People, Planet, Profits & Projects

I had intended to write (and probably will later) about a Microsoft effort to trial underwater data centers, to solve the issue of heat generated by server farms.  Instead, another water-related project issue hit me – literally – when I stumbled on a BBC article about, of all things, beauty and tooth-care products.

The article (click here for it) discussed a proposal for a worldwide ban on microbeads.  I didn’t even know what these were, but vaguely in my memory I recall using products that have a ‘gritty’ feel to them, for example, a toothpaste which promises whiter teeth, or a body scrub that promises smooth skin and exfoliation.

The more I read, the more the article ‘hit home’.  I saw a connection to sustainability in PM.  Here is a product concept that launched (many times over, with many manufacturers) without the long-term thinking into the use of the end product.  This is one of our key themes in our books, Green Project Management and Driving Sustainability Success.  Think beyond the handover of your product (and/or service) to the steady-state use.

So what’s the deal here?  From this article, here is an excellent short-form description of the issue:

What Is A Microbead?

A microbead is any solid plastic particle that is less than 5 millimeters and is used for the purpose of exfoliating or cleansing. These tiny plastic beads can be found in hundreds of products ranging from body scrubs to toothpastes.

Why The Concern?

Because microbeads are made of plastic, they do not dissolve and thus pose a threat to the environment by polluting oceans and lakes. A study published in Environmental Science & Technology reported that more than 8 trillion microbeads were entering the country's water habitats daily, which is enough to cover the surface of 300 tennis courts every day.

Turns out, President Obama (read the rest of this article) just signed into law some bipartisan legislation (I didn’t think we did that anymore, but evidently we can do it!) which addresses this issue and will take these products off the shelf.

And that includes my shelf. 

This is the part where the story really hit home, because on our shower shelf, indeed, is a product called Bliss Super Minty Soap'n Scrub Energizing Exfoliator for the Body. 

Although the product talks about 'blue jojoba beads', the second ingredient after water (which it also calls 'aqua' - seriously?) is polyethylene - no mention of 'jojoba' after the marketing blurb.

 And indeed, the product shows up bright red on a site called “beat the microbead”, a  Dutch non-profit which provides product lists worldwide and via color-code (red is bad, of course) shows where your products fit on the spectrum. They have even introduced an app which lets you do this research very easily on your smartphone.

It’s important.  A single shower can result in 100,000 plastic particles entering the ocean.

And here’s a chilling way to think about it.  You may be eating someone else’s used microbeads.  Eww.  Eww!

From the BBC article:

Microplastic pollution is potentially more environmentally damaging than larger plastic waste, because it is more likely to be eaten by wildlife. Microplastics also have a greater surface area to attract toxins.

Professor Tamara Galloway from Exeter University said: “We find pieces of plastic in every sample of seawater we study from round the world. Many marine animals ingest microbeads, mistaking them for food. They can then be lodged in the animals’ gut – preventing them from eating nutritious food.

“An average plate of oysters could contain up to 50 plastic particles. We don’t have any evidence yet for the harm this might cause but most people would probably prefer not to be eating microbeads with their food.”

The connection to project management – one more time – think about your project’s product IN USE, in its steady state.  That includes thinking about eating someone else’s shower effluent when you have seafood.

Is that why the oyster above has a sardonic smile?

Photo by Donna Haecker/Associated Press

We know that some of you don’t believe that climate change – or global warming – whatever you choose to call it – is real.

But what if it is?

As project managers, aren’t we trained to look at threats and opportunities?

Aren’t we “what if” people?  Shouldn’t we realize that there may even be some short-term threats or opportunities linked to climate change?  You could ask the 63 members (and in particular the 13 who have been hospitalized) of the Nenet community in Western Siberia who have had to move due to an anthrax outbreak which started when a reindeer carcass, frozen for decades, defrosted in the past few weeks.  Temperatures in this region of Siberia have risen to 95 degrees, compared with their average of 77 degrees (F).

In fact, the Alaskan village of Shishmaref just voted to launch a relocation project, moving their town to a new location on the Alaskan mainland.  And if you think this is a unique issue, think again.  According to this article from the New York Times:

Shishmaref is not alone in facing a move because of the effects of climate change. In January, the federal government allocated $48 million to relocate Isle de Jean Charles, La., an island that is sinking into the sea. The effort earned the residents the title of the United States’ first “climate refugees.”

Indeed, the article goes on to say, over 200 million people are at risk of becoming ‘climate refugees’ by 2050.

  And the evidence certainly points to the fact that climate change is happening:

• World’s hottest month shows challenges global warming will bring
• July 2016 was the world’s hottest month since record-keeping began, says NASA

Still, you may be a cynic, despite the evidence.  That’s okay - It doesn’t matter.  The point of this post is not to convince you that climate change is real – it’s here to encourage you to expand your project management thinking, especially in the area of risk identification and analysis, with regards to climate change.

