Sustainability Journey – Mission Zero Our journey started in 1994 with one person, our Founder and Chairman Ray Anderson. Ray challenged our then 21 year - old company to adopt a bold vision, one that required new thinking and a new model for business. We didn’t have a map, but Ray’s vision was a compass for our journey. As we progressed on our journey, a passion for sustainability took hold with our people and our company was transformed. We invite you to join us on this journey. Read on as we share our compass and our map.
From the report:
Mission Zero has seemingly inspired every aspect of the organisation, embedding itself at the heart of all corporate decisions that now consider the environment alongside people, process, products, places and profits. Since Mission Zero’s inception, Interface has served to highlight the business case for sustainability time and time again, generating annual net savings of €7.6m across EMEA operations thanks to a huge range of low-carbon, resource efficient improvements. A proactive approach to sustainability has seen Interface overhaul its sourcing of raw materials, revamp design processes to account for Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) and introduce new measures to manage the end-of-life of Interface products. Since 2000, Interface has been using LCAs to measure product impact on the environment, which has led to the introduction of some of the company’s most celebrated innovations – among which is Net-Works. Established in 2012 in partnership with the Zoological Society London (ZSL), Net-Works has placed 14 discarded fishing net collection hubs across the Philippines and Cameroon to create an ongoing supply of 100% recycled yarn to be used in Interface’s carpet tiles. Net-Works supports more than 55,000 local people and has collected 100,000kg of nets no longer wasting away in oceans. The products deriving from these nets also have a substantially lower carbon footprint. In 1996, the average CO2 footprint for an Interface product was around 20kg/m2. Today, these footprints have shrunk to 6.8kg. Sustainability is embedded at Interface to the point where the global innovation and sustainability teams now lead the measuring and reporting processes conducted by each department. This centralised leadership from the sustainability team has seen engineers source new solutions to produce less waste in the Netherlands, contributing to the zero-waste achievement. The report is full of details like this that show how sustainability integration can be done. And what’s intriguing to me is that project management is mentioned not only between the lines, but is called out by name several times in the report as a key contributor. And that’s the point, isn’t it? When you watch the Oscars this weekend, and you see how the actors and directors will strive to thank a boatload of people, think about how a project is that kind of effort as well (in fact, a movie is, by definition, a project) and that the integrated aspect of sustainability is that important to ‘doing well by doing good’ and considering, as our blog’s title says, “People, Planet, Profits, and Projects”. |