What If Scenario Analysis (WISA) is a way to let data help you with the process.  An excellent article, including a video on the topic, is located here

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/what-if-scenario-analysis-WISA

Project management is specifically called out in the article, as follows:

In project management, for example, WISA can help users see how changing data for specific dates and costs changes the completion date and/or total cost of the project. Alternate calculations with various inputs enables a more informed prediction about potential outcomes and allows the business to plan how to handle the various scenarios quickly and effectively.

In your plans – especially for longer-term projects, have you thought about how a potential issue related to climate change could affect the project?  And here comes the bigger, much more juicy, even controversial question:

Have you thought about your project outcome?  Yes, its outcome.  The final deliverable, turned over to the customer, chugging out benefits which the customer is happily realizing, for years, for decades…?  In your risk identification, you should be thinking about threats and opportunities in this ‘benefits realization’ stage as well.  Thinking about your project in this way helps you not only identify risks, it helps you identify with your customer, and shifts you from being a project manager (which is still a good thing, don’t get me wrong) to something better: an outcome enabler.  An outcome enabler is more connected to the goals and objectives of your own organization and the goals and objectives of your customer’s organization – and that’s pure goodness.

I suggest you follow the links in this article and if you are still unconvinced about climate change, that’s perfectly fine.  But look at the effects pointed to and apply that long-term thinking not only to your project plan but into the consideration of your project’s outcome.

What if you did that?

Our last post was called "View From The Top".  This one is called "View From the Top (of the world)" because it deals with the Arctic - which you could call 'the top of the world", I suppose.

In the most recent edition (August 2016) of PM Network, in their Voices segment, there is an interview with Kamil Jagodzinski.  Kamil is the senior PM of the Arctic Portal, in Akureyri, Iceland.

That, in and of itself, is interesting – a featured interview with a project manager of an private agency that provides information-sharing and builds a community of shared knowledge regarding the Arctic.  The name of the article is also interesting: “A Change in Climate”.  It’s interesting because we are pleased to see the increased coverage given to the intersection of PM and sustainability in PM Network, and hopefully reflected in upcoming standard revisions, like next years’ revision of the PMBOK® Guide to the 6^th Edition.

Let’s learn more about the Arctic Portal, from its own website:

The Arctic Portal is a comprehensive gateway to Arctic information and data on the internet, increasing information sharing and co-operation among Arctic stakeholders and granting exposure to Arctic related information and data.

The Arctic Portal is operated in consultation and co-operation with members of the Arctic Council and its Working Groups, Permanent Participants, Observers and other Stakeholders.

The Arctic Portal is a network of information and data sharing and serves as host to many web sites in a circumpolar context, supporting co-operation and outreach in science, education, and policy making.

The Arctic Portal is managed as a private organization, located in Akureyri, Iceland, under an international board of directors.

The Arctic portal is  operated in consultation and co-operation with members of the Arctic Council. Many people south of the Arctic Circle (and that is many, many people!) have no idea what this is.  So from their website:

The Arctic Council is the leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic States, Arctic indigenous communities and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues, in particular on issues of sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic. This article contains a backgrounder on the Arctic Council and its work.

The Arctic Council is the leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic States, Arctic indigenous communities and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues, in particular on issues of sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.

The Ottawa Declaration lists the following countries as Members of the Arctic Council: Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States.

In addition, six organizations representing Arctic indigenous peoples have status as Permanent Participants. The category of Permanent Participant was created to provide for active participation and full consultation with the Arctic indigenous peoples within the Council. They include: the Aleut International Association, the Arctic Athabaskan Council, Gwich’in Council International, the Inuit Circumpolar Council, Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North and the Saami Council.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I recently completed a series of posts about Alaska and Northwestern Canada and its indigenous peoples – and their lessons for project managers.

So on to the interview.  Of course, we recommend that you read it in its entirety, however here are some highlights in terms of the deliverables from Arctic Portal.  During the interview, Kamil reviewed two of the projects from Arctic Portal.

• “Arctic Renewable Energy Atlas, we will collect renewable-energy best practices—from Russia, Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the United States—and enable these countries to learn from each other. If we show there's a school in Finland that has the largest solar panels in Scandinavia, then other countries can learn to establish similar practices.”

• “One project involves weather prediction in polar regions and beyond, linking the climate changes in the Arctic to changes in mid latitudes.  We will partner with meteorological centers and research institutes and our role will be to communicate the science to stakeholders, mainly in the private sector.”

All good stuff.  So I gave the Arctic Portal a whirl myself, and would encourage you to do so.  One feature I really liked was a really cool (excuse the pun) interactive map in which you could apply different overlays on the arctic region to see different perspectives.  The tool is available for free and allows you to create your own tailored-made map.  I chose to do one that showed the change in ice extent over just the past few years (see the shaded colors below), as well as the location of the Arctic Circle itself .

Check it out at (insert deep link to interactive map here).

And as I suggested, read the entire interview here:

http://www.pmi.org/learning/publications/pm-network

In the June issue of PM Network magazine, there is a segment called “From The Top”, which caught my attention.  It did so because it is subtitled, “NOT ALL ABOUT THE MONEY” and is focused on what turned out to be a recent PriceWaterhouse (PwC) survey of 1409 CEOs from 83 countries.  The extensive set of questions covered topics near and dear to the hearts (and bottom lines) of these CEOs.

I was struck by the fact that the questions probed into areas about which we’ve been blogging for a long time, and I was impressed that PM Network took the time to cover the results which project managers need to see.

Here’s a video from Pwc that describes the survey.

What are the important takeaways for project managers?

When asked what makes for an organization that will be successful in five years, 87% said “Prioritize long-term over short-term profitability”.  This speaks to the idea that project managers need to think of their projects’ outcomes in the steady-state, not just the handover. 

Another key item, and in fact the featured ‘pull-quote’ in the PM Network piece, is this: 76% of CEOs agree that business success is defined by more than profits.  So where the first statistic focuses on a longer view in terms of time, this statistic says that your project sponsors are also interested in the breadth, the scope, the multiplicity of stakeholders, including the community, the environment, the social aspects of the project’s outcome.

You may have noticed that one of the key words in this post is “outcome”.  We often think of “deliverables” and “handovers” and, most dangerously, “the end” of the project, when in fact, what do we do as Project Managers?  We enable outcomes. 

And those outcomes have longevity, and those outcomes serve (and likely also impact) a multifaceted and increasingly intertwined set of stakeholders.   Understanding and planning for these aspects of the longer, broader view of your project’s outcome will make you a better project manager, and make for more successful outcomes - the way that CEOs see it.

Please see the entire survey, "Redefining Business Success in a Changing World", posted here.

We’ve written extensively about the connection between an organization’s high-level mission/vision/values and its low-level operations.  Our books discuss how that key connection between the organization’s resulting strategy and its operations, and the fact that it is us – project, program, and portfolio managers - who make up the single and critical connecting fiber between these.  We assert that projects (and project managers) are “where the rubber hits the road”.   A good project manager can almost see the skid marks and smell the burning rubber.  You can find out much more about this metaphor in our books or in this video.

It’s now been about six years since we’ve been making these points and it’s great to see that the evidence which support our early (and continued) assertions is piling up.  One recent example is PMI’s Pulse of the Profession study, a 2016 edition of which, is entitled, “The Strategic Impact of Projects: Identify Benefits to Drive Business Results”.  This study surveyed almost 1200 project management practitioners.

The report is well laid-out and illustrated, so we won’t duplicate it here, after all, it’s available for free download thanks to PMI.  What we do want to do in this brief post is to highlight a couple of findings that continue to illustrate the connection between sustainability and project management.

Let’s start with the end game here.  Projects are about realizing benefits, right?  And indeed, organizations with high maturity in benefits realization – in other words, those organizations in which the project manager is focused NOT on meeting a particular end date for a particular set of features and functionality but rather on serving the mission of the company, well, those organizations waste more than 2/3 less money on poor performance than those with low maturity in this area.

Think about that.  This statistic says that if an organization puts effort into up-skilling its project managers so that they focus on the long term and connect their project’s goals with the organization’s goals (many of which include Corporate Social Responsibility metrics), a direct result is that they will be significantly more effective ECONOMICALLY.

Yet, the next statistic is chilling.  83% of organizations lack this maturity in benefits realization.  This is why we continue to push for a better connection between project management and benefits realization, and a big part of that is getting your project management community to recognize their own power, their importance, and their absolute need to think past the end date of their project and into that not-too-distant-future beyond handover and into operations.

And guess what?  Of course it’s about the money – and those two statistics show the monetary outcomes we’re featuring.  But it goes beyond money – it goes to overall results, which reflect the real success of the sustainable economics of a firm.  Here’s another statistic:

For projects which identify benefits early – which we interpret as figuring out how their project fits holistically in the organization, the society, and the environment, nearly three quarters of projects meet goals and business intent (in other words, real success).  For those projects in which organizations do NOT identify the benefits early, well their real success rate drops to under 50%.

That’s a striking difference, and it’s a difference with a lesson.  Identify the benefits early in your projects!  Connect them to overall organizational goals.

PMI provides good advice in this document, we share one tip here – what are the questions and activities related to benefits realization that you can use in your organization to gain maturity in this area?  See the chart below.

One other tip from us: from a triple-bottom-line perspective, you can’t see how your project is connected to the organization’s sustainability statements (and, more importantly strategic goals and objectives in this area) unless you look for what your organization is stating to the public and its customers about this.  This is your ‘golden thread’ to enterprise level 'ideation'.  To do this, you can take the three-click challenge we blogged about a while ago.  This is our connection to Dorothy and her advice from Glinda, the Good Witch - and of course, the famous footwear.  Can you get to your organization’s sustainability statements in just three clicks?  And, no matter how many clicks it takes, you still win – because now you have one of the connections to benefits realization you didn’t have before the challenge!